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Connecting history to reality

by Megan Lindow

Just as seventh-graders in Palo Alto schools were gearing up for a month-long unit on Islam in their social studies classes this fall, disaster struck when terrorists slammed airplanes into the World Trade Center and the Pentagon on Sept. 11.

Now, as the U.S. bombs Afghanistan and American Muslims have been targeted in hate crimes, many students say that what they are learning in the classroom has gained new relevance.

In Greg Clifton's social studies class at JLS Middle School last Thursday, students discussed the spread of Islam from the Arabian Peninsula into Northern Africa and Asia after the Prophet Mohammed's death in A.D. 632. They also learned that the Muslim invaders were tolerant of other "people of the book" - meaning Christians and Jews - and allowed them to practice their faiths.

Only one of Clifton's 150 students is Muslim, he said, and prior to the unit most of the other students knew little about Islam beyond words such as "Mohammed" and "Mecca."

All California seventh-graders study early World History in social studies, and the unit on Islam focuses on the origins and early days of the religion.

During Clifton's class last week, his students colored in maps showing the spread of Islam, and answered study questions. They said that even though they were horrified by the attacks, they were glad that their study of Islam has coincided with recent tragic events, helping them to learn about the roots of a culture that has been misunderstood in the wake of the terrorist attacks.

"It's kind of good, because I'm not getting the wrong idea about Islam," said student Max Fox. "It would be bad if I grew up having prejudices against Muslims. If everyone was prejudiced, it would cause more of this to happen."

Students said that learning about Islam helped them to realize that terrorists like Osama bin Laden do not represent the faith.

"It's like there was the Catholic guy who bombed abortion clinics," Fox said. "He's Catholic, but that's not his religion."

His classmate Sarah Khavari agreed.

Muslims, she said, are now "getting a bad name. So it's good to understand that not all Muslims are bombing and things like that."

When the attacks occurred on Sept. 11, teachers across the nation took time out to discuss the events with their students.

Clifton said he hasn't changed anything in the regular curriculum in response to the tragedies, but that he has tried to be extra sensitive to students who have questions.

Most just want to know the facts, he said.

"They get so many things coming at them from the TV, from 12 different news shows," he said. "They just want to know the basic, hard facts of what happened on September 11."

Sharron Thompson, a seventh-grade core program teacher at Hillview Middle School in Menlo Park, said she has talked with her students at length about the conflict and had them write journal entries on how they felt about it.

On the day the World Trade Center was destroyed, she said, "I told my kids, 'we need to be very careful about pointing fingers at certain people. We don't want to scapegoat other cultures or people because they're different from us.'"

Students study the Five Pillars of Islam, which involve a public declaration of one's faith in Islam; prayer five times a day facing the Muslim holy city of Mecca; giving a percentage of one's income to charity; fasting from sunrise to sunset during the month of Ramadan; and a hajj, or pilgrimage to Mecca during one's lifetime.

Classes also study the difference between Sunni and Shiite Muslims, as well as the Koran, mosques, and comparisons of the Jewish, Christian and Muslim faiths, prophets and holy books. The curriculum highlights the contributions of Islam to world civilization, such as the invention of algebra and the preservation of early knowledge in libraries.

While the unit focuses on Muslims hundreds of years ago, Thompson said recent events have also made her students more aware of the contemporary Muslims around them.

"They'll come in and say, 'Ms. Thompson, I saw somebody reading the Koran on TV last night,'" she said. "That makes it more relevant. It doesn't seem just like ancient history to them because it's alive and it's here."

Each year, Muslims from the San Jose-based Islamic Speakers Bureau also visit classrooms, helping to erase many of the stereotypes.

Maha Elgenaidi, who is executive director of the organization, said that it began providing speakers in schools after learning that some schools were using films such as "Not Without My Daughter," which portrays Iranian women as the oppressed objects of abusive men, to teach about Islam.

The speakers present an overview of Islam and answer questions. They define terms, talk about the demographics of Islam around the world and the ethnic makeup of Muslims around the world, Elgenaidi said.

"Kids throughout the presentations get to ask a lot of questions on how all this translates to life in America," she said. "They ask: 'do you go to movies? Do you eat hot dogs? Do you date? Can your boyfriend see the hair under your scarf?'"

Willy Haug, who also teaches the seventh-grade core curriculum at Hillview, said a lot of students also ask about the treatment of women in the Muslim world, and are amazed that many Muslims memorize the Koran, their holy book.

He said he was made aware of how easily misperceptions about Islam spread after he had his students read an article about the Taliban, the extremist movement that rules Afghanistan, several years ago. The students started asking the visitor from the Islamic Speakers Bureau whether Muslims in general, outside of Afghanistan, really whip women if their ankles are showing.

"Whenever you can connect history to modern times or reality, it is more meaningful," he said. "To the kids, history is so distant. If you can relate it to something they understand, they can incorporate it into their world view."