Sara Karn Transcript

SARA KARN: When we think about the past, we often wonder about the people, their stories, their innermost thoughts and feelings, their hopes and dreams, their decisions and actions. In many cases our own identities and backgrounds shape our interest in particular historical actors and may even contribute to feeling a sense of connection with them. As a result, history can seem more meaningful to us in the present as we seek to better understand people in the past.

As we begin to learn more about historical actors such as those depicted in the photographs displayed here, we ask questions. How might the passengers aboard the SS Komagata Maru have thought they'd be received by Canada and Canadians upon their arrival in Vancouver in 1914? What were the lived experiences of environmental racism for Black Canadian children living in Africville during the 1960s? And what motivated Francis Pegahmagabow to enlist in the First World War? Or what motivated Viola Desmond to refuse to leave the "whites only" section of the movie theatre in New Glasgow?

In attempting to answer these questions and others like them, we may consider the wider context of the time, seek out sources that provide insight into diverse perspectives and experiences, and imagine possibilities for how historical actors may have thought and felt to fill in gaps in the evidence. And this process is sometimes referred to as historical empathy. But what exactly is historical empathy? Well, there's a few ways that I think about it which has been informed by the work of other scholars, my conversations with other researchers and history teachers as part of my research, as well as my own teaching experience.

Historical empathy can be viewed as a process of attempting to understand the thoughts, feelings, experiences, decisions, and actions of historical actors within their specific historical contexts. And I'll make a particular emphasis here on empathizing with everyday people, including those that have been historically marginalized, and not just the more well-known historical figures.

Now at this point it might seem like historical empathy is just another way of saying historical perspectives, which is often a more commonly used term if you're familiar with the "big six" historical thinking concepts, for example. But historical empathy is different for a few reasons, the most important being that there's a focus on the affective dimensions, or the feelings, emotions, and connections that arise in the process of learning about the past. So historical empathy anticipates and engages these feelings and emotions both within the learner and within historical actors.

Another aspect of historical empathy is that it has significant implications for the present beyond simply understanding history better. Although of course understanding history is one of many important outcomes, there's also potential for historical empathy to help us better understand other people in the present, and I promote a relational form of empathy that involves encountering the stories of other people, being attentive and having an open mind, and being willing to reconsider our own values and assumptions in light of these encounters.

Another part of this process involves developing a better understanding of oneself through reflection and consideration for how our identities and worldviews shape how we think about and respond to learning about the past. In this way, historical empathy is a relational process that bridges the past and present and is connected to everyday forms of empathy that we might be more familiar with.

This diagram represents how I think about historical empathy. My theory includes five elements: evidence and contextualization, informed historical imagination, historical perspectives, ethical judgments, and caring. I suggest that a powerful pedagogical approach to historical empathy across various educational contexts includes all five of these elements and integrates their cognitive and affective dimensions because thinking and feeling are closely intertwined as part of the learning process. It's important to keep this in mind because often there are concerns about feelings and emotions getting in the way of being able to look at history rationally and objectively, but feelings and emotions are going to arise, so rather than trying to avoid them or pretending they don't exist, I propose that we try to understand them better and consider ways to effectively engage them. So let's take a closer look at each element.

Empathizing with people in the past requires two closely related tasks: analyzing evidence and considering historical context. This involves gathering sufficient background information about historical events, people, and concepts, and considering a range of primary and secondary sources that highlight various historical perspectives. In particular, it's important that we shift away from exclusively westernized thinking about historical evidence to also include oral histories, land-based learning, and artifacts. For example, we might consider this covenant chain wampum belt as a way of better understanding how Indigenous Nations involved in the Niagara Treaty of 1764 viewed Treaty relationships and obligations.

Applying what I call an informed historical imagination can help improve our understanding of and engagement with history, especially when we don't have explicit traces of historical actors, views, and feelings. This involves inferring details using available information because often evidence may be lacking or contradictory we can consider a range of possibilities that could account for the thoughts, feelings, values, actions, or decisions of historic figures or generating different scenarios and evaluating their plausibility within a given historical context. Rich storytelling is one way of engaging the imagination. For example, through historical fiction, such as the Dear Canada series for children, which combines evidence and imagination to tell compelling stories about the past.

Understanding historical perspectives is another key part of historical empathy as it involves inferring historical actors’ thoughts and feelings to better understand the past. Considering diverse and multiple perspectives can help us understand just how many factors and emotions can influence the process of forming ideas, making decisions, and acting upon them. Historical figures did not always apply logic or reason when making decisions, so the affective elements of historical empathy allow us to imagine the emotions and feelings that motivated people to act in certain ways.

