الرحمن الله بسم الرحيم

Master of Arts in Teaching (MAT)

An Al-Quads University/Bard College partnership

Identity, Culture, and Classroom

Reflection/Autoethnography Paperprepared by:

Reyad M’d Saleh Ibrahim

INSTRUCTOR : Dr. Ayman Khalifah

12-3-2011

Who Am I ?

I am Reyad Ibrahim , I proudly represent the village in which I was born ,

the house in which I was brought up , I am my own family, the whole

Palestinians families by which I am able to know the world , I am the school by

which I know how to write and read , I am a Palestinian man .

For me , my family is the first institution which taught me the values of right

and wrong of my society . Along with other families , mine constituted the society

in which I live in .However, my society is a part of the global society. that is , the

society in which I live is another constituent of the international community.

Though my values differ from other nations’ values in some aspects, but still they

have too many points in common . Respect , freedom , democracy , tolerance , all

are universal values which I and the people of the whole world cherish . As regard

to respect, I acquired this value from my family members’ interaction with me.

My father’s and mother’s behaviors and attitudes toward a number of issues of

the way we live, taught me how to respect the opinions, ideas and behaviors of

others, despite the fact that they may be in opposition to my own beliefs.

As I grew up, I realized that this value got stronger and stronger. While I was

undergraduate student , I read more about this world , and I knew how diverse ,

contradictory, conservative and permissive it is.

This deepened my values of respect as I understood that respect for one another

was the key issue of peace and prosperity.

What defined who I am ?

I could be defined as a Palestinian citizen who is different than any other

citizen in the universe in many things. Mainly, interrelatedness between education ,

beliefs and ideas , behaviors and interactions. My beliefs and ideas give a general

assumption about how I should behave ,deal with people ,and express myself

regarding a particular issue. Getting educated could rectify some wrong

assumptions I have about the world, relationship with others, behavior and

interaction with all around . I could claim that I am a combination of societal and

personal culture. As an Arab Muslim person living in a conservative society , I

grew up to respect the values, costumes and traditions of this society.

So my respect here is based on Islam, my mighty religion. Then on the

traditions and values I acquired when I was young . However when I got older , I

was sometimes forced to criticize those who were older just because they were

wrong in some of their personal points of view. This is despite the fact that my

culture generally urges me to respect those who are older than me. For that basic

reason, I should not criticize them ,or show my refusal or objection for obeying

them, or even refrain from helping them either if requested or not.

In my own point of view, I believe it’s my duty to criticize others even if they are

older , when they are wrong and oppose them strongly but politely when they are

aggressive. Therefore , criticizing the elderly doesn’t mean by any means that I

disrespect them .

In short , it’s clear from the above examples that my culture is a hybrid one.