To improve our understanding of our education, we must view it within the context of Western knowledge. The education we receive does not exist independently of the culture and historical perspective from which it was developed. While many subjects, such as mathematics and the natural sciences, are taught according to standards that are intended to be internationally applicable, other subjects—particularly history—are often shaped by the perspective of the civilization that recorded and organized that knowledge. Recognizing this distinction allows us to become more aware of the perspective behind what we are taught rather than automatically assuming that every historical teaching represents an objective account of the past.
This can be seen in the common teaching that Christopher Columbus discovered America. From a Western historical perspective, Columbus's arrival in the Americas represents an important event because it marked a major point of contact between Europe and the Americas and eventually contributed to the European colonization of the continent. However, describing Columbus as the person who "discovered America" can be misleading when presented without the perspective from which the statement is being made. Indigenous peoples had already inhabited the Americas for thousands of years before Columbus arrived. From the perspective of these peoples, the continent was not an undiscovered land waiting to be found. Their civilizations, cultures, and societies already existed there.
Therefore, the statement that Columbus "discovered America" is better understood as a statement from a particular historical perspective rather than an absolute description of what happened. Columbus discovered the Americas for the European world in the sense that his voyages brought knowledge of the Americas to Europeans who were previously unaware of them. He did not, however, discover a continent that was unknown to humanity. This distinction demonstrates why perspective matters when evaluating historical knowledge. The same historical event can be understood differently depending on who is describing it, what they already knew, and whose experiences are being represented.
This does not mean that Western historical knowledge should simply be rejected. Rather, understanding its perspective allows us to evaluate it more accurately. Western history contains an enormous amount of valuable knowledge, but much of the historical record was written by European societies and therefore naturally emphasizes their experiences, discoveries, conflicts, and accomplishments. Other civilizations and peoples may have recorded the same periods of history differently or may have experienced those events in ways that are not fully represented in Western accounts. Expanding our understanding beyond a single perspective can therefore provide us with a more complete picture of the past.
For this reason, one of the most important questions we can ask when learning history is: "From whose perspective was this written?" This question does not tell us whether a historical teaching is true or false; instead, it helps us understand the context in which the teaching was produced. By recognizing the perspective behind our education, we become better equipped to distinguish historical events from the interpretations placed upon those events. Education becomes more meaningful when we do not merely learn what happened, but also examine who recorded it, how it was interpreted, and whose perspective may be missing. In this way, understanding the context of Western knowledge can give us a more precise and comprehensive understanding of the education we receive.
© 2026 Hazon, Nir
