Teaching Historical Empathy: Building Connections Between the Past & Present

A Lifelong Skill

In a time where the large majority of students are on special media, it has become more important than ever to ensure students are able to connect with their education in valuable ways. The pedagogical strategy I have chosen has the ability to do just that and much more. Historical empathy is a critical tool that can be utilized across all content areas, not just history, and can increase student engagement and performance in a meaningful way.

What is historical empathy?

There are many definitions of historical empathy, but there is a general idea to be found among the five articles used in this website. Historical empathy is the process of understanding people of the past by conceptualizing their actions in the context of a historical event.

It is a process in which students are tasked with removing how they understand history from a present-day point of view. They must engage with historical figures in a way that allows students to acknowledge thoughts, feelings, and actions in the context of a certain historical period.

Why is it important?

Historical empathy is vital to students' development, both inside and outside of the classroom. Inside the classroom, it aids with developing students' processing of history. They are able to engage with the material in a new way that enables them to develop a deeper understanding of history.

Historical empathy helps students research history through academic inquiry. It allows them to connect more to the material, which in turn, allows them to understand the content better. Additionally, historical empathy has been shown to improve student performance through engaging students in ways that excite and motivate them to learn material beyond the textbooks.

Skills that can be improved by historical empathy:

contextualization - students must understand a person in history within the time that person lived, like the norms, common beliefs, pressures, etc.
cause & effect - students will be able to more closely analyze how something that occurs will influence how a person reacts
continuity & change over time - students will be able to trace trends and progression throughout history and may even be able to understand their present situations through inquiry of the past

Historical empathy keeps history alive by connecting people from the past to students from the present!

Necessary Components to Teaching Historical Empathy

According to the various articles researched, there are some necessary components to practicing historical empathy:

Use their own thoughts and feelings to understand a particular historical event
“Distinguish the historical period from study of their own”
Work with various primary and secondary sources that supplement the material they are studying
Propose the uniqueness of individuals and situations in history that demonstrates a deeper understanding
Utilize two-sided relationships to illustrate “the role of inadequately empathetic relationships” between historical figures in their role of “giving rise to misunderstandings, conflict, or tragedy.”

Strategies for Teaching Historical Empathy

There are many ways in which educators can teach historical empathy, but there are a few strategies that will enrich comprehension among students.

Primary source work: Teachers should supply ample supplemental texts to support student understanding of a historical person and situation. Primary sources, however, have been shown to support students practicing historical empathy in ways other texts cannot. They allow students to take on multiple perspectives, process the cultural norms of a certain historical period, and get the thoughts of a historical figure directly from that person.
Role-playing: This is a major strategy of history educators that can be used to take historical empathy to the next level. Role-playing literally forces students to "step into the shoes" of various historical figures. When students are tasked with acting as a person from the past, they must take great care in understanding why that person thought, believed, and acted the way they in the context of the time they lived. Role-playing gets students engaged and connected to the material and the person in question.
Open-ended writing: There's lots of writing involved in the field of history. But often, especially at the secondary level, this writing is structured and must follow very specific guidelines/rubrics. Teachers should take care to avoid this when creating assignments for students practicing historical empathy. Guidelines may help scaffold student research, but open-ended writing allows students to express themselves creatively and get into the mind of the historical figure. Writing with little restriction enables students to express themselves in a way that captures a figure as they see fit. This writing also allows teachers to trace the thought processes of students and target any areas students may need extra help with.
Using lesser-known stories: As we start to unfold history in ways that reveal the people left from its pages, history educators have a duty to make sure they uplift these voices. Students may have an easier time connecting to lesser-known historical figures because they may seem more, well, ordinary (despite the extraordinary things they often do). Furthermore, students may have an easier time connecting to a historical figure around their age, because they will be able to empathize with the pressures that figured faced. This strategy can encourage connecting continuity and change from past to present.

Classroom Applications

Historical empathy is a skill that can be included in most, if not all, history lessons. It has been shown to boost engagements, aid in perspective taking and other skills, and enhance student performance - and these are just in the classroom. These are classroom applications I have developed that include the requirements and strategies of historical empathy. These activities can be used to make students better learners and better people.

Blast to the Past: Using primary sources, teachers can construct a classroom activity that will lend to student development of historical empathy. In this activity, the teacher will select a historical period they will like students to study and/or find a historical figure from. Students will be tasked with finding primary sources from this period that give examples of culture, attitudes, economic states, popular beliefs etc. during this time. Once students have compiled ample data, they must do a small project to present their findings. Students should get creative! They may present their findings in a variety of ways such as presentations, songs, dioramas, posters, art, etc. This helps students contextualize historical periods and gets them ready to step into the world of a person from this time.

Welcome, Delegates!: This is a time-period specific activity that may be changed to fit the needs of various time periods. In this activity, however, students will become a delegate from the US Constitutional Convention of 1787 who will participate in a mock class convention. In order to participate, students must get into the minds of the delegate assigned to them by researching them. Students will be tasked with understanding how a person’s background affects their beliefs, thoughts, and actions. Students should examine how delegates from specific areas of the countries had different interests and goals in attending the convention.

You & Me…Not So Different: This is a general activity, applicable to many time periods, that aims to get students really connected with history. More specifically, students will find a historical figure that they can relate to in some way. This assignment may follow an open-ended writing assignment where students can freely express why they connect with this specific person from history. The student should be encouraged to trace changes and/or continuities throughout history that explains why they are able to relate to someone who might have lived 50+ years ago. This activity allows students to explore and express their identities, which will also make them feel safer and seen in the classroom.

About Me!

Hi, my name is Emily Keith! I am a junior History & Secondary Special Education major from Brooklawn, NJ. My favorite historical time period is the 1960s because it is full of change, progress, tragedy, mistakes, and pretty much everything else. At TCNJ, I am a member of Theta Phi Alpha and the club basketball team. And when I am away from school, I love hiking, spending time with friends, babysitting my younger cousins, and buying dangly earrings.

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