Developing a historical perspective helps children to answer questions like:
Who am I?
What happened in the past?
How am I connected to those in the past?
How has the world changed and how might it change in the future?
How do our personal stories reflect varying points of view to inform contemporary ideas and actions?
(NCSS, 1994b, p. 22).
In kindergarden children begin to solve questions about the community or school using pictures from past years. They also learn about the people with local buildings and streets are named after. In their school years, children will learn, chronological thinking, historical comprehension, historical analysis and interpretation, historical research capabilities, and historical issues analysis and discussion making. From 5th grade on students become able to be formal operational thinkers so they are able to analyze data into graphs, charts, graphic organizers. They are also able to reconstruct patterns of historical succession and duration. They are able to analyze cause and effect with multiple causes.
The Bradley Commissions states that learning history is "vital for all citizens in a democracy, because it provides the only avenue we have to reach an understanding of ourselves and of our society, in relation to the human condition over time, and how some things change and others continue" (Bradley Commission, 1987, p. 5). History helps children to develop cognitive skills.
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