What is a just society?

This is the question that we asked ourselves as part of our newest humanities project. The real question is, how do we figure this out? The concept of a just society changes from person to person. In our first Humanities project of grade 10, we explored how conversation can be used to learn about a topic like this.

The project was called This Is Us and the driving question was “How can we advance the concept of a ‘just society’ through conversation?” At the end of the project, we hosted “Human Library” where people could go to have conversations with others who had different experiences to them.

We started this project by thinking about Canadian Identity and how it defines us. I then wrote a paragraph about this.

We then learned about the different things. We learned about sovereignty, and how it affects Canadian Identity. We learned about the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is a very important Canadian document that secures our rights as Canadians. Click here for my thoughts on why it is important. We also had a class discussion about the reality of Canadian women. This conversation was very interesting because there were a lot of different perspectives to be heard.

To learn more about questioning and conversation, we chose a topic that relates to Canada to learn about. I chose tourism, because it is a very large part of Canada’s history and it’s future. We drafted some questions that would help us learn about our topic. We then answered them. Finally, we had group conversations about our topics in class.

Click here to read my full research project on Canadian tourism.

Next, we started to prepare for our event. The concept was based on a website called the Human Library. We invited volunteers (books) to talk with small groups (readers) about their experiences. Check out their website to learn more about the concept.

The day of the event rolled around and everything went great. I invited my grandma, who had a very interesting experience growing up in countries all over the world. I got to have some very meaningful conversations with our books. I learned a lot of new things from this experience. I think that it is very important to take time to talk with people who have had different experiences to you, because there is so much you can learn.

Here are some awesome photos from the event:

To reflect on our Library and our research project, we created a journal to reflect on them. Click here to read my reflection journal.

This project taught me a lot about how conversation can be used to learn more about a topic. Conversations can help us learn about any topic. When it comes to something like the topic of a just society, it is difficult to achieve this idea as one person. It is important that we take the time to talk with people about their definition of a just society and more importantly, how we can come closer to achieving this.