Learning Historical Thinking

1. Learning Historical Thinking

2. Background “To think historically is essentially to be a critical thinker when it comes to the study of history.” Peter Seixas, University of British Columbia

3. 6 Concepts of Historical Thinking • Significance • Evidence • Continuity & Change • Cause & Consequence • Historical Perspective-taking • The Moral Dimension (Judgment)

4. Significance • How do we make judgments about what events in history are important? What criteria is used to judge significance? • This is the work of historians and they must employ historical thinking to determine significance.

5. Aspects of Significance • Prominence of the event at the time • Consequences (resulting in change) • Deep consequence for many people over a long period of time • Revealing • Does the event explain something about later events or the present? • Occupies a key place in a meaningful narrative

6. Aspects of Evidence Problem: The past is gone • How do we know about the past? Primary & secondary documents(traces & accounts) • How do we decide what to believe about the past? Learning to critically analyze accounts from the past is an important skill to develop. Ask yourself – is this credible? Does this person’s account match up with other individuals’ accounts? Is this secondary source based in part on primary sources? ???????????????????????????????????????????

8. Continuity and Change • Change and continuity are on-going and ever present • Change can occur at different rates • Change and continuity can be both positive and negative (e.g. progress & decline) • Comparisons can be made between points of history and between the past and the present

9. The IBM 7094, a typical mainframe computer [photo courtesy of IBM]

11. What is this?

12. Continuity or change?

13. Cause & Consequence • Events have a myriad of different and often unappreciated causes • Prior events may have no casual influence on subsequent events • Looking for broad underlying factors is more important (often) than identifying immediate specific causes of an event • Actions have unintended consequences • Part II

14. Columbine Marilyn Manson

15. Historical Perspective • Presentism is the opposite of historical perspective. Presentism is when you examine the past through today’s understandings (values, norms, technological understanding) • The goal, when thinking historically, is to avoid presentism.

16. Moral Judgment • Moral Judgments are a particular kind of evaluative (or value) judgment • Moral judgments about the past must be sensitive to historical content/context • There is value in withholding moral judgments until adequate information has been acquired • Determining cause is different from assigning responsibility

18. What about local history?

21. Thinking historically … • Make inferences about life around town at that time • Consider the societal, economic, & technological environment • Compare with photos of the same place today • Identify a list of things that have changed and stayed the same • http://www.histori.ca/benchmarks/