Teaching Historical Empathy Isn’t Soft

I had a student once—quiet, sharp, the kind who aces every quiz but freezes the moment class turns into a discussion. One day, we were doing a simulation on life in the Jim Crow South, and I asked the class a simple but loaded question: “Would you speak up if it meant risking everything?”

She shifted in her seat, looked around, and said softly, “I don’t think we should be talking about this stuff in school.”

I asked her why.

“Because it’s just opinions. Shouldn’t we be learning the facts?”

That moment stuck with me. Because she wasn’t trying to shut down the conversation—she was uncomfortable. And honestly? That’s a fair reaction. History is uncomfortable. It's full of conflict, injustice, and perspectives that clash with what we want to believe. But if we stop at just the facts, we miss the entire point.

One of the most poignant moments was when I ran a simulation about Germany in the 1930s. The essential question was: How could millions of ordinary people vote for Hitler, support his policies, or stay silent while their neighbors were targeted? Of course, I saved that question until the end.

To help students engage without being influenced by historical associations, I set the activity in a fictional country. Instead of Jews, Slavs, and Roma, we used a made-up group called the “Virelians.” Students played the role of ordinary citizens deciding whether to support, oppose, or stay quiet about new government policies: curfews, employment bans, loyalty oaths, increased surveillance. All framed in carefully vague, bureaucratic language—just like they were in the real 1930s.

What happened next was both chilling and revealing.

Students—kind, socially aware, thoughtful teenagers—began rationalizing these laws. “It’s just a curfew,” one said. “If they’re not doing anything wrong, why should it matter?” Another pointed out that the measures “weren’t targeting everyone—just the ones who might be criminals.” They were stunned to realize how quickly they had slipped into compliance, how easy it was to normalize oppression when it was wrapped in the language of safety and order.

And when we paused and connected the dots to actual history, the silence was heavy. They saw how it happened. Not because they read it in a textbook—but because, for a moment, they lived it.

Historical empathy doesn’t mean teaching students to hate the present. It means understanding how real people—ordinary people—got caught up in systems, movements, and decisions with far-reaching consequences. It helps students hold two ideas at once: that someone can be wrong and still be human. That the worst chapters of history were written not just by monsters, but by neighbors and friends.

This is why I use debates, primary sources, and storytelling. It’s one thing to say that Loyalists didn’t support the American Revolution. It’s another to be one in a classroom debate, defending your livelihood, your family’s safety, and your identity in a colony falling apart. Or to read Sojourner Truth’s speech out loud and realize—halfway through—that her words don’t feel 200 years old. They feel like they could’ve been spoken yesterday.

Teaching historical empathy isn’t fluffy. It’s not a break from “the real work.” It is the real work. Because the facts will fade—but the moment a student feels the weight of a choice, the tension in a time period, the complexity behind a decision—that’s what sticks.

Teaching historical empathy isn’t fluffy. It’s not a break from “the real work.” It is the real work. Because the facts will fade—but the moment a student feels the weight of a choice, the tension in a time period, the complexity behind a decision—that’s what sticks.

And that’s not just good teaching—it’s the very purpose of history education: to help the next generation understand the past well enough to think critically, act ethically, and recognize the warning signs when they start to see them again.