Sociality Is Learning As adults, we take social skills for
granted... until we encounter someone who lacks them. Helping
children develop social skills is viewed as a reasonable
educational endeavor in elementary school, but by high school,
educators switch to more "serious" subjects. Yet, youth aren't
done learning about the social world. Conversely, they are more
driven to understand people and sociality during their tween and
teen years than as small children. Perhaps it's precisely their
passion for learning sociality that devalues this as learning in
the eyes of adults. For, if youth LIKE the subject matter, it
must not be educational. Unfortunately, I fear that we are doing
a disservice to youth by not acknowledging the social learning
that takes place during this period. Worse, what if our efforts
to curtail social interactions out of a preference for "real"
learning have professional costs? Very few of us work in
professions where we are forced to focus on one anti-social task
all day, every day. Even