The Social Pathway

I found the reading for this week to be interesting. The social pathway plays a huge role in learning. Students that perceive themselves to be socially accepted are better at learning. I actually witnessed this in my classroom. I had a student that was homebound because she had extreme social anxiety. She did not feel accepted by her peers therefore she went homebound in order to better her ability to learn. This semester she decided to come back to the school. She seems to have adapted to the classroom environment now that she is back. At the beginning of the semester, her grades were poor and she talked to almost no one in class. Now that we are 4 months into the semester, she is social, her grades are improving, and her creativity surprises me sometimes. Through this student I see the importance of the social pathway to learning. Students need to feel accepted and it is important that they have friends in the classroom in order to help them learn at their fullest potential.