Wasta

 Feb 27th 2024

    Around the world, there are different forms to see relationship between individual, this will depent on the kind of relatioship that involve them. For instance, there are some relations that may look equal, that is to say, when we have a couple or brother, we see each other as equal. Or when we are with our parents, as children we know they are an authority. This kind of relationship are also seen in different areas such as, business, laboral life, and even classrooms. In Saudi Arabia their is a word that refer to that relationship or connecitios that people may have, this is know as Wasta. Basically Wasta, some people from Saudi Arabia understand this as “connections”. There is another train of thought that can related it as “use of personal connections for personal gain” (Aloul, 2004). Based on this waste is a way that individuals have in coexist, this can be forming a huge net or just tie some knots.

    Wasta can affect someone’s life in a positivity or negative way, since individuals can take advantage of their connections to gain some benefits. As example, if someone is trying to get a job and they have met some people that can help them to get it, this can make them easier to start their professional case. In contrast to someone that needs to open their path and try to get a job with no connections.  On the other hand, this may also result as poor performance at the time that somebody work.

 

    Now that we know a bit about Wasta and how this can be seen in real life, let’s take a look how Wasta may affect our classrooms. We know that Wasta is related to relationship and connection between individuals, we need to know that in our classrooms we are forming a net, in which each individual can be a knot that is linked to each other. In the classroom we need to know that we represent an authority for some in the class, so we need to be aware how they pensive their relationship with us as teachers. As well, we need to be aware the way that parent perceive the relationship, this this may affect our students behavior in the classroom. For instance, in Saudi Arabian schools, students during primary and secondary grade levels are separated between boys and girls, while in most American schools they are mixed. So when we have a ESL classroom and we request to work in groups for people from Saudi Arabia this can be unconfutable.

 

    In conclusion, when we have want to create a relationship with someone, we need to take into account that they may perceive this relation differently. In some case they we can provide some help in this can be perceived as a favor, so we can give a chance to kindly return it, as well as keep all our connections and relationship with students at the same level, so we can create a harmonic environment on the classroom. This may make feel our student they are part of the class and not just a student more in the list.