Benchmarks of Historical Thinking

Vincent Martin                                    
       

1. Benchmarks of Historical Thinking
http://www.histori.ca/benchmarks/

Questions:
What should students know after 12 years of studying history in school? What should they be able to do with their knowledge? Surely they should have more than an accumulation of memorized facts to show for years of study?
Mandate:
The Benchmarks Project combines the research of historians and educators with the experience and skills of classroom teachers to create practical ways of encouraging, promoting, and assessing students' historical thinking in classroom settings.
Benchmarks aims to provide social studies departments, local boards, provincial ministries of education, publishers and public history agencies with models of more meaningful history assessment, teaching, and learning for their students and audiences.
Current Projects:

Benchmarks is currently focussed on advancing the cause of Social Studies as a discipline of inquiry rather than a discipline devoted to the transmission of fact.

For instance Dr. Carla Peck - a member of the Benchmarks Project Executive Steering Committee - recently received the Canadian Education Association's Pat Clifford Award for Early Career Research in Education. Dr. Peck's work addressed the following question: in what ways, and to what extent, do students' ethnic identities influence their perceptions of Canadian history? Thus Dr. Peck, like Benchmarks, focused her work on an analysis of the link between individual Canadian students and the curriculum they are taught. 

Links to My Teaching:

The Benchmarks project provides educators of Canadian history an excellent resource on concepts of historical thinking and provides a toolkit for teaching Canadian history. My job as a teacher will be to find ways to connect these concepts (historical significance, primary source evidence, continuity and change, cause and consequence, historical perspectives, and ethical interpretations) with tools for practical teaching (lesson plans, documents, photographs, websites, literature etc).


Affiliated Partners:

"    The History Education Network/Histoire et Éducation en Réseau (THEN/HiER)
"    Canada's History
"    CBC News in Review
"    Centre for the Study of Historical Consciousness
"    Library and Archives Canada
"    Canadians and Their Pasts
Funding:
The Government of Canada (through the Department of Canadian Heritage's Canadian Studies Program).
2. Example of an Association Resource:

In "What I did During my Summer Vacation," published in the Ottawa Tribune on August 31st 2010, Barbara Brockmann - a grade six teacher from Ontario - discussed the difficulties she faced in connecting all members of her classroom to concepts of Canadian history and culture. Brockmann agreed with University of British Columbia Professor Peter Sexias, when she argued that the teaching of Social Studies has become too fact driven, as teachers were pressured to cram content from large time periods into single courses.

To better engage students in her classes, Brockmann encouraged her students to find connections between historic events and their own lives. For Brockmann, if Elementary schools began the process of shaping concepts of Canadian history and culture at a young age, by the time students reached Secondary school they would be much better prepared to question narratives of Social Studies which may be exclusive. By problematizing Canadian history, students would be prepared to seek out a more inclusive picture of Canadian history.

http://www.histori.ca/benchmarks/sites/default/files/Benchmarks_OttawaCitizen.PDF

3. Pedagogical Example

To better connect my students with the concept of Canadian culture and history I could have them trace their family's journey to Canada. Students would investigate their family's past by creating a family tree, interviewing members of their extended families, or researching the history of a community in an area (ex: the development of Chinatown in Vancouver or the construction of the Croatian Cultural Centre).