America's Educational Oversight

This week in history class, we were each asked to compile a list of well-known historical philosophers, scientists, astronauts, doctors, and great thinkers.  We each had around a minute to put our lists together and then we circled around the room to share our ideas.  As we took turns reading from our lists, a few names came up most frequently such as Socrates, Plato, and Galileo.

At the beginning of this process, I had no idea how this activity was at all related to our current unit in class, Islam. However, as we neared the end of our circle, I realized what the point of this activity may have been. We had shared around twenty-five names, but not one of the people mentioned in our discussion was a Muslim. Despite the video that we had just watched, stating that some of history’s brightest and most influential people have been Muslims, not one Muslim came to mind when we shared our lists of important historical figures. The activity made the point: what does this say about our education system? Even further, what does this show about our society? What changes should be made to the way we learn about history?

            Clearly, our education system is biased towards Western European history and ideas.  Socrates, Plato, and Galileo were all European thinkers. This doesn’t mean that our class actually believes that Islamic thinkers are less interesting. It rather shows that we have never been taught about famous Islamic thinkers, or if we have been, their religious background was never emphasized.  In my twelve years of attending school, I have never focused on Islamic history and culture. I now see that this is problematic. Islamic thinkers contributed to major achievements in philosophy, math, science, and literature. They also influenced many of the great Western thinkers that we know so much about. By not being exposed to Islamic history, we have been kept from learning about some of the greatest scholars of all time.           

This exercise has also made me think more about our society’s view on Islam in general.  It seems to me that not many non-Muslims in America can say they understand Islamic ideas and philosophy.  When I hear people talk about Islam, I get the impression that that many people are fearful of the religion. Muslims who have lived here for their whole lives are sometimes treated as outsiders. Many Americans associate the actions of radical Islamist groups with all Muslims.  This shows a fundamental lack of understanding of Islam in America. Our lack of understanding may not sound like such a horrible thing, but the simple shortage of knowledge about Islam in America leads to racism and distrust of the most populous religion in the world.

Though it seems as if these problems have their roots deep in society, I believe that they could be avoided in the future if our education system spent more time teaching about Islamic beliefs and history.  Educating kids about Islam would likely lead to a greater acceptance of Muslims here at home and in the rest of the world.  If American society could appreciate the history of Islam, as well as the philosophical, scientific, and other achievements of Islamic thinkers, I believe that our society could be a more accepting home for everyone.