Avoiding Presentism

I would argue that this is one of the more difficult skills to teach our students, as many of us are naturally inclined to judge when we encounter something or someone who is different than what we consider "normal." Algorithms in social media are also designed to only show us videos or posts that match our viewpoints on certain topics or content areas.  Our students need to practice historical analysis in a balanced, contextually grounded manner, but are highly likely to lack experience doing so.

One strategy I utilize is modeling how I hope my students will think.  For example, we learned that girls in the Roman Empire were married around the age of 12 and boys around the age of 14.  Instead of commenting "Wow! How disgusting! How awful for the young girls!", I made my thinking visible by coming up with other reasons this might have been acceptable.  I acknowledged the fact that more people died of disease or childbirth, that people had shorter lifespans, and that survival was more precarious during this era.  Focusing on the facts made it easier to take my personal judgment out of it and helped my students see how to do this themselves.

Additionally, if a student is clearly using presentism in their thought process, I will challenge them by asking a series of "why" or "how do you know" questions.  Going back to their notes or the primary source often helps them realize that they are using a specific lens to understand the material.  While this may not correct their thinking moving forward, realizing when this type of thinking occurs is the first step towards balanced, contextually grounded comparisons.

I teach women's history as well and this is where I personally struggle with it the most. As some who wants all people to be equal in society, looking at women throughout history is difficult. For example, we recently covered women in education in England and how the evolution of what was taught in school changed based on the needs of women in society. Sewing was a common taught skill as it was needed to run a household for example. My difficulty is checking my feelings to better help my students check their feelings

This is a very difficult skill to teach students.  They have difficulty looking at history through different lenses.  One strategy I use at the start of the year is DeBono's hats.  You assign a different "hat" to each student, representing a lens to view the issue.  You give the student the background to tackle the issue.  The first time I do this, I start with a problem, like school start times, and have them view the problem from each stakeholder position. When examining an issue I will have the students take on a "hat" to try to promote a balanced comparison.  

I try to focus on what problem something is solving. When we look at laws or political structures that seem strange to our modern eyes, I try to get my students to what problem people at the time were reacting to. Why go to war over the right to sell opium? Why assign ownership of Africa to Europeans? What problem are these people facing and trying to solve? We might disagree with the way they've tried to solve it for various reasons, but identifying the different world that people at the time were facing helps a little. 

This is very challenging!  I often start the year by asking students how we evaluate history...by our standards today or the standards of the time.  It prompts some great discussion and helps students to see that imposing our own values and beliefs on other times/cultures/eras can lead to a lot of judgement.  Students also have a tendency to want to rank things...and when drawing comparisons they naturally want to categorize one as the best or worst, or rank - not as bad as- and that's often how they make meaning.  I'm not sure how to get around that, but as far as making comparisons I find it's helpful to remind them to stick to the concrete comparisons that don't leave room for value judgements.  For example, comparing who was enslaved in various civilizations as a matter of fact (slavery existed, here were the parameters) as opposed to comparing the treatment of the enslaved across civilizations if you are trying to focus on the comparisons and not the emotion.  At the end of the comparison, they can still draw conclusions about the practice of and impacts of slavery.

I think constantly asking questions can really be helpful. This year I did a data literacy activity on one of the PBA sources about Virginia desegregation in schools and the format of the questions can really help with presentism and ethnocentrism.  For example when I've taught this lesson in the past, I usually just end the activity by asking the class how did the rate of desegregation in Virginia change over time, but with the data literacy boxes I go beyond that and ask more questions about the author sources, data range, and significance.