Using perspective-taking…

…to teach history.

Hello all. Welcome to the 185th edition of TEPS Weekly!

Ms. Vani is a middle stage History teacher. Today, she is teaching the chapter The Colonial Era in India, and she plans to discuss the introduction of the railways. She begins with a familiar question: “What changed when railways were introduced in India?”

Many hands go up. One student says, “Trains helped people travel to faraway places!” Another adds, “Places that were far apart became easier to reach.” Someone else says, “Goods could be taken much farther now,” while another student points out, “It probably became easier to sell things in different markets.” Ms. Vani writes the responses on a board. Satisfied by her students' quick thinking, she concludes that topic and moves onto explaining the British goals for building the railway network. 

Before the students leave, she gives them a short exit question: “How did the introduction of railways change life in India?”

As the class ends, one student stays back and asks, “Ma’am, what happened to the people whose farms or villages were in the way of the railway lines?” 

Ms. Vani pauses. “Some people did lose land when railway lines were built,” she says, “but we’ll come back to that another time.” The question, however, stays with her.

Later that afternoon, she reads the exit slips.

Railways made travel faster. Railways connected different places. Goods could be transported over longer distances. Trade increased.

The answers are correct, but most of them are saying more or less the same thing. Her students know what the railways made possible, but they seem to be seeing the change from only one angle.

The student’s question comes back to her. Did the railway mean the same thing to everyone who was affected by it?

The next day, Ms. Vani returns to the topic. She does not begin by adding more facts. Instead, she decides to use the thinking routine, Circle of Viewpoints. She asks, “Who are some of the different people who might have been affected by the introduction of railways?” She asks each student to choose one of these viewpoints and think about the railway from that person’s position. Students suggest a trader, a student, a young worker, a railway worker, a farmer, and a colonial administrator. Ms. Vani writes their responses on the board.

Next, she instructs, “Choose one viewpoint. Share what you are thinking about from your chosen viewpoint.”

• One student shares, “I am thinking about the railway from the viewpoint of a trader. I think it would help me because I could send my goods to markets farther away.” 

• Another student chooses the farmer. “I think the railway could make things difficult for me if the tracks went through my land. I might lose a part of my farm. One question I have is, “What would happen to my family if we lost our land?” 

• Another student says, “I am thinking about the railway from the viewpoint of a colonial administrator. I think it would help us move people, goods and information across the country more easily.” 

• Other students take up the viewpoints of the student, young worker and railway worker.  

Ms. Vani then asks, “Why might each of these people see the railway differently?”

Students think about each person’s situation. What did they depend on? What might they have gained? What might they have lost? What would have mattered to them at the time?

She asks the class to compare two viewpoints. “How might the railway have looked different to a trader and a farmer?”

One student responds, “The trader might have seen new markets and more business, while the farmer might have worried about losing land.”

Ms. Vani asks, “So, what does this tell us about the changes brought by the railways?”

A student says, “The railways changed life in many ways, but the changes were not the same for everyone. Some people may have benefited, while others may have faced difficulties.”

They are still studying the same development. But now, they are looking at it through the experiences of different people. Their original question, “What did the railways change?” is becoming another one: “What did the railways change and for whom?” 

Looking beyond “What happened?”

Looking at different perspectives does not mean replacing historical facts with personal opinions. Students still need to know what happened. Perspective-taking helps them go one step further by asking how the same event may have been experienced differently by different people. In Ms. Vani’s lesson, this happens through a simple process: FACT → VOICE → CONTEXT → COMPARE → CONCLUDE. 

She begins with the fact, brings in different voices, helps students understand their context, asks them to compare those experiences and then encourages them to conclude what those differences help them understand.

FACT: The first step is familiar: “What happened?” Students need a clear understanding of the event before they can explore different experiences of it.

VOICE: From there, the teacher can ask, “Whose experience are we looking at?” Students can identify the different people or groups who may have experienced the event and choose one viewpoint to explore. This is also a useful moment to ask, “Whose voice is missing?” Students may notice that some voices are easier to find than others. People with greater power were often more likely to leave records, such as British administrators’ reports, while other experiences may be harder to trace, such as those of farmers who lost land. A missing voice does not mean students should invent what somebody thought. Instead, they can draw connections with familiar changes happening today, such as the construction of metro lines or new malls in place of forests or residential areas, and think about how similar developments may have affected people in the past. These connections can help them ask questions about missing experiences without assuming that people in the past felt or reacted in exactly the same way.

CONTEXT: Context matters for the same reason. It is not enough to say, “Let us look at this from a farmer’s perspective.” Students need to think about the farmer’s situation at the time. What did their livelihood depend on? What evidence helps us understand this? 

The Circle of Viewpoints routine helps with these first three steps. The teacher must then extend and deepen students’ thinking with the next two steps:

COMPARE: Once students explore different viewpoints, they can place them alongside one another. What did each person gain or lose? What mattered to one person that may not have mattered to another? Comparing the trader and the farmer, for example, helps students see how the same railway could create an opportunity for one person and a difficulty for another. 

CONCLUDE: Finally, students can ask what these differences help them understand about the event as a whole. The aim is not simply to list different perspectives, but to use them to build a fuller understanding. In Ms. Vani’s class, students move from saying that railways made travel and trade easier to recognising that the changes brought by the railways were not experienced in the same way by everyone. The purpose is not to add more content, but to look more closely at the History students are already learning. 

At the end of the second lesson, Ms. Vani gives her class the same exit question again: “How did the introduction of railways change life in India?”

The first time, one student had written: “Railways made travel faster, connected places and increased trade.”

This time, the answer goes further: “Railways helped people travel and trade more easily, but the changes were not the same for everyone. Some people benefited from them, while others may have faced problems because of the railway lines.”

The facts have not disappeared. The student is still answering the same question, but with a deeper understanding of how different people experienced the change. 

In the end, teaching through different perspectives is not about adding more history to the lesson. It is about helping students look more closely at the history they are already learning: to ask not only what happened, but also who experienced it, how it affected different people, and what evidence helps us understand their experiences.

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Edition: 5.40