Empathy advocates
Denis Shemilt, (perhaps slightly
floridly?), describes empathy as "The divine wind that breathes life into the
dry bones of the past, turns dust to flesh and inspires pupils to commune with
their predecessors."
Shemilt, D. (1984) Beauty and the
philosopher: empathy in history and classroom, in A. Dickinson, P. Lee and P..
Rogers (eds) Learning History, Oxford, Heinemann: p. 39)
(Pupils) "need to be able to reconstruct
historical situations from the viewpoints of people living at the time if they
are to make informed judgements about why people took or did not take
particular courses of action. Such reconstructions must be based on evidence-
they should not be uncontrolled flights of the imagingation."
HMI, (1988) History from 5-16, London,
HMSO.
"Historical empathy should be part of the
learning of all pupils across the whole age and ability range.. activities
might pose the question, for example, why William of Normandy still decided to
cross the channel in the autumn of 1066, despite the threat of equinoctial
gales, knowing that he might face a powerful and effective Saxon army but
unaware of its forced march from the North."
HMI, (1985) History in the Primary and
Secondary Years: an HMI view, London, DES, p. 3.
"What sort of achievement is empathy?
Entertaining the beliefs, goals, and values of other people or- insofar as one
can talk in this way-of other societies- is a difficult intellectual
achievement. It is difficult because it means holding in mind whole structures
of ideas which are not one's own, and with which one may profoundly disagree.
And not just holding them in mind as inert knowledge, but being in a position
to work with them in order to expalin and understand what people dod in the
past. All this is hard because it requires a high level of
thinking."
Lee. P. and Ashby, R. (1987) Children's
concepts of empathy and understanding in history, in C. Portal, (Ed.) The
History Curriculum for Teachers, Lewes, Falmer.
"Most American history text books regard
Chamberlain and his policy of appeasement as abject failures. Hitler, textbooks
commonly argue, was not deterred by Chamberlain's policy, and as a result of
its apparent failure, nations across the globe were plunged into the world's
most destructive war. Unfortunately, those making that analysis of the events
in prewar Europe deny the complexity of the situation and, more pertinently,
fail to consider the options available to Chamberlain and the sociopolitical
context in which he operated. To hlp students to understand those events of 60
years ago, teachers can use the model lessons to present their students with a
historical dilemma. The lessons require students to empathise with Chamberlain
and to understand and appreciate his actions and the context that shaped them.
Ultimately, after students are drawn closer to the events of the age, they are
required to give thoughtful evaluation to Chamberlain's policy."
Foster, S. (1999) Using historical empathy to
excite students about the study of history: can you empathise with Neville
Chamberlain?, Social Studies, Jan/Feb 1999, p. 18.
The fetishization of dates, a
leitmotiv in the criticism of the ‘New History’, privileges great events
and foregrounds the state at the expense of civil society, elevating public
over private lives. It puts a premium on that age old stand by of the crib
books – the ‘turning point’ or ‘water-shed’. It devalues, or ignores
entirely, those more molecular processes in which domestic life and personal
identities are shaped...
…the starting point of the ‘new
history’ – a ‘skills’ approach based on the critical reading of
documents and original materials – is one which the research historian is
likely to find sympathetic. It focuses, in a way history has often failed to
do, on subjectivity – or what the Annales school in France calls mentalités;
and it has a place for the kind of subject, e.g.
seventeenth-century witchcraft, which the finest modern scholarship has opened
up to historical enquiry. It leaves space, as any child’s history should –
in a country where Dickens is favourite reading and Hogarth a father of
national art – for the comic and the grotesque. In terms of examination, the
desire to test children on what they can find out rather than on what they can
remember seems admirable.
On Empathy and ‘History from
below’ in the classroom from ‘History’s Battle for a New Past’, The
Guardian 21 January 1989 by Raphael Samuel. Island
Stories, Unravelling Britain
Theatres of Memory, Volume II p. 198
An example of an
empathy exercise
Back to Empathy
homepage
Back to History
PGCE
|