And often we do this by considering what we know about emotions in the present, but we have to be careful with this too because emotions have been experienced differently over time. We also need to be aware of whose voices are missing and marginalized in historical accounts and seek out evidence to access those voices too whenever possible.

But it's not enough to simply understand historical perspectives. Historical empathy also involves making ethical judgments about what transpired in the past and often it's not as black and white as the right and wrong depicted here on this slide. We can uncover the values and norms of a particular period to make fair judgments about historical actors’ values, decisions, and actions based on past and contemporary worldviews. At the same time, we can critically assess how our beliefs and assumptions in the present contribute to the judgments we make about the past, and it's important to keep in mind that while we inherit the legacies of the past, those legacies don't need to define the present and future and we have agency in creating change moving forward. So there's a present- and future-oriented element to ethical judgments and that the judgments we make about the past can help us empathize with those around us in the present and make change for the future.

And the last of the five elements is caring. Now here I've adopted the four varieties of caring that history education researchers Keith Barton and Linda Levstik outlined. So: caring about people and events in the past, caring that particular events took place and developing ethical responses, caring for people in history who have suffered injustices or oppression and seeking retrospective justice, and caring to change our beliefs and behaviours in the present in light of studying the past. And we can make connections between caring for others in the past and the present to hopefully translate that care to others around us today.

Now as much as all this may sound like it's a useful approach for understanding others, it's also important to recognize that there are some real challenges that come along with historical empathy. First, it can be difficult to recognize the limits to what we can know about historical actors. So can we actually walk in the shoes or get inside the minds of people who lived in the past, or of people around us in the present for that matter? Historical empathy has faced critique surrounding the limitations of our ability to truly understand historical actors’ thoughts, actions, and decisions. And of course this difficulty arises due to the temporal separation or the gap of time between the past and the present.

A second challenge is related to some pretty common ways that we engage in learning history. For example, participating in a historical simulation or reading historical fiction. I found that one of the most contentious elements of historical empathy is the imagination, and there have been ongoing debates about the role imagination should play in teaching history. Some people believe that the imagination weakens historical interpretations which should always be grounded in verifiable facts. In fact, in my experience some people argue passionately for why empathy and imagination should not be connected because from their perspective that's not history, it's fiction.

But if you recall from my Five Elements diagram, I refer to an informed historical imagination which recognizes a balance between evidence, contextualization, and imagination. Of course this can be difficult, but as long as there's a conscious awareness of this balance, hopefully the imagination will be an informed one.

Another challenge involves distinguishing between empathy and sympathy. Empathy is aimed at attempting to understand others, whereas sympathy is about simply feeling bad for others. So empathy is really the more useful concept for history and it also avoids one of the dangers of sympathy, which is that feeling bad for someone else can lead to a sense of superiority over them, and this can be especially true in relation to history as the gap of time between the past and present may result in us holding simplified understandings of historical actors and their values and behaviours. Despite these challenges I do think that there are significant possibilities for historical empathy to support learning about the past while building skills and dispositions that help people empathize with others in the present.

So I'll start here by saying that in the process of making a concerted effort to understand historical actors’ feelings, we can gain a better picture of why people in the past were motivated to act in certain ways or how they responded emotionally to the historical events and circumstances they were part of. That's a really important possibility of historical empathy in understanding the past.

Now I'll conclude by exploring some of the possibilities for the present. The first is that historical empathy can help us become more open-minded to other people and their world views even when they diverge significantly from our own. The process of listening to someone sharing their stories may help us confront the misconceptions we often have about others and therefore can foster better relations between people and communities.

Another significant possibility is related to the affective dimensions of historical empathy. So in attempting to understand how people in the past were motivated by their emotions to make certain decisions or take actions we can develop the capacity to interact with others in the present in ways that are sensitive to their affective responses and may be more conducive to getting along with people from different backgrounds.

And the last possibility here, which is sort of a culmination of the other two, is that historical empathy can build the competencies and dispositions required to make a difference in the present. This might involve reflecting on and changing our own values perspectives and assumptions, and it can also result in taking action and exercising our own agency in the present as we learn about the historical legacies of present-day issues. So I hope this gives you a sense of some of the potential historical empathy holds for building historical understanding, encouraging civic engagement, and fostering better relations.