This Friday I was watching the student’s social norms with each other. I have noticed that my blogs focus on the classroom norms and not always the social norms that students have. I noticed the students in this class are very social. I can see many different friend groups when I look at the class. There are groups of girls and groups of boys that hang out together. I did notice that although some students hang out with both boys and girls most friend groups are all either all boys or all girls. I think this is because of the students being fourth graders. I see some intermixing of students during activities but when the student’s line up they usually find their friend groups of the same gender.
I have not noticed too much hostility between students in the classroom. There have been times when I can tell students are not friendly to one another. However, students in this class seem to get along pretty well. One of the things I have noticed is how much students build each other up in this classroom. If a student does something well I have heard students give verbal compliments many different times. One of the first days in the classroom I heard a little boy give a compliment to a girl that does not have many friends. I thought it was really sweet and the student didn’t give her the compliment to get any recognition he just told her good job. Also when students do well at something it is common for students to clap for each other in sign language. This happens a lot throughout the day. I think it is great that my CMT has built a classroom that encourages students to be nice to each other.
There are a few other social norms that I noticed this week. I helped video tape students reading stories they wrote. When the students were reading their stories to a camera they were very quiet. I thought this was very interesting since I have heard all the students be louder than that. I had to keep reminding the students that the camera had a small microphone so they needed to speak up. I also noticed this week that there are a few students who do not have a lot of friends in the classroom. I think I will need to think about this when I am doing my lessons. I want to make sure the students all feel comfortable talking with their peers when I ask them to do so.