This Teacher’s Journal: Blog Post 5 | February 21, 2025
Teaching history should never be about memorising the past—it should be about making sense of it, questioning it, and recognising its unfinished work. This belief underpins my approach to history pedagogy, where history is not just something to be studied but something to be acted upon. The study of history must be future- oriented.
This week, my Year 9 students reminded me exactly why this matters.
From 1789 to Today: The Henin Etching and Modern Power Structures
The classroom looked different on Monday morning when my year 9 (full year History) class entered the room . The desks had been rearranged, and on the side wall of the room, a laminated thematic timeline provided a visual anchor for discussion. (See The Scrapbook | February 21, 2025.) It was a deliberate shift, designed to move students away from passive learning and into historical interpretation.
The provocation for our lesson was a previous activity in which students had interrogated and analysed Michel Henin’s 1789 political etching, We May Hope That It Will Soon Be Over. The students had already collaboratively engaged with this source before (see The Scrapbook | February 16, 2025), but today, the focus was different. After examining their collaboratively constructed class timeline – an exercise on sequencing and chronology but also in identifying themes, causes and effects, and unlocking possible historical significance – the students engaged in a process of ‘sense-making’ with a future orientation. They were challenged to consider:
- What do the power dynamics in this image tell us about 1789?
- Do these dynamics still exist today?
- If so, how does that shape our own role in society?
It didn’t take long for the connections to emerge.
One student pointed out that Henin’s depiction of the nobility and clergy crushing the Third Estate could just as easily be redrawn as the privileged and wealthy (often with their origins in the educated middle classes – the bourgeoisie) of the modern world exploiting or oppressing ‘classes’ of vulnerable and less privileged people (perhaps migrant workers, perhaps in less developed countries – students were not slow to identify specific groups!). One student suggested that the artwork of Henin could well be drawn as the maga-wealthy and powerful (such as Musk and Trump) – what some in politics today might refer to as ‘the 1%’ riding on the backs of the wider population. They were quick to suggest that these super-privileged benefited from the use of fear, and structures of power and control. They quickly wanted to discuss the impacts that these elites have had on communities, individuals, and the environment. At times it was a challenge to simple contain the enthusiastic expression of observations. Notably it wasn’t long before some students flipped the perspective, recognising that they themselves, as middle-class, privileged students in a private school, might also be positioned in today’s system as beneficiaries of power and privilege. As teacher, my role in these discussions was to elicit, to prompt, to be curious and to guide the students as they learnt to articulate ‘their voice’ as citizens. At times my role was to contain and direct the focus. To link back to our provocation and purpose. The lesson commenced as a sense-making session related to the causes, nature and consequences of a historically significant event and concluded as a powerful engagement with issues related to modern inequalities and systemic injustices. Students wondered who really holds power in today’s world – and what responsibilities come as part and parcel of the exercise of power.
These weren’t simply surface-level observations. The lesson represented a deep interrogation of historical structures, how they evolve, and how they persist. The class didn’t simply see history as something that happened – they saw it as something they are living within.
The final phases of the lesson were focused on a challenge to turn learning into action. Students were asked to consider:
So what? What do we do with this knowledge? What do we do next?
This question was premised on the view that when we acquire knowledge in history classes it should be put to a social melioristic purpose. This is the challenge for us challenge to ‘do more’ and to ‘be more’ as a result of the study of history. The challenge to move beyond classroom learning into community connection and to reparative and generative action.
Agency, Progress, and the Long Arc of Change
This challenge pushed the class conversation into something more profound. Students started to discuss their own place in these structures – not just as observers but as agents within history’s ongoing narrative.
I introduced the students Barack Obama’s idea that the path to progress “has never been smooth or steady … Progress doesn’t travel in a straight line.” Students were challenged to recognise that social change for the better is not a process of inevitable upward trajectory. They could see in their own lives, and within the events of the French Revolution, the complex and messy unevenness of moving to a ‘better world’. They could see that change happens in waves, with setbacks, and struggles, rather than in a straight line toward justice. They recognised that progress towards the creation of a ‘better world’ requires a commitment to values and action. It requires the development of agency.
