WHAT HAPPENED THEN MATTERS NOW

Concepts to live by HISTORICAL THINKING

The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking To think historically, students need to be able to: 1. Establish historical significance. 2. Use primary source evidence. 3. Identify continuity and change.

The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking To think historically, students need to be able to: 4. Analyze cause and consequence. 5. Take historical perspectives. 6. Understand the ethical dimension of historical interpretations.

Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy Taken together, these concepts tie “historical thinking” to competencies in “historical literacy.” “Historical literacy” means gaining a deep understanding of historical events through active engagement with historical texts.

Historical Literacy Historically literate citizens can assess claims that there was no Holocaust, that slavery wasn't so bad for African-Americans, that Aboriginal rights have a historical basis, and that the Russian experience in Afghanistan serves as a warning to our mission there.

Historical Literacy They have thoughtful ways to tackle these debates. They can assess historical sources. They know that a historical film can look "realistic" without being accurate. They understand the value of a footnote.

Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy In short, they can detect the differences between the uses and abuses of history. “Historical thinking” only becomes possible in relation to substantive content.

Historical Thinking = Historical Literacy These concepts are not abstract “skills.” Rather, they provide the structure that shapes the practice of history and the understanding of history.

SO HOW DO WE DECIDE WHAT IS WORTH REMEMBERING ABOUT THE PAST?

1. Historical Significance There is much too much history to remember all of it. So we tend to highlight significant events. Significant events are those that resulted in great change over long periods of time for large numbers of people.

1. Historical Significance Significance depends upon one’s perspective and purpose. A historical person, event or development can acquire significance if we can link it to larger trends and stories that reveal something important for us in history and contemporary life.

1. Historical Significance For example, the story of an individual worker in Winnipeg in 1918, however insignificant in the World War II sense, may become significant if it is recounted in a way that makes it a part of a larger history of workers’ struggles, economic development, or post-war adjustment and discontent.

HOW DO WE KNOW WHAT WE KNOW ABOUT THE PAST?

2. Evidence Primary sources are the litter of history —letters, documents, records, diaries, drawings, newspaper accounts and other bits and pieces left behind by those who have passed on — are treasures to us.

2. Primary Source Evidence A history textbook is generally used more like a phone book: it is a place to look up information. Primary sources must be read differently – like a clue in a murder. To use them well, we need to set them in their historical contexts and make inferences from them to help us understand more about what was going on when they were created.

2. Primary Source Evidence: The Steps Ask good questions. Consider the author’s position. Figure out the author’s purposes, values and worldview (conscious + unconscious).

2. Primary Source Evidence: The Steps Read with the view of the sources historical background. Assess the sources on the basis of providing new evidence of its historical setting.

HOW DO WE UNDERSTAND THE COMPLEXITY OF THE PAST?

3. Continuity and Change Sometimes we misunderstand history as a list of events. Once we start to understand history as a complex mix of continuity and change, we will reach a fundamentally different sense of the past.

3. Continuity and Change: The Steps We need to see historical events as interrelated = continuous changing not isolated, discrete events. Identify turning points that help to locate the change. Use progress and decline to evaluate change. Organize our understanding via chronology and periodization.

3. Continuity and Change One of the keys to continuity and change is looking for change where common sense suggests that there has been none and looking for continuities where we assumed that there was change. Judgments of continuity and change can be made on the basis of comparisons between some point in the past and the present, or between two points in the past, such as before and after Confederation in Canada. We evaluate change over time using the ideas of progress and decline.

HOW DO WE EXPLAIN THE EFFECTS OF THE DECISIONS AND ACTIONS TAKEN IN THE PAST?

4. Cause and Consequence In examining both tragedies and accomplishments in the past, we are usually interested in the questions of how and why. These questions start the search for causes: what were the actions, beliefs, and circumstances that led to these consequences? In history we need to consider human agency = people, as individuals and as groups, play a part in promoting, shaping, and resisting change.

4. Cause and Consequence People have motivations and reasons for taking action (or for sitting it out), but causes go beyond these. For example, the Vancouver anti-Chinese riot of 1887 certainly involved the racial attitudes and motivations of the white workers who rampaged.

4. Cause and Consequence Did the workers cause the riot? In some sense they did. But the causes must be set in the larger context of employers paying Chinese workers a fraction of the regular wage rate and the desperate situation of Chinese Canadian workers after the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railroad.

4. Cause & Consequence: The Steps Know that historical actors/agents are people who cause historical change. Understand that these historical agents cause change in social, political, economical, historical contexts that impose limits on change. Also, comprehend that actions often have unintended consequences.

HOW CAN WE BETTER UNDERSTAND PEOPLE IN THE PAST?

5. Taking a Historical Perspectives The past is a foreign country and thus difficult to understand. What could it have been like to travel as a young fille du roi to New France in the 17th century? Can we imagine it, from our vantage point in the consumer society of the 21st century? What are the limits to our imagination?

5. Taking a Historical Perspectives Taking a historical perspective means understanding the social, cultural, intellectual, and emotional settings that shaped people’s lives and actions in the past = though it is sometimes called “historical empathy,” historical perspective is very different from the common-sense notion of identification with another person. Indeed, taking historical perspective demands comprehension of the vast differences between us in the present and those in the past.

5. Taking a Historical Perspectives: The Steps Work to understand that the perspective of the historical actors depends upon evidence for inferences about how people felt and thought. It is important to avoid presentism = the unwarranted imposition of present ideas on actors in the past.

5. Taking a Historical Perspectives: The Steps Remember that historical events and situations involve people who may have diverse perspectives on it = exploring this is a key to understanding the event. Work at taking the perspective of a historical actor does not mean identifying with that actor.

WHAT CAN WE LEARN FROM THE PAST TO HELP US BETTER UNDERSTAND THE PRESENT?

6. The Ethical Dimensions Are we obligated to remember the fallen soldiers of World War I? Do we owe reparations to the First Nations victims of Aboriginal residential schools, or to the descendents of those who paid the Chinese Head Tax? In other words, what responsibilities do historical crimes and sacrifices impose upon us today?

6. The Ethical Dimensions These questions are one part of the ethical dimension of history. Another part has to do with the ethical judgments we make about historical actions. This creates a difficult paradox.

6. The Ethical Dimensions Taking historical perspective demands that we understand the differences between our ethical universe and those of bygone societies. We do not want to impose our own anachronistic standards on the past. At the same time, meaningful history does not treat brutal slave-holders, enthusiastic Nazis, and marauding conquistadors in a “neutral” manner.

6. The Ethical Dimensions: The Steps We should expect to learn something from the past that helps us to face the ethical issues of today. Remember that all meaning historical accounts involve implicit or explicit ethical judgment. Work, while making ethical judgements of past actions, to avoid the risk of imposing our own standards or “right” and “wrong” on the past.

Review: The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking To think historically, students need to be able to: 1. Establish historical significance. 2. Use primary source evidence. 3. Identify continuity and change.

Review: The 6 Benchmarks of Historical Thinking To think historically, students need to be able to: 4. Analyze cause and consequence. 5. Take historical perspectives. 6. Understand the ethical dimension of historical interpretations.

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