In an increasingly fractured social, cultural, and political landscape, the significance of history as a discipline is clearer now more than ever. It is important because understanding the weight and reality of the past can help us realize the relevance of skills as citizens and humanize and unite society in ways other fields cannot (Wineburg, 1999). Far beyond Santayana’s saying that those who neglect or ignore history are “doomed to repeat it,’ historical thinking offers a pedagogical model for helping students navigate the complexities of historical narratives (Fournier & Wineburg, 1997; Middendorf, King & Lincoln). To achieve these goals, educators must move beyond the status quo, which leaves students with surface knowledge and underdeveloped reasoning skills, to inquiry-based practices (McBrady, 2022; Santos, 2022; Wineburg, Smith & Breakstone, 2018).

The struggle educators face in teaching history is straddling the gap between being content experts and working with students they assume have greater foundational knowledge of history (Middendorf, King & Lincoln). Instead, students are not only novices but also arrive in the classroom with the false belief that their lived experiences are sufficient to understand and interpret the past (Wineburg, 1999). As a result, students taking history classes become passive learners and fail to develop epistemological skills for historical inquiry, demonstrate inadequate reasoning skills when analyzing historical sources, and let cultural biases shape their understanding of the past and the future (Fournier & Wineburg, 1997; Wineburg, 1992; Wineburg, 2018).

To eliminate these barriers, scholarship in teaching and learning suggests that history educators learn to decode the discipline, recognizing historical thinking as an “unnatural act” for students, given the above-mentioned challenges  (Middendorf, King & Lincoln; Wineburg, 1999). This process requires that educators identify specific “bottlenecks”, or hurdles educators need to fully address since they impede student learning (Middendorf, King & Lincoln; Wineburg, 1999). Educators model the steps for working through processing challenges, then plan and assess opportunities for students to practice these skills (McBrady, 2022; Middendorf, King & Lincoln; Wineburg, 1999). The learning process shifts from students seeking answers to students investigating and cultivating a sense of puzzlement as they engage with historical topics, formulate questions, and offer solutions (Santos, 2022). By examining primary sources through the lens of “uncomfortable strangeness,” students actively create meaning rather than passively receive it (Wineburg, 1999).

When students are taught to connect history to the present day, they are more likely to understand the challenges they face today. When students consider questions about how we want to live versus how we are living, they can use history as a source of reflection for the answers to these questions (Calder).