"Checking out" a book at tHE HUMAN LIBRARY

While reading Teaching Historical Thinking, from the book Challenges & Prospects for Canadian Social Studies, Sears and Write outline 6 elements of historical thinking. These 6 elements include:

1. Significance
2. Epistemology and Evidence
3. Continuity and Change
4. Progress and Decline
5. Empathy and Moral Judgment and 
6. Historical Agency

All 6 elements have significant concepts which would add more depth to why our students today should dig deeper into history. However, I would like to focus particularly on the concept of empathy. 
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According to Sears and Write, 'Empathy, or historical perspective-taking, is not, in this context, an affective achievement. Rather it is the ability to see and understand the world from a perspective not our own. In that sense, it requires "imagining" ourselves into the position of another.' (Sears & Write, 113) I feel there needs to be a greater level of 'engagement', if we are to increase awareness in a historical perspective that there is a high level of authenticity and recognition that needs to be demonstrated or experienced.

Empathy, I feel, is a deeper feeling. In some cases, one could say to truly be empathetic you yourself need to experience what the other person is going through. I feel, in some cases, people misuse the term empathy. 'Imagining' something is very different than if someone was to experience an event.

Sears and Write further explaining that it is important that in order for this to be effective in our classroom, it's crucial that the 'imagining' must be based firmly on historical evidence if it is to have meaning. (Sears & Write, 113) According to psychiatrist N. Burton, a lot more needs to be done in order for individuals to be more engaged with how they feel to achieve empathy - as indicated in Fig. 1. 

How can this be done without being too superficial and to provide a more meaningful experience for our students?

Fig. 1: This infographic was designed by Robert Shelton, a psychologist in a Californian high school, after reading an article from Psychology Today. Click on the image to refer to the article.

Recent research has been done in the area of how to make history more 'doable'. Studies show that students are more adept at working with evidence orally, as opposed to providing written accounts. (Sears & Write, 114) ​So I went out on the world wide web to see whether there are projects out there that would allow our students to be in contact with the oral tradition of sharing ones experiences.
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I came across 'The Human Library'. The Human Library is a project that was established in Denmark over 15 years ago. It is an initiative which is run by the library and you 'check out' a person based on their experiences. As a teacher, you would need to organise this to be age and theme appropriate dependant on your students. If this event was not hosted at your local library it could be organised through your parent community and even an opportunity for students to share a moment or memory they had experienced, which relates back to the historical event. It's a great way to connect the classroom with it's greater community, which could allow students to go beyond acknowledging but to feel and sense the experiences first hand.

I am yet to try this strategy myself. However, as  an IB Theory of Knowledge teacher for Grade 11 and 12, students could engage in dialogue first hand, challenge their underlining biases through a different perspective. With the appropriate follow up, in my opinion, this could be an opportunity for students to gain greater 'engagement', which would in turn give students the chance to 'feel' what others are going through or have gone through increasing their empathy towards others.

Do you know of any other strategies that have worked for you?

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Click on this image to visit the organisation's website for more details.

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