HTAV MIDDLE YEARS
CONFERENCE
28 OCTOBER 2011
DOING HISTORICAL EMPATHY
TYSON RETZ, OUR LADY OF SION COLLEGE
What is Historical Empathy?
Definitions
“Empathy involves using the perspectives of people in the past to explain
their actions” (Barton and Levstik, 2004 in Leckey, Seminar notes).
“Empathy is entertaining the beliefs, goals, and values of other people… or
other societies” (Ashby and Lee, 1987 in Leckey, Seminar notes).
“Empathy means… to glide with one’s own feeling into the dynamic
structure of an object… and as it were trace it from within…” (Buber, 1948 in
Leckey, Seminar notes).
Historicism
In class
My
argument
Historical empathy situated within larger tradition of historicism:
“A critical movement insisting on the prime importance of historical context to
the interpretation of texts of all kinds” (Hamilton, 2007)
Perspective taking activities too often overestimate the extent to which we can
imagine ourselves as past actors: “Imagine you are a slave,” “imagine you are
an indigenous Australian witnessing the arrival of the First Fleet.”
Leads to an irresponsible and erroneous understanding of the past.
Doing historical empathy = doing the History discipline
Why is it so hard?
Implicit in historical empathy is the need to treat the past on its own terms, to “get behind
the eyeballs of people in the past and identify with historical actors” (Gagnon, 1991) or
to “stand in the shoes of those who came before us.”
A noble objective, but:
“[Historical empathy] is difficult because it means holding in mind whole structures of ideas
that are not one’s own, and with which one may profoundly disagree. And not just holding
them in mind as inert knowledge, but being able to work with them in order to explain and
understand what people did in the past. All of this is hard because it requires a high level of
thinking” (Ashby and Lee, 1987, emphasis added).
“… this imaginative achievement in understanding how people in the past felt, thought, and
acted differently from people today demands thoughtful effort… it necessitates the ability to
view others from the past not as intellectually or morally inferior but as equal and
different, with their own belief systems and forms of life” (Lévesque, 2008, emphasis
added).
Hence, historical empathy is at war with PRESENTISM
Presentism
Many students begin their study of history assuming that the past is somehow
given, perhaps by direct inspection of pictures, films or videos.
Unable to consider their own positionalities, presentism:
 can manifest itself in class when students willingly write off historical agents as
lacking any kind of rationality and treat past social practices as demonstrating that
people in the past were seriously mentally defective (Lee, 1991).
“Presentism is precisely the tendency of contemporary people not to differentiate the past
from the present, to naively impose their present-day values and norms on predecessors, as
if the two contexts could magically be merged into a single transhistorical entity”
(Lévesque, 2008).
Underlying students’ thinking in the secondary years is that the past happens in
stories (unfolding of events). Evidence that does not concur with students’ received
ideas is simply wrong or the result of the author’s bias or incompetence (Lee,
1991).
Building a sense of positionality
Presentism can be combated through a serious effort to identify
historically situated assumptions.
Useful questions when faced with a text include:

What was the social, cultural and economic context of the time?

What was the author’s role or participation in that context?

What information do the sources reveal about the historical context?

How is this context different from or similar to others and ours?
Concept of “strategic competence” involves being mentally aware
of personal assumptions.
(Lévesque, 2008).
The danger of relativism
Tackling presentism can present another problem, that of
relativism.
Relativism in history occurs when any version of the past is considered as
good as any other. It occurs when:



Statements about the past are seen as authoritative to the extent that they
were made in the past, i.e. inability to discern hierarchy of evidence
Historians’ disagreements are not sufficiently compared and evaluated
alongside key questions and problems
Positionality leading to negation of student’s own ability to interpret,
thereby knowing little and permitting everything
(Lévesque, 2008).
Three levels of interpretation:
hermeneutics
Hermeneutics loosely defined as the theory or philosophy of the interpretation of meaning.
Reader defined by: historical epoch, society and culture, educational background, linguistic ability,
familiarity with the subject matter, and purpose or practical interest.
Text conditioned by: its age, the culture in which it was produced, the language and the talent of its author,
and its author’s intent.
Conservative
Moderate
Radical
The aim of interpretation is to reproduce the meaning of intention of the author made
possible by 1) reader’s ability to break out of own historical epoch, and 2) ability to
transcend historical limitations altogether to reach universal, or at least, objective truth.
Key thinkers: Schleirmacher, Dilthey, Betti, Hirsch.
Complete objective interpretation not possible because, as readers, we are conditioned
by prejudices of our own historical existence. Prejudices embedded in language which
affects access to meaning. Some access possible through “fusion of horizons”,
dialogical conversation between text and reader. Key thinkers: Gadamer, Ricoeur.
Original meaning unattainable. Reading is a more a case of playing and dancing than
an application of method. Deconstructionist techniques play the text off against itself
to show that it is contingent and relative. Key thinkers: Nietzsche, Heidegger, Derrida,
Foucault.
(Gallagher, 1992)
Three components of Historical
Empathy – Lévesque
Lévesque (2008) argues that historical empathy encompasses three
interrelated concepts largely employed in the History discipline:
1.
Historical Imagination
2.
Contextualisation
3.
Judging the Past
Historical Imagination
In class
What is it?
We cannot avoid having to mentally recreate
– to imagine – what it was like to be in past
actors’ positions.

R.G. Collingwood’s “ship analogy”
If a ship docks at Port Melbourne, although we
didn’t see the ship, we know it must have
passed through The Rip and therefore can
(accurately?) imagine its crossing of Port
Phillip Bay.

