I’ll take a stab at this. I went to school in Texas and we covered Greek mythology as part of our 9th grade English curriculum. It took up pretty much the entirety of one semester I think. We read the Odyssey and a bunch of other poems and while we looked at them from a literary perspective we didn’t really cover Greek theology in any depth beyond identifying Gods and other mythological beings. The Greek myths had a huge impact on western literature in a way few works from Islamic cultures have had. Aside from One Thousand and One Nights, which first saw an English translation sometime in the 18th century, I can’t think of any great works of literature from Islamic cultures that influenced the west.
I do recall learning about Islam in some of my classes in high school but it’s been so long that I can’t honestly remember what exactly was taught. I don’t believe I learned about the four pillars of Islam until I was an undergraduate but my memory is faulty. I’m all for teaching students the basic beliefs of the major religions of the world. Whether that should be a regular part of the curriculum or an elective is something I’m not sure about.
I went to public high school in America and I learned about Islam in a world history class in high school. But please do go on making hyperbolic assumptions.
There are no RE classes in American public (i.e., not private) schools, as such. Private religious schools usually have RE classes about their own religion; generally not about other religions.
Teaching religious thought/belief alongside of history seems logical, since religion is often the underlying cause or given reason for a lot of wars and skirmishes. In my schooling, we touched on it a bit, but not very often. And we certainly didn’t learn about Islam back at the end of the Cold War Era.
Of course, I think that logic should also be taught in school, so what do I know?
In my public Junior High in California I remember studying basics about different world religions during social studies class. Then in my public High School religions were discussed in the different history courses and would come up in other courses from time to time, like Theory of Knowledge.
Since this was all information that was in our regular textbooks, I assume that it was taught in broader markets too.
I don’t see any evidence of that. But one does wonder if the OP is ever going to return and defend his thesis (inasmuch as his OP is a thesis). Or, at least respond to the many posters who have corrected him.
Not much, since a parade of people have populated this thread with stories about the religious education they’ve received in public schools going back to the 70s.
Gotta agree with this. I couldn’t tell you the difference between Methodists and Lutherans even though I’m quite sure there are thousands of them living within a few miles of me.
I don’t think you really need to know the difference between Methodists and Lutherans unless you are one, and maybe not even then. But I do think it’s useful for every American to know, at least in a very broad sense, the difference between Catholics and Protestants, or between “mainline” Protestant and Fundamentalist Christians, or between Orthodox and Reform Jews.
I admit, I don’t even know enough about Islam in the world today to know whether it’s important to know the difference between Sunni and Shia.
Eh, that’s more a modern politics course and often that’s a senior-level elective in high school. As noted basic introductions to world religions seems to already be a standard part of many/most public school curricula in the United States. Certainly I was exposed in 7th grade ( geography, elective ), again in 9th ( world history I, required ) and a bit more in 11th ( WH 2, elective ). This spans the early 1980’s, all public schools.
Students will absorb what they will absorb - most of my fellow students in my very middle-of-the-road academically public school were only slightly and tangentially interested in international politics if at all. I expect the same is true today. I don’t think the U.S. educational system is really all that deficient overall.
How are they supposed to know what our policies are going to be 10 years down the road, much less 30? You started the thread on the false premise that US schools don’t teach about Islam. How about starting out by admitting you were wrong? It’s pretty clear that you don’t have a good grasp of what is being taught in schools, so maybe it would be best to become educated about that before suggesting what changes need to be made.
Not to mention, as has already been noted, that the idea that kids are going to remember any of the shit like this that we teach them is wishing thinking of the most naive sort.
I agree, though I’m afraid most shapers of education policy seem to be more in tune with handsomeharry’s idea that school is really about preparing for work.
I’m surprised to see so many here apparently claiming that they received an adequate working knowledge of the tenets and culture of Islam, and the global roles of various religions, in American public schools. I sure don’t remember that. Oh, the broadest strokes of history were covered, and a few curious details here and there. But our “social studies” was very USA-centered; I suppose I got an acceptable, conventional framework of American history from Jamestown to Kennedy.
I certainly didn’t have much idea about what it meant to be a Muslim (of any stripe), or to live in the Muslim world, or what the implications of any of this could be for the West, until I started reading history for myself, and talking to more kinds of people, and paying attention to the world in the light of that.
I bounced between schools a bit. I don’t remember getting much Middle Eastern history past ancient times, nor any comparative religion classes at all. I remember learning about Spanish colonization, the French Revolution, and US history up to roughly US Grant (and Grant was not treated well).
Well, I think it comes down to what you expect from non-college-level public schools required coursework. I don’t expect a great deal in this respect ;). Frankly I don’t think there is time to get much more than a superficial exposure to such topics in the kind of broad survey courses that core requirements necessarily are. I got more than that because I was geeky and took electives that went into a little more depth.
Considering time constraints I think of this HS elective-level or post-HS level education, not a mandatory requirement.