EXPLORING HISTORICAL EMPATHY IN SECONDARY EDUCATION

This thesis sought to explore the purpose of teaching history, to define historical empathy, to discover if historical empathy is being taught in secondary public schools, and to see what methods of instruction teachers utilize. Research was done by conducting interviews of middle school and high school history teachers from different schools in the area. These interviews sought to find out if teachers could come up with their purpose for learning about history, if they could define historical empathy, and what methods they utilized to teach historical empathy. Some of the teachers were able to define historical empathy and gave specific examples that fit into three categories of instruction. The conclusion of this thesis stated that historical empathy should be used within secondary education classrooms to successfully meet the purposes of learning history.