For my individual activity two, I chose selection A. I chose to interview a kindergartener and a fifth grader about their ideas about friendships.
The kindergartener that I interviewed was a five year old student in my own preschool class at a Head Start for children of migrant workers. He went half a day to kindergarten in the morning. When I asked this first boy who his friends were, he automatically started looking around my own classroom. He named mostly boys from my classroom. I was surprised to find that he named one boy who had hurt him earlier in the year. However, this kindergartener and that boy were both living in around the same area so they might find it easier to do things together when they found the time to do so. He also included one girl from the classroom, but this was very hesitantly. I did not hear him name anyone that I would not know that would be in his kindergarten class. When I asked him what they like to do together, he just said, “play.” He also told me that he likes to play outside and that he likes to play inside. I then asked this boy what he likes about his friends. He told me that he likes toys and that he likes to play.
The other boy that I interviewed was a fifth grade student in a suburban setting. This boy started rattling off names as soon as I asked who his friends were – first and last! He also listed boys as well as girls. He did tell me that he had different friends at school than at church and at boy scouts. When I asked him what he liked to do with his friends, he told me that he likes to, “hang out.” I asked what that meant. His reply was that they played video games and watched television. Still, he told me that they mostly played outside whether it was some type of organized sport or just fooling around. Finally, I asked this boy what he liked about his friends. He shared that they were fun. That was about it for reasons that he liked them.
I think that the reasoning for some of my responses from my kindergartener was that he is still in the stage where he’s seeing only his point of view and isn’t able to consider other positions. I would believe that he may have had a different answer for who his friends were if he were asked this question in his actual kindergarten classroom. He just started naming whoever he saw. He did show that he was able to name some of the students in my classroom who were absent that day! This boy’s responses to what he likes to do with his friends also deal with what he experiences during the day. These children were in some type of school setting from about seven in the morning to about four thirty in the afternoon. Much of their experiences with their friends at school are playing in the classroom and playing outside. Although we did have writing and art activities, the setup of the classroom included many toys in the centers. This is probably the reason that he stated that he likes to play with toys with his friends – that is one thing that he does do with them! When I asked this boy what he liked about his friends, I thought I would have gotten more characteristics about his friends. However, he just said that he liked to play with them. I thought it might have been the language barrier, so I asked him in Spanish as well. Still, he said the same thing. I think that he is still finding words to use for emotions and characteristics about himself, so he also has trouble doing so with his friends. I feel that what he likes about his friends at this age is what he does with them.
My fifth grader was more willing to name girls as well as boys. He’s more comfortable admitting that he has friends of both sexes. The kindergartener might still be afraid to admit that he associates with girls. I also thought that it was interesting that there were different groups of friends according to where he associates with them. He was able to tell me some different things that he does with his friends. This probably is due in part to his different lifestyle as well as his social maturity. Still, the only thing that he could tell me that he liked about his friends was that they were fun. This tells me that he has not developed much yet in describing characteristics and emotions in his own maturation.
This interview was overall very interesting! I think that it might have been a good idea to also incorporate answers from females and compare these findings. I think that there might be the same type of change over time, given the years of maturation. However, I wonder if there would be much difference between the responses of a boy to that of a girl. I also wonder if it made much of a difference to have the different lifestyles and areas where these boys lived as well as school settings.
I think that this information can help a great deal in developing an educational setting that can aid in the social development of their students. I believe that students need to be more and more involved in groupwork as they get older. They need to be able to work with different personalities and characteristics. They also need to learn that they can play many different roles in working in groups. No one needs to play the same role in groupwork all the time. They would just get good at that role and not show development in working together toward a common goal. They would only show one goal: to get their one job done.
I also believe that children need as many opportunities as possible to find activities that they like to do with their peers. This requires careful planning in preparing lessons with fun and exciting activities that may have the possibility of being carried out to their regular play. Of course, children will experience a wide variety of opportunities for activities on their own.
I believe that from the beginning we need to promote our students’ ability to find words to use for their emotions and descriptions of personalities of their peers. Much of my own students’ difficulty in communicating is their difficulty in finding words to describe how they feel about a situation or finding words to ask for what they would like. Children should be able to describe these things more and more as they mature. Students should also learn to find words to help describe what they like about other children. Not only does this make the other children feel better about themselves, but it promotes a friendly environment with friends who respect each other. Children may need some type of modeling to help find words for such things. If a student does not know what another student likes about them, they could have the misconception that that other child does not like them.
Children should have the opportunity to discuss what characteristics they look for in choosing their friends during class time. They need to realize that there are others in their own classroom in the same position as themselves. They need to learn appropriate vocabulary to help voice their opinions about friendships. In addition, children may need aid and support in finding conclusions to social conflicts. We should not push or force our own beliefs on our students. We should not put our students down for their own values and beliefs, either. That would be one way of forcing our own opinion. We have many social and cultural differences in school settings today and we need to consider that these things have relevance in the values of our students. They need to find what types of things they value through their own experience in school, at home, and in other environmental situations. We need to be able to provide the opportunity to discuss relevent situations with our students to help guide them in making their own decisions. In this way, students would be able to also hear other points of view from other students. I believe that children would feel more comfortable making their connections by having discussion with others in their classroom instead of just being told how to best solve their problem. As children grow and mature, they want to have more and more opportunities to do things on their own. We need to feel comfortable in allowing our students to try to figure things out for themselves so that they can become active thinkers. One opportunity to start getting students interested in talking about characteristics is going around the room and naming one thing that they like about their neighbor. However, in the fourth and fifth grades we should be able to provide discussions about relevent situations knowing the community that we are dealing with in our school and classroom. If the discussion is meaningful to the students, its outcomes will be meaningful to them as well.
