Observational

April 13, 2006

Children were observed in their normal pre-school environment. A classroom that they had a table in the middle of the table and toys set around the sides of the room and a carpet/mat that was set up in front of a television. The children are typical growing between the ages of 2 and 5.

One of the most prevalent actions that could be seen was the willingness for the children to follow another child. At one point of time an assistant came in the room and at first the children just smiled and continued to do what they were doing but when one child got up to hug the assistant all of them got up. This shows the submissiveness and willingness to cooperate in a group. Another time one child got up to dance with the sing along and the others got up with her after a few seconds of her dancing by herself.

The competition in learning begins young. One of the children was having a hard time pronouncing the word yellow and the teacher was working with her and when it was the child beside hers turn to say yellow she explained that she already knew what she was doing and said yellow very loud. The children seemed to be all about on the same level even though one of the only boys in the classroom constantly tried to deviate from the group. During snack the children were supposed to take their food and copy the model in the middle of the table. All the little girls took the food and did the exact model of the bunny while the little boy started to deviate when he picked up the pink jelly bean for the nose. There were only two boys in the classroom but this little boy was still very aware of gender differences that society establishes.

During their sing a longs there was a clear distinction between the followers and the leaders of the class. The leaders sang louder and encouraged the shyer ones to sing. The first two songs they all did well on but the third song had a lot more words to memorize in it and a lot of the children seemed to stumble through it. The teacher used being singled out as a form of punishment if they were caught