Page 141 - Balancing between the present and the past

processes (e.g., the students place phenomena in long-term development). This is in line with previous research where we observed how history teachers promote historical contextualization in classrooms (Huijgen, Holthuis, Van Boxtel, & Van de Grift, 2018).
We ended the discussion by asking about the challenges teachers experienced when teaching historical contextualization. Most teachers acknowledged the importance of the indicators of the FAT-HC but noted that they did not have the time, expertise, or support to develop such lesson activities. Based on this exploration, we aimed to help teachers explicitly engage students in historical contextualization processes.
6.4.4.2 Lesson activities of the pedagogy
To construct the lesson activities, we used the four pedagogical design principles
of historical contextualization as a starting point: (1) making students aware of
the consequences of a present-oriented perspective when examining the past; (2)
enhancing the reconstruction of a historical context; (3) enhancing the use of the
historical context to explain a historical phenomenon, and (4) enhancing historical
empathy. 6
The first lesson activity promotes awareness of students’ possible present-oriented perspectives. For each lesson, we constructed a case centralizing a particular historical topic that students find difficult to explain without historical context knowledge (i.e., creating cognitive incongruity). Each case study was accompanied by an explanatory question that students had to answer and discuss in the classroom. During this classroom discussion, teachers explicitly explained the consequences of viewing the past from a present-oriented perspective. For example, we created a case centralizing the exchange of the colony of New Netherland, currently New York City, for Suriname in 1626. Most students generally find it difficult to explain why “the Dutch Republic exchanged a world-class city for a small country in South America.” The central question of this case study was “Can you explain why the Dutch Republic exchanged New Netherland for Suriname in 1626?” In the following classroom discussion, the students were allowed to react and attempt to answer the question while the teacher corrected possible present-oriented perspectives and explicitly explained, by stressing the differences between past and present knowledge, beliefs, and values, that the case cannot be explained when using present-oriented perspectives.
A historical contextualization pedagogy
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