Page 151 - Balancing between the present and the past

the reconstruction of the historical context of this exchange (e.g., the Third Anglo- Dutch War, the plantations of Suriname, triangular trade), the students understood the historical event better because they considered chronological and economic historical context knowledge. For example, different students mentioned that people such as Stuyvesant could not have known that New Netherland would become New York City and that Suriname had far more plantations in the 17th century.
Moreover, all teachers noted that the historical empathy tasks promoted historical contextualization because by examining the life of historical agents their
students learned how historical agents perceived historical events resulting in the consideration of the specific circumstances of a historical event. Wendy explicitly
stressed the additional value of the historical empathy tasks besides the other three
lesson activities. Wendy noted that her students found it very difficult to understand
and explain the Enlightenment in the 18th century, even after the historical context of
the Enlightenment was reconstructed and discussed. One of her students noted that
it was not possible to understand the Enlightenment “because there is so much to
understand.” The historical empathy task consisted of a historical source that described
the life of Voltaire and two accompanying questions focusing on how Voltaire saw 6 the Church and why Voltaire risked arrestment. By examining the life of Voltaire, her
students were able to understand the broader historical context of the Enlightenment because “the abstract became more concrete for them,” as Wendy noted in the post- intervention interview. For example, one of her students noted that Voltaire criticized the absolute emperors and religious dogmas of his time. This student understood that Voltaire might have fled because these views were not common in that time period and could therefore triggered resistance among the rulers.
Despite these positive findings, the teachers noted three main issues than can be used to further improve the effectiveness of the intervention to promote historical contextualization. The first issue is that the different lesson activities took more time than estimated. Lisa and Wendy (who both hold an average implementation score of 1.00 out of a 2-point scale) noted that they did not complete a number of different lesson activities due to a lack of lesson time. They found eight lessons too long to implement an intervention because they had to prepare students for formal tests. The other teachers ranged in implementation scores between 1.59 and 1.88 and experienced this problem less but also acknowledge that the lesson activities took more time than expected. Because the lesson activities took longer than estimated,
A historical contextualization pedagogy
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