History Teacher’s Competencies and It’s Contribution to Practice of Empathy and The Thinking Skills of High School Students

Abstract

History subject is often considered to be a complex subject and there is no room for creative practice in teaching to create a sense of interest in the subject within the secondary school students. There is a literature review that shows an increase in students' interest through the use of teaching aids (ICT) in a lesson. While at the same time there is also a literature review that shows a decline of students' interest in History subject learning due to classroom teaching practices. Therefore, the creative practice in teaching by History teachers should be taken into account in an effort to foster a culture of creativity among secondary school students. Thus, this concept paper was developed to discuss the history teacher's competence and its contribution to the practice of the values empathy and historical thinking skills among secondary school students. Among the competencies studied are related to the knowledge and application of historical curriculum, historical goals and historical pedagogy that focus on aspects of empathy and historical thinking. Overall, this study will be helpful to all parties in an effort to increase competency among history teachers in Malaysia which will eventually lead to the formation of human capital among secondary school students.