Looking at their collaborative timeline, students saw 1789 not as a clean victory for democracy but as the beginning of a long, contested process – one that saw setbacks like the nightmarish dictatorship of the Reign of Terror and return of monarchism and oligarchy represented within Napoleon’s rise. BUT they also recognised that a human struggle continued that ultimately contributed to a broader shift towards human rights and democracy. As they discussed the continuing struggle students drew links to their own experience such as the musical Les Miserables*. They recognised that their own world was no different – progress isn’t inevitable; it’s something that has to be fought for. This requires a strong values base, a sense of purpose, the development of agency, and ultimately taking action
An exercise in hope
Rather than feeling powerless in their world, during this lesson, students were able to position themselves as heirs to the unfinished ideals of liberty, equality, and fraternity. They weren’t just learning about revolution – they were considering what it means to carry its legacy of commitment to liberty, equality, and community** (fraternity) forward. Teaching for hope is a significant goal in the holistic development of students. It represents an important goal in student wellbeing.
This Shouldn’t Be an “Every-Now-And-Then” Moment
Many teachers would call my experience a one-off classroom experience – a moment of connection, where students deeply engage with history on a personal level, that happens every so often. Pleasing and rewarding – but perhaps incidental or accidental – moments that emerge while the ‘real business’ of teaching is going on.
But I don’t believe these moments should be rare, incidental, or accidental. They are the real business of teaching. They are core to studying history in an AI-age.
These learning experiences are an expression of a form of pedagogy that embraces historical inquiry, flipped learning approaches, ad the use of technology to create outcomes that ‘do more’ and ‘are more’. This is an example of a pedagogy for teaching histoty that has social melioristic purpose, future-orientation, and agency-driven. It has the potential to be both generative and reparative. As such, it should be the foundation of how we teach.
Last minute thoughts…
- Best practice history pedagogy for the future cannot be about purchasing textbooks, licenses and platforms that simply deliver content and activities. AI can do these tasks! Teaching history in an AI age is about a process developing the essential humanity within us – teachers as well as students. It places the human, not the technology, at the centre. Technology may free us from some of the traditional constraints on how we teach and learn but it must not replace the deep and rich veins of human experience, connection, voice and agency.
- History pedagogy is also about more than historical thinking frameworks. The skills associated with syllabuses in history since the 1990s lay an important foundation for AI-age history teaching. They build upon an evolution of best practice. They remain a core part of best practice BUT they do not represent the totality of best practice. History pedagogy in an age of AI must amplify the human, enrich community, connection, teach for agency and action, and emphasise ethical reflection. The past must be linked to the present and future, helping students see history as ‘unfinished business’, as a call to action, as ongoing, not concluded. Students must see themselves not just as learners of history – as ‘doing history’ – but as ‘making history’.
This is exactly what my research on history pedagogy and student agency is about. The flipped classroom model, AI-assisted inquiry, and structured frameworks like ADAMANT aren’t just about efficiency or engagement. They are about giving students the tools to think critically, place themselves within historical narratives, and see themselves as agents of change.
This week’s lesson wasn’t just about the French Revolution. It was about what history does – and what we do with history.
And that’s the work that matters.
Notes:
* The musical (and novel by Victor Hugo) Les Miserables refers to the subsequent 1832 uprising in France. A member of the class had also previous drawn links to the French Revolution via LaFayette and Hamilton. This has generated some interesting conversations about the nature of ‘allyship’ which will be revisited when exploring the Tennis Court Oath. Opportunities will be made for showing clips from these musicals in coming weeks. These videos will not be shown for pure entertainment purposes. Both represent artists (Victor Hugo and Lin-Manuel Miranda) using their skills to take agency for justice and change in their world. As such they are models for action.
** In our class framing of ‘fraternity’, we have discussed it as not simply meaning ‘brotherhood’ which carries non-inclusive overtones but of meaning a sense of community connectedness and of ‘being in it together’ – of shared commitment, sacrifice, and responsibility to a greater community good. The social meliorism of Dewey perhaps?
Disrupted History 