"You can't teach an old dog new tricks"

On the first day of class I like to learn just how socialized my students are.  Last year I was blown away by how "trained" my students are.  In a perfect world, they were perfect students.  My first semester students waited outside until there was a teacher in the classroom, they then unstacked a pile of chairs so each student had a place to sit, as I walked to the front of the class they sat quietly and waited for me to speak...just as expected, right? wrong.  Once the first day of class took a turn from typical to awkward, so became the students.  As I sat myself down amongst the class and sat silently in a chair for ten minutes confusion stirred.  "What is she doing?", "This is strange", "Alright, well I guess this class will be easy", "When does this class end?"  These are just a few of the comments that students muttered as the room became increasingly more uncomfortable.  However, then something happened that I had never seen before.  One student decided that proper protocol is to get to know your classmates, but he did so in a way that he was used to doing in school, not necessarily in everyday life.  He stated his name and something about himself.  Interestingly enough, the entire room of students proceeded to go around the room, in order, and say their name and something about themselves without myself ever saying a word.
It was then that I was able to answer the question, "How socialized are my students?" with a very long and very loud, VERY! I realized this same conclusion yet again this year.  Students came in, unstacked the chairs yet again, and felt awkward in moments of silence.  They turned to me for guidance, apologized profusely for something that they "thought" they did wrong.  After discussing what was going on,  ome students admitted that they new something was wrong, but yet didn't seem to do anything about it.  Have we taught our students not to ask questions?  Not to wonder, "what is going on here?"

This obedient behavior is of course greatly appreciated by teachers, but why did this happen?  Was it the silence that made people uncomfortable?  or was it the lack of "normalness" as one of my students said, that made them uncomfortable? When something out of the ordinary occurs, how do you know what to do or how to behave?