PEOPLE WORTH WATCHING
OUR LEGACY ROOM PROJECT By Mike Hamilton
A
few years back, I was feeling uninspired with the culminating activities I was using for my Grade 10 Civics class. As luck would have it, my colleague Tammy Oldford appeared in my classroom doorway with an article she thought I’d find interesting. It was written by Mark and Craig Keilburger and entitled, “A Room of His Own: The Legacy of Chanie Wenjack.” The article introduced me to the concept of Legacy Rooms, described as “a physical space where Canadians are not only reminded of the story of Chanie, but start thinking of how we can move the ball forward on reconciliation.” I had found my new culminating task. My Civics class would envision, design, and create a Legacy Room for our school.
24 CATHOLIC TEACHER | MAY 2019
Having covered the topics of Indian residential schools and the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada’s (TRC) Calls to Action in class, the students were keen and engaged. And I am not just saying that. They were infectiously enthusiastic; they saw this work as real, important, and purposeful. They took hold of the reigns and brought me along for the ride. We divided the class into four groups. Each group would be in charge of designing and implementing the topic for one of the four walls in the space that would become our Legacy Room – a seminar room off the library, which was theretofore “decorated” with ancient overhead projectors and boxes of outdated magazines. Each of the four walls in the room would have a different focus: pre-contact, post-contact/colonization, truth, and reconciliation.