While completing my master’s degree last year, I was introduced to the term “authentic education.” The term stems, in part, from the idea that to provide an education that is both meaningful to our students and reflective of real world demands, our curriculum must be rigorous and relevant. This educational approach also demands that students build a personal relationship with all aspects of their education.
This methodology allows students to establish a sense of ownership over their educational experience. Although Social Studies lends itself to the authentic approach, there are challenges. Fostering this historical relationship, or historical empathy, is key in allowing 21st century students to appreciate the role that history plays in influencing today’s society.
Bring History Alive
The idea of creating historical empathy between modern teenagers and people from the past is always challenging in a Social Studies classroom, but it is a challenge that must be addressed in order to bring history alive. One way to help establish historical empathy is to break down a specific historical context into smaller parts, such as technology, age-specific workload, or even personal visions of the future. If present-day students realize that their historical counterparts struggled with the same personal issues they do, empathy and relationship-building with the curricular content can ensue.
Authentic education may allow a student bathed in 21st century technology to understand how the coming of the railway impacted information transmission in a similar way that real-time webcams are impacting information transmission today. Establishing historical empathy also allows students to realize that every generation lives and deals with personal and societal uncertainties, and that history can help them understand their present context.
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