I don't know if I ever told this story here on Twitter, but since it's relevant to the Western tradition of claiming scientific progress, let me tell you this story. For those who might know it, I'm sorry for repeating - for those who don't know it, it's a story about my dad.

My dad was born in Egypt, about six decades ago. A kid from around the relatively poor neighborhood of روض الفرج in Cairo. He grew up in a country full of pride for its ancient history, that had gained independence from their colonists only decades earlier.

His family was Egyptian-large, more than ten kids, and they all did their best to live up to the high expectations of Egyptian family: to be a doctor, or an engineer, or a lawyer. My dad hates math, but managed to get a pretty solid Egyptian degree for economics.

With a degree under his belt, he decided to go see the world, as Egyptians sometimes want to do. Him and some of his siblings moved to different countries around the world - he decided to move to the Netherlands for a while. He met my mom, and never left.

His degree was useless though. Dutch administrations didn't recognize it. They misunderstood his name, and gave us the last name 'Ismail'. Now with a new name, and no degree, he was forced to work in heavy labor, the only kind of job available for brown immigrants at that time.

My dad destroyed his back, his knee, and despite that kept working to earn his keep, to sustain himself, and later him and my mom. My mom quit school to get a job and add to that income, because obviously my dad got paid very little for destroying his body.

This went on for a decade, and in the face of racism and xenophobia, my mom and dad got married. Eventually, my dad got Dutch citizenship, and with that - he could look for a better job. My dad went through a few jobs, but eventually decided to teach.

In fact, my dad decided to teach Dutch to immigrants, to make sure that each of them was properly equipped to deal with the administration, the language, the culture, and the injustices. He learned Dutch painfully, and he felt he could make a difference.

You see, my dad made a difference. His students - and there are many - love him, and he has friends everywhere in his former students. They're without exception thankful for his patience and care and his willingness to listen to and help with issues beyond his job. He cared.

I say 'cared', because a few years ago the Dutch government reigned in immigration, and thus made his job superfluous. My dad had dedicated his life to helping immigrants have a better life than he did, & he would no longer be allowed to do that. His job didn't exist anymore.

The Netherlands have pretty good worker protections, and dad is a good teacher, so the school offered him three options: quit, teach history, or teach math. Now, if you recall, my dad hates math. My dad is old enough that a new job would be tough to find. But: dad loves history.

How could he not? He grew up in a country with its greatest achievements in the far past. Him and mom also bonded over Egypt's history, my mom an aspiring archaeologist slash enthusiast, my dad a history enthusiast.

I grew up in a house filled with history. My mom had stacks of books of archaeology and history and mythology and ancient languages. My dad would tell stories of countries I didn't even know existed - Mongolians, Sumerians, Egyptians, Mesopotamian, Babylonians, Ottomans.

So dad made the obvious choice: he asked for the history materials, and he would read up on the curriculum. Now, I visit my dad every weekend I'm in the Netherlands - and he told me about this development one weekend. I happened to still be in the Netherlands the next weekend.

The Egyptians are often a passionate people, which means that if they love you, they love you very much - but if they're angry, they're angry very much. When I visited him the next week, the books thrown around the room suggested dad was angry very much.

I asked my dad what was wrong, and he blurted "is this what they teach you here?!". Baffled, I nodded. He was furious, and just listed history: "prehistory, ancient civilisations, Egyptians" -that got approval- "Greek, Roman, Dark Ages, Renaissance, Colonialism, World Wars?"

I confirmed that that's about right. He sighed.

"Rami", he said, "The Dark Ages were just here in Europe. Everywhere else, science and progress and humans prospered. Modern medicine and mathematics and physics and chemistry & everything. The zero was invented. Coffee. Gunpowder. Money. Huge progress in navigation & astronomy."

He went on to list entire empires that rose and fell, entire wars over continents, Earth-shattering conflicts with ramifications we still feel today, eye-opening inventions that define our modern age. European history just glosses over it. We weren't the cool thing.

So in the generally taught version of European history, we go from the fall of the Roman Empire to the Renaissance in half a chapter. "There was castles and general medieval stuff here". Then, suddenly, Europe decided for a scientific and artistic revolution out of nowhere!

My dad refused to teach that, but he really didn't want to lose his job or teach math, so I decided to suggest we create an additional curriculum for him to teach non-European history. A small additional course, maybe two or three weeks, about the rest of the world.

We made a really cool curriculum. We found good sources and material for Asian, Persian, and North African history. We created a short pitch of what he would teach, where it would fit, how it would work. It was extremely good, and I wish I had been taught that, too.

Anyway, my dad took the pitch to his school - proud and excited for his new job as history professor. Like in his position as Dutch teacher for immigrants, he could do his job and exceed the minimum requirements, giving his students an edge in understanding and perspective.

Anyway, long story short, that's why my dad's a math teacher.