What is the difference
between “the past” and
“history”?
Take 5 minutes to discuss
Prepare to explain to whole group
Learning How To Think
Historically
An Introduction to the Benchmarks of
Historical Thinking
Presented by:
Dr. Carla Peck
University of Alberta
Six Elements of Historical Thinking
Significance
Continuity and change
Evidence
Cause and consequence
Historical perspective-taking
The moral dimension
 Significance
– We can’t commemorate, teach or study everything
about the past. We have to make choices.
– “Historical Significance”- the principles behind the
choices we (the public, the government, historians,
teachers, textbook authors, etc.) make.
– What are the key understandings of history?
– What criteria do we use to decide what to
commemorate, teach, study?
Aspects of Significance
 Resulting in Change
• With deep consequences
• For many people
• Over a long period of time
 Revealing
 Occupies a key place in a meaningful narrative (applies to
both the other aspects)
Aspects of Significance
 Resulting in Change
• With deep consequences
• For many people
• Over a long period of time
 Revealing
 Occupies a key place in a meaningful narrative (applies to
both the other aspects)
What “significance” might look like in…
 Kindergarten: What are the 3 most significant events that
have happened in my life so far? (K.1.1)
 Grade 1: What are 3 most significant events in my family’s
past? (1.2.1)
 Grade 2: Who were the most significant people in our
community’s past? (2.2.6)
 Grade 3: What has been the most significant change in
someone’s life since moving to Canada? (3.1.2)
 Grade 4: Create and defend a list of the 5 most significant
places/landmarks in Alberta. (4.2.1)
 Continuity & Change
– Understanding change over time is central to
historical thinking.
– Can things change yet also retain elements of
continuity?
– As things have changed, have they gotten better or
gotten worse?
– Does perspective matter?
Aspects of Continuity & Change
 Continuity and change are interrelated
 Turning points and tipping points
 Progress and decline are ways of evaluating change over
time.
 Chronology helps to organize our understanding of
continuity and change.
 Periodization helps to organize our understanding of
continuity and change.
What “continuity & change” might look
like in…
 Kindergarten: Using baby photos and more recent photos, ask students what
has changed about them since they were born? What has stayed the same?
 Grade 1: How have children’s games changed since your grandparents
played games? (Ask grandparents/parents/guardians for input!)
 Grade 2: Discover two ways that Saskatoon has changed and two ways it has
stayed the same.
 Grade 3: Compare changes in [technology, transportation, etc.] in India to
changes in [technology, transportation, etc.] in Canada since you were born?
 Grade 4: List 5 ways the population of [your town, or province] has changed
since 1900. List 5 ways it has stayed the same. Do you think things have
gotten better or worse over time?
India: Transportation Past & Present
India Image 37 - Bundi, Rajasthan
(http://www.onlineguide.learnalberta.ca/content-og/ssiic/html/indiaimagescollection.html)
 Evidence
– How do we know about the past?
– How do we decide what to believe about the past?
– Learning to critically analyze accounts from the past
is an important skill to develop:
• What are the problems with the account?
• How do I decide what/who to believe?
• Is this account reliable and how do I know?
Aspects of Evidence
 Position of the author(s)
 Purposes of the author(s)
 Values and worldview of the author(s)
 Contextualization
What “evidence” might look like in…
 Kindergarten: Students use a personal artefact (baby blanket,
favourite story book) to show and tell others about something they
used to do as a baby.
 Grade 1: Examine a family artefact – what is it? What was it used
for? Who used it? What can we learn about family life in the past
from this artefact?
 Grade 2: Look up, way up! What do the buildings in our town tell us
about its past?
 Grade 3: Interview someone about their life in the Ukraine and their
life since moving to Canada. What can we learn about (family,
school, traditions) from this person’s experience?
 Grade 4: Examine a Frances Anne Hopkins painting of the
voyageurs. What does it tell us about the life of voyageurs?
Shooting the Rapids ( Quebec ) - 1879
Frances Anne Hopkins
Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-401-2
What are they doing in the canoe?
Canoe Manned by Voyageurs Passing a Waterfall (Ontario)
1869
Frances Anne Hopkins
Library and Archives Canada, Acc. No. 1989-401-1
What do/don’t these paintings tell us about life as a
voyageur?
 Cause and Consequence
– Why did things happen the way they did? Is there
more than one reason that [X] happened? (There
usually is!)
– Who makes history?
– What were the relationships of power at the time?
– What constraints (social, political, economical…)
had an impact on this group’s history?
– What did this person/group do to effect change?
Aspects of Cause & Consequence
 Causes are multiple and layered, involving both
long-term ideologies, institutions, and conditions,
and short-term actions and events
 Human beings (individually and collectively)
cause historical change (Agency). . .
 In contexts that impose limits on change
Sample Activity…
Cause & Consequence
 What conditions made
it possible for Louis
Riel to effect change?
 What conditions made
it harder for him to
make a difference?
1873, Ottawa, ON.
Notman Studio / Library and Archives
Canada / C-002048
What “cause & consequence”
might look like in…
 Grade 5: What attitudes and actions led to anti-Asian
sentiments in the early 1900s in Canada?
 Grade 8: Who and what has enabled the survival of
Francophone culture in Canada?
 Historical Perspective-Taking
– Historical perspective-taking means understanding
the different social, cultural, intellectual, and even
emotional contexts that shaped people’s lives and
actions in the past.