Offer a rich base of historical
sources in multimodal formats to
facilitate re-enactment.

Use sources that allow students to
“feel” some of the messages
conveyed in the sources.

While the historical imagination can
be aroused by exposure to sources,
it is through the analysis and
evaluation of sources against each
other that historical imagination is
created.

From historical evidence, students are able to
recreate in their own minds the factors which
guided past actors’ actions This is historical
empathy.

Contextualisation
What is it?
If empathy is an imaginative construction
of the past based on evidence, then the
thoughts of past actors must be placed in the
specific social-spatial and temporal location
from which they emerged.

Contextualisation is an essential step in
evaluating evidence. For instance, Caesar
could not have had breakfast in Rome and
dinner in Gaul.
In class

Must establish chronological and
conceptual understanding at the
outset.

Primary sources must offer a variety
of viewpoints. Critical evaluation of
evidence to involve 1) identification;
2) attribution; 3) contextualisation;
4) corroboration.

Three elements
1) the personal (of the author)
2) the socio-cultural (author’s outer context)
3) the contemporary (positionality)


Pay attention to students’
positionality. Helps us appreciate the
“pastness” of the past and avoid
imposing our own frameworks on
interpretations
Judging the Past
What is it?
Most difficult and contentious aspect of
history teaching.

Confusion between sympathy and empathy
generated by simplistic imaginative
speculations in class, the typical “imagine
you are” activity which makes no historical
sense unless accompanied by extensive
evidence on and from inner and outer
sources.

Undeniable moral dimension to historical
empathy as we are required to assume some
perspective on what ought to be valued in
life.

In class
We must engage in a
“contextualisation of the present,” to
consider and examine our own belief
systems, implicit/explicit assumptions
about human life, technology, progress,
i.e. what ought to be valued in life.

Establish the contextualised morality
of predecessors’ actions, not so much to
accept or reject it, but to gain a
sophisticated understanding of why
people acted the way they did, e.g.
On what grounds and from what reenactable evidence is Hitler evil?

Historical Empathy=
Doing the Discipline
According to this model, doing historical empathy is
doing the History discipline. It involves:
employing the procedural concepts of historical imagination,
contextualisation and judging the past, all based on the analysis
and evaluation of evidence.

a cognitive approach over an affective approach. Empathy
exercises emphasise historical dilemmas and contrasts between
past and present. Sympathising with past actors is not a sought
end, however may occur during and as a consequence of the
process.

Six Essential Qualities of Historical
Empathy – Foster
Stuart Foster (1999) believes that historical empathy incorporates
six essential qualities:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
Understanding why people acted the way they did
Appreciation of context & chronology
Analysis & evaluation of historical evidence
Appreciation for the consequences of actions
Ability to differentiate past & present
Respect for complexity of human action & achievement
Sample Unit
The dilemma: Why Did British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain
Appease Hitler in 1938?
Steps:
1.
Context and Chronology
a.
Essential Background Knowledge
Before students can address the central question, they must have
contextual and chronological knowledge of the period.
– Appendix 1: German foreign policy in the 1930s, key events
b.
Group Research of Historical Context
To understand background to appeasement, students must research
important contextual information.
– Appendix 2: Working in teams of five, students find out about one of the
topics listed. Present findings either as written report or presentation.
2.
Introduce Historical Evidence
a.
Student Investigation of Historical Sources
Essential to historical empathy is that students actively analyse and evaluate
historical evidence related to the dilemma.
– Appendix 3: Divide class into groups, one member to record the group’s
decisions. The group should discuss each source (1–21) and decide whether
it supports Chamberlain’s decision to appease Hitler, opposes it, or is
indifferent. Mark the group’s collective decision next to each source
class discussion.
Some teachers may want to extend this by requiring the class to go beyond
the provided sources.
Group Evaluation: Reasons for and against Chamberlain’s Policy
of Appeasement.
Now that the class has acquired an informed understanding of the events, the
students need to evaluate Chamberlain’s policy.
students reassemble in their original groups (1.b) and, using the
evidence gathered, decide on the five strongest arguments for and five
strongest arguments against Chamberlain’s decision to follow a policy of
appeasement. Arguments to be presented supported by historical evidence.
The whole class should discuss each group’s decision.
b.
3.
Construct an Argument to Support Conclusions (final)
Students individually construct a report, persuasive essay, oral
presentation in response to the dilemma: Why Did British Prime
Minister Neville Chamberlain Appease Hitler in 1938?
All students have now acquired an understanding of the key arguments.
Because individual students were actively involved in the historical
dilemma and their understanding of the period was structured in an
accessible and meaningful way, they are more able to undertake the
difficult task of evaluating Chamberlain’s actions.
HISTORICAL EMPATHY
Unit and materials adapted from Foster, 1999
Lesson critique
Historical empathy: understanding why people in the past acted
the way they did, doing the discipline.
What we did
Link to Historical Empathy
References
Foster, Stuart .(1999). “Using Historical Empathy to Excite Students about the Study of
History: Can You Empathise with Neville Chamberlain?” The Social Studies, Jan/Feb.
Gallagher, Shaun. (1992). Hermeneutics and Education. New York, State University of New
York Press.
Hamilton, Paul. (2007). Historicism. New York, Routledge/
“History and Empathy: Seminar notes 2008. Prepared by M. Leckey, University of
Melbourne.”
Lee, Peter. (1991). “Historical Knowledge and the National Curriculum” in Aldrich, Richard
(ed.). History in the National Curriculum. London, University of London.
Lévesque, Stéphane. (2008). Thinking Historically: educating students for the 21st century .
Toronto, University of Toronto Press.