• Replies 20 replies
  • Subscribers 12 subscribers
  • Views 14070 views
  • Users 0 members are here
Related

The Slippery Slope Of Teaching Historical Empathy

Julianne Horowitz

Okay, before we break a hip trying to teach it, we have to try to define it - but “it” is so many things…

  • contextualizing the past, and comparing it to present context 
  • trying to understand a person’s or people’s way of thinking within that past context
  • making emotional connections to a person or people in the past  
  • I could keep going but I won’t...

One over-simplification would be “putting ourselves in past people’s shoes” I suppose, but I find this really problematic. We can’t actually put students into the shoes of past individuals, nor should we, if we even had that kind of power. With that off the table, our greatest power probably lies in how well we can help students contextualize.  

The 1750 WHP Course is laden with lessons, models, and even a specific Tool just for contextualization. I’ve stolen some incredible suggestions made by our colleagues here (  ,  ) However, it is a skill that kids tend to struggle with so much. Therefore, when it comes to fostering historical empathy, I sometimes worry whether students’ difficulties with contextualization will prevent them from getting it. The last thing I want students to walk away from a lesson thinking is that the atrocious actions of a past individual/society were acceptable, given the context. This slippery slope shows up during our unit on imperialism of course, and again when weighing the accountability of bystanders and collaborators in Lesson 7.4 about the genocides of WWI and WWII. Next week my class will be watching The Pianist, and inevitably there will be students who “feel sorry for” the Nazi soldier who appears toward the end of the story. It’s a very worthwhile conversation, and I’m not in the practice of telling students how to feel or think, but… yikes!

  • Aside from ending class with a speech about right vs. wrong (I can’t be the only one who has done that) how do you help students experience “historical empathy” without accidentally promoting “historical amnesty”?  
  • Does anyone have a lesson specifically about the difference between understanding and justifying?

Parents

  •  , these are thought-provoking questions. For now, here's a link to a FH&O page on teaching historical empathy that might be helpful.

  • in reply to John Vidoli

    Thank you  and  ! Facing History is definitely a gem - tons of scaffolding, mini-lessons, and longer units geared toward difficult parts of history. 

    I've been continually reflecting on this problem, and I think part of the struggle is that the audience is so fluid - different students each year, bringing different life experiences, and even the community as an audience also changes with the political climate.  We can put these lessons on paper I guess, but so many of the variables aren't fixed. 

  • in reply to Julianne Horowitz

    It's a great problem to have. I think I've come at it a couple of times. In Origins, using the Rethinking Civilization activity really allowed students to consider the impacts people experienced with the development of complex societies. The activity presents a reconsideration of the benefits of complex societies using the ideas of James Scott's Against the Grain. The same question came up with the trade in enslaved people. Here it was easier because there are primary sources we could use to understand how some people thought about it. 

    With the Holocaust it would be possible to cycle back to the Enlightenment and the invention of rights, which can be discussed with the racist ideas that developed in the 2nd half of the 19th century. It would also be possible to raise the question why some Germans resisted the racist ideas. I've attached some resources from the Choices program.

    One can never walk in another's shoes, but it would be an interesting class activity of they tried. I wonder what reflections it would cause.

    PDFDOCX

Reply
  • in reply to Julianne Horowitz

    It's a great problem to have. I think I've come at it a couple of times. In Origins, using the Rethinking Civilization activity really allowed students to consider the impacts people experienced with the development of complex societies. The activity presents a reconsideration of the benefits of complex societies using the ideas of James Scott's Against the Grain. The same question came up with the trade in enslaved people. Here it was easier because there are primary sources we could use to understand how some people thought about it. 

    With the Holocaust it would be possible to cycle back to the Enlightenment and the invention of rights, which can be discussed with the racist ideas that developed in the 2nd half of the 19th century. It would also be possible to raise the question why some Germans resisted the racist ideas. I've attached some resources from the Choices program.

    One can never walk in another's shoes, but it would be an interesting class activity of they tried. I wonder what reflections it would cause.

    PDFDOCX

Children