Schema Names

In the public schema, when a table is created the table name does not get pre-pended by the schema name. For example:
CREATE TABLE new_table (column_name varchar);

SELECT column_name FROM new_table; This returns a result as expected.

However, if I create a new schema, it would seem that the only way to access a table within the new schema is to pre-pend the table name with the schema name:
CREATE SCHEMA new_schema;
CREATE TABLE new_table (column_name varchar);

SET search_path TO new_schema;
SELECT column_name FROM new_table; This returns an error saying there is no such table as new_table. What has happened is that when I created the new table the table name automatically became: new_schema.new_table Therefore the only way to query the new table is this way:
SELECT column_name FROM new_schema.new_table;

Is there a way to "turn off" this automated behavior that pre-pends every table, etc. that is created with the schema name? I am using pgAdmin III as the interface for creating the schemas. I am also using version 8.1. Is this a PostgreSQL behavior or a pgAdmin II behavior?

Thank you,
Derrick