Reflective account- Conferencing
In taking part of the conferencing it has improved my academic skills and has broadened my knowledge and understanding of different aspects of life. When we first got given the task and were told to start posting comments and forming discussions I didn’t see a big discussion going on within my group but once people were getting the hang of it, then more discussions were made. At first I found it very challenging and I was thinking that people in my group will judge me for what I say and go against everything that I posted. I started to build up my confidence in posting my first comment under social class where I talked about the different social classes that me and my family lived amongst. Also making reference back to some reading and research that I made.

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Looking back at my childhood I was aware of all the different stages of social class from a very young age and this does not only apply to what my family was going though but others around us as well. This is because there were times where I get everything I desired from my father and times were I couldn’t have anything. And as a child this had a big effective on me as it would for other children in not getting what they want. I still think that social class is affecting me and my family in having a lot of financial crisis to overcome. Therefore this makes me became less sociable, in going out with my friends and started to keep my self to my self.
Both of my parents do not work for medical reasons and are on income support therefore at times I feel like I am not getting everything that others are but having traveled aboard and seeing how people were living in absolute poverty it makes me come back and realise how thankful I should be as people are not getting half of what am getting. According to Julian Glover she states that “the poorest people in society are most aware of its impact; with 55% of them saying class, not ability, greatly affects the way they are seen.” This is a clear statement that in today’s society people are judging each other according to their social class/ wealth and not according to a person as an individual.
Being in a low social class can have a great impact within the family. By this I mean the parents can have bad tempers most of the times and can take this out on their children and abuse them, also can cause the parents to have suffer depression. What we see is the lower class areas have been most affected by drugs and crime and it is those aspects that seem to be given more focus than education also this has an impact on the family unit. The family is pivotal in the upbringing of children and if the family unit is unstable then that will no doubt have a domino effect on the children and their future. Also the children may suffer from this be not getting fed healthy, in order for them to have a strong immune system so they don’t become ill and they continue to grow.
In my childhood in Saudi Arabia I was aware of different ethnicities according to different races and cultures but not religions. This is because we had a maid in our house to help my mother with the house work and to look after me, my sister and my brother. She was from Malaysia but has the same religion as us which is Islam. But once I came into the Untied Kingdom I was more aware of different cultures, races and beliefs and especially in the city of Sheffield where it is a multicultural society and a large number of Muslims, Christians, Hindus and many other beliefs.
When I started attending my first primary school I found children from all different ethnic minorities. This was something different to what I was used to seeing in Saudi Arabia as everyone there were from the same race and had the same culture and belief. Once I got into secondary school I started having lessons on religious education in these lessons we covered all different cultures and beliefs. I found it really interesting to learn about other cultures then my own such as Indian, Chinese, Catholic and many more. We were also being able to compare the similarities and differences in marriage ceremonies etc within the different cultures. I decided to take it as a chosen subject in my GCSE’s. This then made me become more aware of ethnicity.
During my childhood I never wearied a head scarf as it is apart of the Islamic religion that a woman should wear it to cover to from any strange men. I wasn’t forced my parents to wear it but in secondary school I had a lot of friends that did wear the head scarf. Is was in year 10 when my friends persuaded me to wear the scarf and I found it as a big step to take but I agreed at the end and started wearing it and never took it off. I felt like I had to overcome a lot of racism because I had chosen to wear the scarf. I was getting racist comments from the boys in my school who were black and used to talk to me before and didn’t like the fact that I covered my hair. Even though my secondary school had 75% of children who were Muslims from different ethnic minorities. Not all the racist comments that I was getting from school but I was getting them from the public as well for example bus drivers just drive past me as am standing in the bus stop with my hand out and the bus is not even full. At first I used to let these things get to me but I realised that some people are not aware of other religions and cultures so therefore they decided to be racist because they went everyone to follow their beliefs. I felt that it was vital that children should be introduced to different ethnic minorities; they should be taught that every religion and belief should be respected.
As I was growing up I was aware of different genders within my family. I have a brother that is seven years older than me and a sister that is three years older than me. When we were young in Saudi Arabia we all shared one big room. I used to see what different roles we got by our parents. For example my brother would be asked to go to the shop and get things that are missing for the house and my sister and I were just ask to tidy our rooms up and little jobs as such. As part of the Islamic religion a women’s role in life is to care for her family and men’s must take on the role of supporter, protector, provider, custodian and servant to the family. This does not mean that a woman should be forced to clean, cook and stay at home no that’s part of their care for their family put a man should no aspect a woman to be doing that all the time. If a woman shows to carry on with her education to gain more knowledge then there is nothing that can stop her from doing so. But this as well goes back to the time where woman were seen to be as house wife’s and can’t even vote etc.
I have come across in many placements that I have worked in children having a firm understanding of gender for example in the games in which girls can play but boys can’t and the opposite. This now where woman and man seem to be equal and settings do tend to follow the anti- discrimination and anti- bias set policies and proceeds.
When I was in Saudi Arabia the schools don’t allow to have mixed genders. Therefore when my sister and I went to school it was girls only. We both enjoyed that and the way that we are all girls and have the same mentality and were able to discuses issues freely.
The final dimension that we had to discuss in our conferencing was disability. In my childhood I was aware of disabled people by seeing them in the media. My siblings and I were looked after by aunty sometimes and she has a speech and language disorders where she couldn’t speak fluently. Another thing was that she would have tantrums and knowing that she is having them. I have also realised that she has the mentality of a child that’s like ten years old even though she is a lot older.
Starting my secondary school I was finding my reading and writing to be very poor. Therefore I seemed to be struggling in my studies but I was fighting myself to do well all the time and to let it but me down. I got to college and during my final year I felt like I was under a lot of pressure and left like I might have a learning difficulty. So I went to the learning support base in college and I asked if I can have a test taken and so I did. The results showed that I was dyslexic and I so therefore I was given extra time in handing my coursework and for my exams. As I started university I tried to apply for disabled students allowance and I sent my college report but the said they don’t accept it. So they offered me to take a test with the university it self so I did and the results turned out to be that am not dyslexic and that I wasn’t eligible to any extra support. Therefore am finding it hard being at university and trying to cope with all the assignments that are been given to me without any additional support.