THE MEDIUM – FALL

Jill Colyer National Coordinator of The History Project

www.historicalthinking.ca jillcolyer@rogers.com

Historical Thinking Project: Changing the Way History is Taught in Canada

Saskatchewan School Library Association

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Historical Thinking Project: Changing the Way History is Taught in Canada

Saskatchewan School Library Association

Across Canada, history is – for the most part – taught the same way it has been since public education began. Definitely, teachers today focus on the needs of the learner in a diverse classroom. Teachers differentiate tasks and/or assessments based on the ability level of the students in their classrooms and they use engaging, student-friendly activities whenever possible.

Despite these activities, history remains a subject that involves the transmission of large amounts of information from the teacher to the students. That information then has to be repeated back to the teacher on unit tests or on final exams. This results in poor retention of information, and subsequently, Canadian students and Canadians in general, do not know much about Canadian history. It also leads to claims that Canadians do not care about their history. But those of us working in history education know this is not the case. It is not that young Canadians do not care about history, or their country. They just do not care about history class or history lessons.

Receiving information, memorizing it, and regurgitating it on tests not only results in poor retention, it also does not reflect the needs of 21st century learners. Students today need to be critical thinkers who can wrestle with determinations of historical significance, weigh evidence, consider historical-perspectives, and grapple with ethical dimensions of history. They need to understand that major events result from a myriad of causes, and that those same events have both intended and unintended consequences. They also can find comfort in the fact that although life can seem at times to constantly be about change, there are also continuities across history and in their own lives.

The Historical Thinking Project was designed to foster a new approach to history education — with the potential to shift how teachers teach and how students learn, in line with recent international research on history learning. It revolves around the proposition that historical thinking — like scientific thinking in science instruction and mathematical thinking in math instruction — is central to history instruction and that students should become more competent as historical thinkers as they progress through their schooling.

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The project has developed a framework of six historical thinking concepts to provide a way of communicating complex ideas to a broad and varied audience of potential users. These six historical thinking concepts are:

• Establishing Historical Significance • Using Primary Source Evidence • Identifying Continuity and Change • Analyzing Cause and Consequence • Taking Historical Perspectives, and • Understanding Ethical Dimensions of History

The four-year-old The Historical Thinking Project – funded by the Department of Canadian Heritage (Canadian Studies Program) and The History Education Network/Histoire et éducation en réseau (THEN/HiER) – has been working with Ministries of Education across the country to integrate historical thinking into history and social science curricula.

To date, these concepts have been recognized in Manitoba, Ontario, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island, and Saskatchewan. As well, in September of 2012, the BC Ministry of Education announced that revisions to its History and Social Studies curriculum would be based around conceptual thinking.

Members of The HT Project have been working with elementary and secondary teachers across the country who are interested in integrating historical thinking into their classrooms in a systematic way. Collaborations have also occurred with museums, cultural centres, post-secondary institutions, provincial Heritage Fair associations, library associations, and history and heritage organizations.

The Historical Thinking Project website outlines the historical thinking framework and concepts, contains free classroom lessons and assessment tools, and houses documents on the research behind historical thinking. Soon, the site will host a “How To” blog by educators who are outlining their own experiences about integrating historical thinking into their classrooms.

We are excited by the excellent work being done in classrooms and other education settings across the country. We seek opportunities to collaborate with other education organizations and divisions to build additional momentum for this exciting change in history education.