Questions about Historical Thinking

As David Lowenthel wrote, “the past is a foreign country.” This means that even if I, an American, decided to study American history, there are things I would not know, that I would need to relearn from my understanding of present America. The past is unknown to me until I study it, like the culture of a far-off country would be foreign to me. In many cases the culture, specifically language, technology, and ideologies of a time are some of the first things that show themselves to be foreign. I personally have some experience transcribing historical documents from as early as the mid 1600s, and in a lot of cases, these documents use a lot of abbreviations that may feel foreign to me. In a eighteenth century account book, I might see the abbreviation “Dr,” which does not mean “doctor” it means “debtor.” If I get the transcription (or translation) wrong, it can skew the meaning wildly. So historical thinking skills are the idea of trying to approach a historical text with the understanding of the cultural norms of the time, and trying to dismiss our contemporary views of situations, at least while reading the primary documents: putting ourselves into the headspace of the document’s author or their contemporary if possible.

One of the most important questions I specifically have for teaching in museums is about accessibility. How can I best prepare for any accessibility need for my projects? Of course, it’s not an easy one-size-fits-all answer that I expect. I also don’t necessarily think that this is a question for specifically thinking historically. But if I were to apply accessibility to historical thinking activities, I do have a few thoughts. First is one that was already attempted in this week’s course reading: finding ways to emphasize important information, such as including the date of a document in the title to make it easy to find and often a larger size that what might already be included in the document. But there’s a few other things? Can we make braille or audio versions of primary source documents, how does this experience differ for a student with visibility impairments? Would those students have the same success as able students? What if the primary source is an image? How best do we recreate the image in an accessible way that does not neglect or omit any details that may be important? How does this testing account for other forms of neurodiversity, if there is an ideal answer would the tester deduct points from a student who gives an accurate answer from an angle that was not the preferred “ideal” answer, but still displays critical and historical thinking skills?

Another major question I have: How can we explain historical thinking skills and their justifications to educators? Especially now with teaching shortages, many teachers are forced into teaching subjects that may not be their specialty. Or the vocation may include newly appointed teachers who may not be professionally trained on history after switching from another career field. How can we best explain the importance of these skills to these educators, who may not have these skills either? Is the best answer to provide them with a bibliography of pedagogical techniques? I feel that it may seem aggressive, or not viable for teachers who already have extremely busy schedules and a lack of resources to acquire these texts, often hidden behind expensive journal paywalls? The easiest solution would probably just be to say that it’s tested in AP testing, but for school’s that don’t have AP programs, this may not be a compelling reason to add a historical thinking resource from a museum.

A third question I might have about historical thinking is: What is the right age to be teaching students a nuanced topic like historical thinking? One of the examples that came often in this week’s reading is the question over whether or not Abraham Lincoln was racist. The nuance includes the fact that yes, he was racist, he outwardly stated that he would say the white race is superior, or at least he would be racist from a modern interpretation. If we compare Lincoln to his contemporaries though, he’s actually pretty respectful of other races and uses less derogatory or harmful vocabulary than other racists at his time. So our question shifts: was Lincoln racist for a white man in 1860s America? These questions and discussions are complicated, and might include having to read some really nasty primary sources from overwhelming racist people, but when do students have the maturity and understanding of the world to make intelligent and nuanced discussions of topics like this? Should we wait until all history students are in highschool before introducing them to historical thinking? (Most of the readings primarily tested highschoolers) Should we introduce younger students to historical thinking, but use simpler topics and discussion questions? What types of activities could we provide for younger students, like elementary students, to learn to think historically even if they do not yet have the skills or context to answer assignments like DBQs?

Another question of course, is how am I to create these types of learning opportunities from a museum? For instance, a historic house may have a diary from a former resident that would be great for DBQ type activities, but if the curriculum does not align with the content in the diary, it would be a hard sell to teachers who often are forced to merely “teach the test.”

Historical thinking is one of my favorite skills to consider teaching, as it can come with a multitude of examples from any time period, but it’s got so many complexities that make it pretty intimidating to attempt teaching students.