Learning Canadian History

Learning Canadian history, and history in general, requires a certain amount of ones own perspective and interpretation. This history course was the first one I had taken in university so besides engaging in social studies at a high school level I had little to no experience with historical analysis. It may be my own understanding of the program but by the end of high school what I had learned from social studies was vastly different than what I have encountered from studying history this semester. Previous to a post-secondary education students are told what history is; they are expected to memorize various dates and understand the importance of the subject. The importance as I understood it was singular, history is vital to comprehend as it is an examination of us as people, a civilization, and when we come to understand our past we can create a better future. To some extent I believe this to still be true but there are many more considerations to be included in our definition of what history is and how we should “do it.” It’s hard to think at this point in time that I did not stop to consider the factors of history that are not necessarily prevalent in our education system, however valuable they may be. These include taking into consideration how history is recorded; how does the historian or journalists point of view determine the accuracy of their research and what bias’ must we take into account when analyzing their work? A process which seems so obvious was, to a large degree, foreign to me. With this realization the articles assigned to us over the duration of this course become more dimensional and, if not always, more interesting. The focus of my eportfolio will be on my discovery of this lens, its use within history and how it has come to effect my way of thinking within the subject of history and beyond.

The first piece of evidence I will use to display my evolution of thinking historically (and otherwise) comes from our first class this semester. When asked “what is history and how do you do it” we wrote down our initial answers, my reply was as follows:

History is the collection/record of past events, something that we as people use to learn from, a tool that helps us make corrections aimed at developing a better future. You do it by observing, listening and experiencing.

In our last reading log we were asked the same question only this time my response differed drastically. This response and further evidence can be found in my page titled “My Evolution of Historical Thinking.”