Socialization at School

from a post for one of my grad school classes:


Most times when I consider the phrase "socialization at school," I consider it a negative association. When I think of "socialization," I think of students talking through instruction, putting their hands all over one another in the hallway and screaming at each other at the top of their lungs in the lunch room. Herein lies the difference between socialization as a social skill and a tool to promote education versus socialization as a detriment to one's learning environment. Socialization could be considered one of the keys to learning and personal development, as it allow us to create relationships with others in which we not only learn about our ability to make connections and sustain friendships, but also in which we learn about another person's world view and life experience. For this reason, socialization is incredibly important to the human experience. No matter what we know empirically, we will never be able to navigate society as independent creatures.

In today's schools, promoting the important skills of socialization is a difficult question. In the day and age of high stakes testing, a quiet and controlled environment is best for students to study, read, and learn independently: the skills necessary for success on state tests. It almost seems like there is no time to discuss the important life skills that are necessary for "real" success outside of the classroom. This is an especially pressing matter when the majority of the student population believes the best way to solve a problem is physical fighting.

I highly disagree with this type of learning style, as it does not promote positive socialization. I do believe it important to teach social skills both in and outside of the context of school at all levels. While it is important to make sure children are exposed to group settings at an early age to jump start their social development, this need does not decrease as the child grows older.

The idea of project based learning in the classroom would bring about a more realistic social environment in which students would be able to gain the cognitive skills required of them by state standards while also learning how to relate to others in a positive and productive capacity. Even without project based learning, simple strategies for positive socialization can be practiced in the classroom setting. For example, when a student greets me with "sup?" or calls me "girl" or "mo," I stop them in their tracks to simply tell them that that word is not appropriate in this scenario and ask them to correct themselves before they move on. Additionally, before setting students to work in groups, we review situations that may arise and talk about how to deal with them. For example, if a student is not engaged in the group work, we could ask them “ Is there something you don't understand?” or “Could you please help us with x?” before tattling on them or yelling at them for being lazy.

Unfortunately, the assessment of socialization is difficult. Many times, we realize only when students fail to socialize appropriately- when they end up in court or jail. Additionally it is difficult to assess socialization given the varying cultural definitions of what it means. Specific standards could never be created because “working well with others” in one context could mean something completely different in another. Additionally, the school may have different standards than what is practiced at home and this instability would cause great confusion in the child. For example, when I tell my students that physical and verbal threats are not the appropriate way to solve a disagreement, they many times respond that “my mom says that I always have the right to fight back and should always defend myself.” Thus, it is difficult to push one way of socialization and conflict management when students are presented with another when they go home and also because it would consequently be impossible for a teach to tell a parent that their student is failing in “socialization” when they believe appropriate socialization to be something completely different.