Scoundrel or freedom fighter? Creating historical empathy inquiries

Purpose This work explores the creation and purposes of an inquiry about Emilio Aguinaldo, a Filipino revolutionary and sometimes United States ally, as a means to discuss the value of both inquiry and historical empathy in bridging history instruction and civic life. Though history is often identified as a means to foster democratic dispositions, learning can often feel disconnected from students' lived experiences, let alone directly connect to their out-of-classroom circumstances. Teaching with historical empathy allows students to affectively engage with content, resulting in complex reasoning and content acquisition. Design/methodology/approach The authors explain an original inquiry that uses the Inquiry Design Model (IDM) and historical empathy to help students complicate Emilio Aguinaldo and his legacy. By combining historical empathy and the inquiry model, the authors structured their work for practitioner use but also as a way to draw on rarely emphasized content in US or World history courses. Findings In using this model, students will be able to apply their learning in a civic engagement task related to modern questions of US geopolitics. Originality/value The authors offer and explore the process of an original inquiry as a way to help practitioners and scholars consider how to create other such rigorous opportunities for students to practice global citizenship.