Page 89 - Balancing between the present and the past

own similar yet different life experiences (Endacott & Pelekanos, 2015; Kitson et al., 2011) and focusing on understanding historical agents’ prior knowledge and positions (Berti, Baldin, & Toneatti, 2009; Hartmann & Hasselhorn, 2008; Huijgen et al., 2017).
Third, students should be able to explain the past based on their historical context
knowledge (Lévesque, 2008; Seixas & Morton, 2013; Wineburg, 2001). For example,
students must explain why the Great Depression of 1929 spread to Europe or the
differences between governance in ancient Greece and governance in the Middle Ages.
To answer such historical questions, students must link the Great Depression and the
different types of governance to their historical context (Seixas, 2006). Furthermore,
the successful performance of different historical reasoning competencies, such 4 as identifying indirect and direct causes (Stoel, Van Drie, & Van Boxtel, 2015), understanding change and continuity (Haydn et al., 2015), reasoning with historical
sources (Reisman & Wineburg, 2008), and asking historical questions (Logtenberg, Van Boxtel, & Van Hout-Wolters, 2011), requires an analysis of the broader historical context. Teachers should, therefore, create opportunities for students to practice these competencies with these types of questions. Halldén (1997) suggested that teachers should focus their instruction on the relationship between historical factual details (lower-level context) and large historical developments (larger context). Kosso (2009) also noted that “Individual events and actions are understood by being situated in the larger context. However, the larger context is understood by being built of individual events. It is a hermeneutic circle and perhaps the only way to understand other people” (p. 24). Presenting and evaluating historical phenomena from different perspectives is also considered an effective approach (e.g., Ciardiello, 2012; Levstik, 1997; McCully, 2012; Stradling, 2003). For example, to understand and explain the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962, students should examine this phenomenon from not only a capitalist Western perspective but also a communist Soviet perspective.
Finally, teachers should raise awareness of students’ present-oriented perspective and the consequences of this perspective when examining the past (Barton & Levstik, 2004; Huijgen et al., 2014; Wineburg, 2001). Students must know that the past differs from the present (Seixas & Peck, 2004); however, social psychology research illustrates that young students especially find it very difficult to take another persons’ perspective, particularly when that other person does not have the same knowledge that the students have (Bloom & German, 2000; Wellman, Cross, & Watson, 2001). This inability could cause problems in history education, as students must be aware
Testing an observation instrument
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