Teaching Trauma and Empathy in primary school: investigating candidate teachers' views

Abstract

A modern direction on history teaching proposes the approach of traumatic/controversial events, which have been deliberately in oblivion for years. These historical issues appear to be a fertile ground for cultivating critical thinking, primarily through educational tools aimed at "historical empathy". Therefore, the present research aims to study prospective teachers' views on teaching "traumatic" historical events through the utilization of "historical empathy". The results were extracted from the data obtained through the collection of pre-test and post-test questionnaires and the conduct of interviews, then categorized and interpreted. The research findings highlight a substantial deepening in the content of the concepts mentioned above, as well as the positive attitude and willingness of potential teachers to approach "traumatic" events through "historical empathy".