– Learning to use the frameworks of the day, rather
than present-day perspectives, to judge past events.
– Why did this historical actor act in that way?
– What evidence do I have that supports my
conclusions?
Aspects of Perspective-Taking
 Taking the perspective of historical actors
must use evidence for inferences about how
people felt and thought (avoiding
presentism).
 Any particular historical event or situation
involves actors who may have diverse
perspectives on it.
 Empathy is not identification.
What “historical perspective-taking”
might look like in…
 Grade 4: Using evidence, write a newspaper
article about [X] in Quebec’s history.
 Grade 8: Using evidence, develop your position
on:
– The Spanish plan to explore, conquest and convert
the Aztec people to Christianity, if you are a member
of the Independent Counsel to the Catholic Church.
– You are a supporter of Hernando Cortés and have
just found out about a policy the Catholic Church
might be developing.
 The Moral Dimension
– We want to learn from the past in order to face the
issues of today.
– Major difficulty: Imposing our own ideas of “right”
and “wrong” on a past time, on past actors.
– “The past is a foreign country-they do things
differently there.”*
– What do I need to put aside before beginning to
understand events or people from the past?
*David Lowenthal (1985). The Past is a Foreign Country. New York: CambridgeUP.
Aspects of the Moral Dimension
 Collective responsibility
– Examining the legacies of past actions: When do we
owe reparations to injured parties? (Residential schools,
Apology for Chinese Head Tax, etc.)
 Profound change over time
– Makes moral judgments difficult: We look back on the
past differently than those who lived it.
 Connection with conditions in the present
– Understanding how past actions/sentiments contributed
to current situations (e.g., John A. Macdonald’s stance
on the Chinese and immigration policies that developed
(and persisted) over time.)
What “the moral dimension” might
look like in…
 Grade 4: Examine a local historical event
and decide whether the decisions made at
the time resulted in positive or negative
change in your community.
 Grade 7: Should the Canadian government
apologize for the Komagata Maru incident?
How you might begin…
 Students write a history of the first day of school.
 In small groups, they compare their histories – Why are there
differences? They all experienced the first day together – shouldn’t the
histories all be the same?
 Why do they think other students wrote histories different than theirs?
 Discuss this with students – introduce terms like “significance”,
“perspective”, “agency”…
 Could the same thing happen when history books (and textbooks) are
written? Why?
 What does this tell us about historical accounts? – Interpretation is
key!
Bain, R. B. (2005). "They thought the world was flat?": Applying the principles of how people learn in
teaching high school history. In J. Bransford & S. Donovan (Eds.), How Students Learn: History,
Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom (pp. 179-214). Washington: The National Academies
Press.
Benchmarks of Historical Thinking
Website
http://www.historybenchmarks.ca
Material History, or using Artefacts to
Foster Historical Thinking
 Material history is the use of historical artefacts as
“documents”, which can be analyzed, synthesized,
compared and contrasted with other documents to
understand the past.
 According to Schlereth (1982), the study of material
history serves as a gateway into the belief patterns of the
people who made, altered, purchased, commissioned or
used the objects under study. In turn, we gain a glimpse
into the larger society’s belief patterns as well.
Why Material History?
 Through material history, artefacts:
– make the past both tangible and accessible
– are more accessible to learners who are poor readers or who
benefit from interaction and manipulation strategies
– allow more effective use of community resources in local
museums
– can be collected by teachers and students
– encourage interaction between learners and artefacts’
producers/owners (in the present & the past!)
– demonstrate cultural differences & similarities in terms of
class, gender, ethnicity, historical period, region and
occasion
How Do I Study artifacts?
 When trying to determine an object’s
‘story’, museum curators ask specific
questions in a specific order.
 Despite the fact that some answers may
remain incomplete, the data collected still
sheds light on the artefact and the era, place
and society attached to it.
Ask the Big Questions:
 What is it?
 What is it made of?
 How was it made?
 How does it work?
 What else do we know?
What Is It?
 A good place to start if you can!
What Is It Made of?
 The selection of materials is rarely left to chance.
 The material (and its qualities) an artefact is made
of can help us understand the nature and function of
an object.
How Was It Made?
 The design and way an object was made can help
us understand the person who made it and/or who it
was made for.
 Take note of signs of wear/repair – these tell a story
about an artefact’s actual working life.
How Does It Work?
 What is the function of each of the parts? How is an
artifact used, or how does it operate?
 Finding this out might help answer the “What is
it?” question.
What Else Do We Know?
Provenance
 A basic definition of ‘provenance’ is source. In
the study of material history, provenance refers to
an object’s reason for creation.
 Finding out who built, owned and/or used the
artifact, what era it belongs to and what history is
behind it all form the ‘provenance’ of an artifact.
 Provenance provides a context for an artifact –
and may actually challenge conclusions drawn
about an object.
 Provenance can also help the researcher make
distinctions between two otherwise similar
objects.
 Of course, an artifact probably won’t tell you
everything you want or need to know. Once you
have examined the artifact in some detail, more
research is required to fully understand its history.
 Sources such as newspapers, magazines,
catalogues, manuals, directories and photographs
can provide additional information.
Web References used to prepare the information on material history:
www.science-tech.nmstc.ca/english/collection/collecting01.cfm
www.stfx.ca/people/lstanley/Material/MaterialCulture.htm
www.stfx.ca/people/lstanley/Material/Guidelines.htm