Page 136 - Balancing between the present and the past

Chapter 6
questions (Logtenberg, Van Boxtel, & Van Hout-Wolters, 2011), or date and sequence historical events, documents, and images (Van Boxtel & Van Drie, 2012). Research indicates, however, that a strong focus in history classrooms on the transmission of historical content knowledge is preferred to creating opportunities for students to reason with their knowledge (e.g., Saye & Social Studies Inquiry Research Collaborative, 2013; VanSledright, 2011). Different studies distil the general image of a teacher who often uses the history textbook narrative and focuses on the transmission of historical content knowledge, such as memorizing (nationally) significant figures, events, and narratives (e.g., Achinstein & Fogo, 2015; Barton & Levstik, 2003). In our pedagogy, we therefore explicitly created opportunities for students to reason with their historical context knowledge to answer and discuss explanatory historical questions
6.2.3.4 Enhancing historical empathy
Historical empathy is “the ability to see and entertain, as conditionally appropriate, connections between intentions, circumstances and actions and to see how any particular perspective would actually have affected actions in particular circumstances” (Lee & Ashby, 2001, p. 25). Historical empathy is the ability to see and judge the past on its own terms by attempting to understand the historical agents’ frames of reference and actions (Yilmaz, 2007). Despite some scholars claiming that historical empathy is idealistic and can never be fully achieved because many historical agents are absent (Metzger, 2012), most scholars agree that historical empathy and historical contextualization are closely related (e.g., Cunningham, 2009; Endacott & Brooks, 2013).
Historical empathy may serve as a “fall back rationale,” i.e., when students are to contextualize historical events or actions but lack relevant historical knowledge (Berti et al., 2009). For example, students who did not possess adequate historical context knowledge regarding Germany in 1930 could successfully explain the actions of a historical agent based on affective connections and recognizable emotions, such as the fear of being unemployed (Huijgen, Van Boxtel, et al., 2017). In history classrooms, teachers could choose a historical agent relevant to the historical topic under study and instruct their students to examine the historical agents’ lives to successfully perform historical contextualization. What was the social position of the historical agent in the society? Was the historical agent wealthy or poor? Did the historical agent belong to the elite? Answering these types of questions could result in a successful explanation of historical agents’ decisions and an understanding of historical events. For example,
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