Home work

I am from Saudi Arabia where the frame of the culture is to a large extent male dominated. Women or girls are in a position that does not allow them to socialize with others as they are suppose to, especially with men. I was raised in this culture, which reflected on my personality negatively. For example, I could not go outside without any male member of my family, even if I just want to go to buy groceries. Thus, my personality became very dependent, needy, and shy. Meanwhile, I am a Muslim and in Islamic world women must be very respected by men. Women are treated as princesses, which means everything they want should be ready and done for them. They have to cover themselves by wearing a black burqa (or burka) if they want to go outside. Also, when women talk to an unknown man from outside they have to say what they want directly and shortly, in order to avoid any attraction that might happen through male sight. In addition, the education system in my country is separated. Females have their own community, as well as men, such as, schools and workplaces. The fact is, women could have a high position in their community, even in the governmental places. So women can do every thing that they want except not mixed with men. Indeed, in my case as a Saudi Muslim girl, I had to follow and obey all the rules that have been imposed by my culture and society. All those factors made me think deeply about myself, because I felt that my world was too narrow. I could not experience new things that would reshape my personality positively.

After my graduation from university in Home Economics, I had to take a brave step in my life and remove all the negativity that captured all my dreams I wanted to achieve. I received a scholarship that was supported by King Abdullah, which allowed me to come to Canada. Canada was the biggest challenge that had happened in my life, because I had to face all the opposition from my culture, which allowed critical thinking to appear in my mind. First, everything in Western culture is different than what I was to in my own country. I had to speak and open up to everyone. It was so hard for me to become independent and to do everything my own, such as, going shopping, finding an accommodation, and communicating with others. I was forced to become an independent person, simply because there was no one to help me do things such as seek accommodation. “Transformative learning theory that explains this learning process of constructing and appropriating new and revised interpretations of the meaning of an experience in the world.” (Taylor, 2008. P.5).

At first I was so shy and scared to speak with anyone, so I had to be silent for a month and I had to isolate myself just to over come my fears of facing an open society. Second, taking off my Hijab a black burqa (or burka) was not an easy, because I had to change my style by wearing a colorful dress. Canadians are not used to seeing a woman in a street walking and covering all her body with black peace of fabric. This change made me more shy because I thought that every person is looking at me differently with a strange look like if I was from a different planet. The third challenge was going to school. The Education system in Canada is totally different than I expected. I knew that schools are co-education, but I could not imagine it would be a problem for me. Having male teachers and dealing with other as students was unfamiliar. For instance, first day in school I was too shy to speak or even smile at any aspect of the school community, which made it even harder to start over.

Although coming to Canada was a very brave step that I have ever made in my life, it was the best decision I would ever take in my long life. When I was living in Toronto, I had a day that I felt very low due to an issue in my apartment, I went to school and I hade honest conversation with a male teacher about how sad I felt, he gave me words that changed my way of thinking to look at all the world details from different view. He said to me “whatever you are facing no matter how difficult is that, remember every thing is temporary”. His words had a very profound impact on me and I realized how true were his words because I looked back and I swam through all my difficulties and all of them ended and gone. From the transformative learning “becoming aware that something is wrong with the result of our thought, or challenging its validity through discourse with others of differing viewpoints and arriving at the best informed judgment” (Mezirow, 2005, p. 5). Which gave me strength to move on. I could reshape my personality to be stronger, independent, and self-aware, which shows the flexibility of my mind. “teaching with the brain and mind”. Once I opened up and welcomed all new ideas, beliefs, and thoughts I could fit to the new culture easily. I could enjoy every day and sharing my thoughts with anyone. Furthermore, when I let my self engaged deeply to my surroundings, I found out that when people look at me was not just because I am different in the way I dress, but also due to their curiosity to know why I dress differently, and I fully respect that. Finally, dealing with other gender was not an issue any more. I could overcome my fears toward other people intent and I accepted all the different interpretations. I believe that our personalities are shaped according to what we experienced during our life. These experiences took time and gave us an opportunity to think and evaluate how to make an identity for ourselves through these events whether they are negative or positive. “A psychoanalytic view of transformative learning is seen as a process of individuation, a lifelong journey of coming to understand oneself through reflecting on the psychic structures (ego, shadow, persona, collective unconscious, and so on) that make up an individual’s identity.” (Taylor, 2008. P.7).

In conclusion, “We story our identities in multiple and sometimes contradictory ways; in one context we can see ourselves as the hero of the story, while in another we are someone whose agency is limited.” (narrative learning P. 62). Even though I sound very weak at the beginning of my life’s story, being a hero of a story at the end will make it a happy ending with strong meaning. Transforming every thing in my life was not simple, but turning all the negativities to positives made my life much easier. Being shy or not independent was not wrong according to my culture and religion even if it did not match with other civilizations. I admit that Canada is the country that I will appreciate for the rest of my life, because if I had not traveled overseas I would not be able to discover the new me that I am proud of today, without ignoring every thing is temporary.

Reference

Clark, M.C. & Rossiter, M. (2008). Narrative learning in adulthood. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 119, 61-70.

Fenwick, T. (2008). Workplace learning: Emerging trends and new perspectives. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 119, 17-26.

Taylor, E. W. (2008). Transformative learning theory. New Directions for Adult and Continuing Education, 119, 5-15.