Valid & Relevant Social Studies

Understanding the Middle East

copyright WhatsoeverThings  2004

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Preliminaries

Many authors have written about the Middle East conflict.  They analyze, scrutinize, theorize and yes, even revise history.  Some honest up-front authors will tell you they are not without bias.   They claim that nobody is because in any research we have to make choices. And these choices are influenced by what we already know about the subject, however little that may be. In this exploration you will find that numerous questions are put forth with no simple answers.  Valid & Relevant Social Studies does not claim to be without bias.  As a Christian series you would expect this course to reflect a worldview consistent with the teachings of the Bible. So here we divulge to you some of our biases and beliefs that led to the making of this course.

• History is written by the victors and usually doesn't reflect the perspectives of all parties involved.

• The Bible is clearly an exception to this as the "victor" is not the family of Jewish scribes but the Victor is Christ and the Holy Spirit is the chronicler. His perspective is the only one we need.

• History with hindsight has taught us that so called Christians used the Bible not to gain God's perspective but to justify their action or inactions.  From the Crusades to modern day Aryan race supremacists in the Western world to cults like the "Lord's Resistance Army" in Northern Uganda, Satan has used this weakness in mankind to further his purposes.

• The information fed to us by the News Media is not sufficient to make us well informed in part due to biases but mainly due to the "dailiness" required to keep viewers returning.* 

• Answers may not be simple or even knowable but the questions still need to be asked

Now a word about questions.  It has been said that "When parents understand their role, they understand that they do not exist to answer every question their children have.  Parents must help children discern the important questions, the life-giving questions.  Christianity must do the same.  Alan Jones says that priests 'are not so much people with answers as ones who guard the important questions and keep them alive.'  the church exists to guard the important questions!"

- Michael Yaconelli in Dangerous Wonder: The Adventure of Childlike Faith

I would borrow from Pastor Yaconelli's idea by stating - When social studies teachers understand their role, they understand that they do not exist to get their students to memorize facts and dates or to learn to be politically correct.   Social Studies teachers help their students ask the important, the essential, questions. Perhaps the babyboomers turned Christian educators know more than anybody what happens when you focus on the wrong questions.  Remember "Values Clarification Class"?  A good Christian Social Studies teacher will find the essential questions and keep them alive without compromising ( "clarifying" ) Biblical values.
We realize that some parents and teachers would rather decide on which questions to pose so we have not included our assignments in this course as each assignment begins with what we consider some essential questions.  You may decide after exploring this topic that you don't need our assignments to guide you in writing a paper.  That's great.  But if you think you'd like to take a look at our assignments here is  Assignment One.  If you purchase the Assignments for Understanding the Middle East you will get the following-

• Sample outlines to choose from or to use as a guide for your report.
• Assignments that will take you step by step through the process to construct anywhere from one 15 page research paper to 15 short reflective essays.( or any combination in between such as a 10 page research paper and 5 essays. )
  
• Access to the Understanding the Middle East blog where you can talk to other students taking this course as well as its creator, Pat Noble.