On Living and Learning in Between the Past and the Future

Abstract

In view of the continuum of human existence, it is apparent that we are always living in between the past and the future. Yet we intuitively and perpetually make arbitrary demarcations among the past, the present, and the future. Parallel to one’s memory of one’s lived early childhood experience, our collective memory of the past — especially the remote past — can be hazy, indefinite, and surrealistic. Just as one’s present state of mind shapes one’s understanding of one’s early childhood experiences, contemporaneous ideologies can circumscribe historical inquiries into the collective past. Thus, teaching about the past is always a value-laden inquiry. As Ann Chinnery is keenly aware of the interconnections between the aims and the methods of teaching about the past, she argues that teaching about the past must foster critical historical consciousness so learners may apprehend and appreciate difficult knowledge from the past. To Chinnery, cultivating critical historical consciousness differs from “a cognitive, knowledge-based approach” to recollecting the past. More specifically, Chinnery, in line with Emmanuel Levinas and Roger Simon, acknowledges and affirms that one’s “here and now subjectivity” has always been interwoven with the past at both individual and collective levels. Drawing from her teaching experience, Chinnery further concludes that cultivating critical historical consciousness need not rely upon personal testimony. Instead, teaching and learning about the past should focus on facilitating learners’ undertaking critical contextual inquiries into the formation of subjectivity and public policies. Such critical inquiries, while disquieting, can lead to recognizing our ethical responsibilities of “receiving the past” and “shaping the future.”