DAVID WATERS:
History text too neutral for parents critical of Islam.
I gave myself a homework assignment this week.
Compare and contrast what Tennessee seventhgraders are being taught about Christianity and Islam.
There seem to be growing concerns about that.
Tuesday night, hundreds of people in White County held a town hall to complain about the “Islamic indoctrination” of seventh-graders.
They called for the entire school board to resign. School board member Roy Whited, a minister and former teacher, told reporters he had received death threats.
Parents in other counties also have complained. Last week, Rep. Sheila Butt of Columbia introduced a bill to ban the teaching of “religious doctrine” before 10th grade.
The American Center for Law and Justice, in its ongoing efforts to raise awareness and funds, warns that “Islamic indoctrination is happening in public schools all across America.”
Sounds pretty serious. So I got a copy of one of Tennessee’s seventh-grade social studies textbooks and read it.
My eyes glazed over during parts about the Middle Ages, but overall it’s a good book filled with interesting illustrations, cool maps and perfectly neutral nuggets of information.
Everything was fine until I got to pages 117-118 of Chapter 5 on Islamic Civilization. That’s where I learned that Muslims are responsible for two of the
things our children fear most. Algebra and chemistry. According to “Discovering Our Past: A History of the Modern World” — the text used in Shelby County schools — two Muslim scholars “borrowed the symbols 0 through 9 from Hindu scholars” to invent algebra. These numbers were passed on to the Europeans. Today, they are known as ‘Arabic numerals.’”
No wonder algebra never made sense to me. I only use American numbers.
Another Muslim scholar “was the first scientist to label substances as animal, vegetable or mineral.”
Math? Science? I thought world history was a social studies class.
It is, of course. The state requires that our seventhgrade students explore “the social, cultural, geographical, political and technological changes” in the world from the First through 19th centuries.
It also requires them to examine “economic interactions among civilizations as well as the exchange of ideas, beliefs, technologies, and commodities.”
Apparently, there’s more to world history than science and math.
Some parents have complained that students are being taught about Islam, but not about Christianity. Their kids must be skimming.
Chapter 5 is devoted entirely to Islamic Civilization. Its 24 pages include three on Muhammad and basic Islamic beliefs.
But Chapter 4 is devoted entirely to The Rise of Christianity. Its 26 pages include six on Jesus and basic Christian beliefs.
Other chapters include sections on the growth of the church, the Holy Roman Empire, Orthodox and Catholic Christianity, and 14 pages on the Protestant and Catholic reformations.
Students learn a little about the Quran and the Five Pillars of Islam: “belief, prayer, charity, fasting, and pilgrimage.”
They also learn a little about the Bible and the New Testament, the Gospels and parables, Peter and Paul, salvation and the Trinity.
I wish I’d had this textbook when I was in the seventh grade.
When I was in school, world history was more or less the history of my Catholic and Protestant ancestors from eastern and western Europe.
Places like Asia, Africa and South America were mysterious lands at the far edges of our classroom maps.
Fortunately, students today are learning that most of the world they live in is neither Western nor Christian. They also are learning that world history has been shaped as much by religion as by geography, economics and politics.
Is seventh grade too early to learn Christians “believed that Jesus was the Son of God”? Or “because of their faith in Jesus, Christians began to believe in God in a new way”?
Is it too early to learn Muslims “believe in one all-powerful God who created the universe”? Or that, for Muslims, “Muhammad is seen as the last and the greatest of the prophets”?
Concerned parents say the devil is in the lack of details.
“We have no problem with teaching world history. We have no problem with world religion,” Anthony Wright, chairman of White County Citizens Against Islamic Indoctrination, told The Tennessean. “We want it to be fair and balanced and accurate.”
As proof that the textbook isn’t, Wright noted that it “doesn’t report 9/11 or ISIS.”
Uh, it also doesn’t report about the Nazis or the Holocaust. Seventh-grade world history ends in 1900. High school world history covers the 20th and 21st centuries, including 9/11.
As our seventh-graders are learning, that’s not when Islamic history begins.
“Like Jews and Christians, Muslims are monotheists” who believe in “one all-powerful God who created the universe,” the textbook explains.
“Islamic scholars created a code of law called the shari’ah ... based on the Quran,” it also explains. “According to shari’ah, Muslims may not gamble, eat pork, or drink alcoholic beverages.”
That’s not Islamic indoctrination.
It’s also not anti-Islamic indoctrination, which I suspect is what really bothers parents like Wright. Contact David Waters at waters@commercialappeal.com.