MALALA, RELIGIOUS BELIEFS BLOCK LEARNING

Governments, not so much but all teachers should pay attention to the council of 17-year old Nobel Prize winning Malala Yousafzai. She is a Pakistani activist for female education with wisdom beyond here years. The Taliban—for advocating girls’ education, shot Pakistani teenager Malala in the head. She told President Barack Obama he could "change the world" if only he'd send books instead of guns to other countries, is widely quoted as saying Tuesday. She is right but not practical. Everyone knows that societies live in a delicate balance between greed and altruism, at all levels. It seems as trite as it would be naive to have to say it. As adults, we all can imagine what would happen if we lived in a totally altruistic world where we depended on someone else for our well being and where we would no be willing to fight to defend their rights against the greedy and their property. As we grown up from infanthood to adulthood, we change from being completely dependent on our mothers to being, what we often erroneously believe, wholly responsible for our own existence—I know of no one who is entirely “independent”. Tom Hanks in the 2000 film named, Cast Away had material possessions, but above all else, he had a well-portrayed need to be with people. The significance of this is that even in a world free of material goods we need something else; we depend on being with other people. The independent, tough guy, who depends on no one, is a figment of imagination that is held in the front and center of the conservative mind; however, it is part of all of us. Equally, greed is common trait we all share.

Now there is 17-year-old Malala, who used her great misfortune to remind us suddenly and forcefully again that we do not have to be that way. We have been on path of humanization for over 150,000 years but some still haven’t learned. We do not have to kill each other. She naively “told” President Obama something important, which is that we should send books and not guns; however, that was only half of the story. Our President knows there is evilness in the world that those in power have to overcome with humanization. He knows classroom discipline is important but not paramount and he knows that those who want to learn will learn the fastest while there will always be some do not want to learn or are not capable of learning. What Malala said, and perhaps what would put her in more danger in her culture, was, “fundamental religious beliefs do not have to be but often are barriers to learning—we all know that about teaching the science of evolution, for example. The most pleasant surprise and impressive thing for me was hearing the very young Muslim Malala Yousafzai allude to that fact although she is so deeply religious she invariably wears a scarf over her head.

Like Malala, 50 year old Christian President Obama, also recognized that lesson have to begin at the level of fundamental beliefs and that can only happen if the people start the learning  process by asking why they believe what they believe. Our president went one-step further; he is asking Syrian and Iraqi Muslims to prove that the killing they see ISIS engaged, is teaching them to question the wisdom of their own religious beliefs. They can prove it by shedding just enough of their religious believes to form a government independent of religion sects. Our founding fathers did it 238 years ago with one line, “freedom of religions”—believe as you like but keep religious beliefs out of government. The brilliant Malala told President Obama she learned that very thing from her terrible experience; I repeat here what she said, “fundamental religious beliefs do not have to be but often are barriers to learning”.    

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