Tag Archives: Historical Thinking

Thanking God for … ? Historical Perspectives on Cultural Appropriation

By Andrew Nurse Recently, a friend sent me yet another of those commentaries-cum-news-stories discussing the merits and demerits (although, the piece had precious few of these) of cultural appropriation. In short, the piece decried critics of cultural appropriation, which it treated as something of a leftist fantasy. I, more-or-less, ignored it, not because the issue is unimportant but because I’d… Read more »

Fake News, Global History Wars, and the Importance of Historical Thinking

By Thomas Peace In the last week we’ve seen a strong desire to put an end to “Fake News”. With the rise of social media and increasingly savvy revenue generating fake news sites, this is an important intervention (the dangers of which Alan MacEachern addressed here last week). It is, however, misleading to assign blame for Donald Trump’s rise to… Read more »

Reports from New Directions in Active History: Pathways to Active Historical Engagement in High Schools

One of my favourites, asks students to consider “what Canadian stories are NOT worth telling in our Museums?” Responding to a question such as this move students from traditional narratives into the ethical dimension, while also demanding attention to the Historical Thinking Concepts.

Teaching History: Historical Consciousness and Quebec’s Youth

By Jocelyn Létourneau Translated by Thomas Peace On peut lire la version française ici Who was the first Premier of Quebec? In what year did the asbestos strike take place? What was the pivotal moment in the Quiet Revolution? Very few young people in Quebec can answer these three questions correctly. In trying to address this problem, scholars and pundits have… Read more »

History Slam Episode Thirty-Six: Historical Thinking and Teaching History

https://activehistory.ca/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/HIstorical-Thinking-Final.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | DownloadBy Sean Graham As part of Active History’s Historical Thinking Week, the History Slam Podcast looked into how history is taught in high school. To do this, I traveled to an Ontario high school and spoke with both students and teachers about the challenges of teaching history in 2014 and some of the strategies… Read more »

Is our conception of history education “evolving” or is today’s focus simply a historical trend once again in vogue?

This is the first of four blog posts originally posted on THEN/HiER’s Teaching the Past blog reviewing the edited collection New Possibilities for the Past: Shaping History Education in Canada (UBC Press) and responding to the question: “Is our conception of history education “evolving” or is today’s focus simply a historical trend once again in vogue?”