The Shape Of What Remains

Shaping the Future Through the Lessons We Leave Behind

There are echoes in the spaces we inhabit, whispers of those who walked before us, their stories etched into the very fabric of our being. These are not mere remnants; instead, they are the lifeblood coursing through our veins, shaping our every thought, our every action. In the way a canyon cradles the memory of the river that carved its depths, we too hold the imprints of our past, carved into the hollows of our deepest selves.

Consider the scar: a testament to survival, a map of our journeys through pain and healing. Years ago, I was sitting with my dad on our deck by the lake. I asked him what he remembered as a young boy leaving Iraq with his family, curious about what he could recall all these years later. He told the story of how, one day, he climbed the wall of a British compound to grab apples from the apple tree. A British soldier yelled at him and, in his urgency to run away, he had been cut by the barbed wire on the top of the wall, leaving a scar that he showed me. My parents have been married for 50 years and my mom commented that she did not know the story of the scar and thought it was due to a sports injury when he was in high school. The conversation our family had resulted in a beautiful short animation created by my sister called First Snow that told this story and the story of his family leaving Iraq. My brother and I watched the film together, both educators, in support of our sister’s art and storytelling in a theatre filled with people who did not know they were bearing witness to our family’s truth. Each line etched upon our skin tells a story of resilience, of battles fought and won, of the strength found in our most vulnerable moments. These marks are not blemishes but badges of honour, reminders of our capacity to endure and transcend.

And then, the name. A simple arrangement of letters, yet within it lies the weight of a life fully lived. My own last name carries a story. My father’s family had to change their name from a tribal name that identified them as a minority to an ancient Persian word, Khubyar, that means “good friend.” I joke that this name was to signal to anyone they came across while escaping Iraq that they were everyone’s friend (“Nothing to see here, bud!”). Whenever I meet someone whose heritage traces back to the region, they are always curious as to where the name comes from because it is so ancient and strangely familiar that it sounds like the echoes of multiple languages and dialects. My last name is also the reason I have not traveled to the United States in over ten years, as every time I would walk through security, they would scan my name, interrogate me as to my heritage and connections to Iran (after all, it is a Persian name, but I certainly was not going to tell them my father was born in Baghdad, Iraq during the time of the Iraq War), and would harass and threaten me with a one-way ticket to Guantanamo Bay if I did not answer all their questions and relinquish my phone and laptop to be reviewed. The only people who have my last name are directly related to my father’s side of the family. When it came time for me and my siblings to be named, my father insisted on first names that were not indicative of his culture to protect us from the ridicule and issues he experienced growing up with a name that is uncommon. I have also been gifted a name, which I will not share here, because it is a name that I view as a responsibility to uphold. Names carry the songs and hopes of our ancestors, as well as the dreams of those yet to come. They are the vessels of our legacy, the anchors to our identity, the beacons guiding us home when we lose our way.

History is not a linear progression but a tapestry woven with threads of triumph and tragedy, joy and sorrow, love and loss. It is a mosaic of moments, each piece unique, yet all interconnected. We are both the artists and the art, painting our narratives upon the canvas of time, leaving impressions that will outlast us.

In our classrooms, we are the custodians of this legacy. We hold the sacred responsibility of passing the torch and ensuring that the flames of knowledge, culture, and tradition continue to burn brightly. This task requires us listen to the stories that have been silenced, to the voices that have been muted, to the histories that have been erased. 

To truly hear is to honour. 

To truly see is to acknowledge. 

And in this act of recognition, we find our humanity, our connection to one another, our shared journey through this world.

Some things do not disappear. Not entirely.

Not even when time moves forward, relentless and unbothered.

Not even when voices fall silent or stories are pushed into the margins.

Not even when the official record omits, distorts, or erases.

Some things remain — not as they once were, not whole, but in the hollow spaces they leave behind.

In the way a canyon remembers the river that shaped it.

In the way a canyon remembers the river that carved it deep.

In the way a scar carries the memory of a wound.

In the way a name, long buried, still holds the weight of a life lived.

We like to think of history as something solid, as something preserved in books, in statues, in monuments; however, history — real history — is full of fractures. It is full of absences. It is full of voices that were cut off mid-sentence, stories left unfinished, knowledge that was dismissed, devalued, or deliberately erased.

And so the question before us is not just what has been lost?

The question is: What remains?

And who decides?

What the Classroom Keeps, What It Leaves Behind

A classroom is a site of memory.

It is not just a place where knowledge is imparted, but where the past is carried forward, shaped, reshaped, and sometimes left behind.

What we teach is important but perhaps, even more crucially, is what we leave unsaid, what we fail to see, and what we choose to ignore. 

To uplift voices is a choice.

For generations, so-called “Western” curricula have been shaped by the hands of those who sought to mould the world into their own image. Who decided which histories were worth telling? Which voices should be heard? Which knowledge should be passed down?

Who decided who could belong in the story and who would be forgotten?

The weight of those decisions lingers in the spaces between lessons, in the silences where some students find themselves reflected, while others search desperately for any sign that they exist. It lingers in the discomfort that some educators feel when a student asks, “But why didn’t we learn about this before?”

This is no accident.

So we must ask ourselves:

• What/who does our curriculum remember? What/who does it forget?

• Who is given the power to speak and who is still waiting for their voice to be heard?

• What does it mean to carry forward knowledge that was meant to be erased, silenced, and forgotten?

The past is not distant. It does not stay behind us in the annals of time. It lives with us. It shapes the present. It shapes us. 

Whether we acknowledge it or not, we are always in conversation with it.

Gathering What Has Been Scattered

If history is full of absences, then justice is the sacred act of filling those voids, of reaching into the silence and pulling out the pieces of truth that have been buried there.

If knowledge has been fragmented, then our work is to gather it, to restore the broken parts of our collective understanding, stitching them together like a quilt made from the scraps of a lost but unbroken past.

This is not simply an academic exercise — it is an act of healing and an invitation to remember what has been erased, to honour what has been forgotten, and to bring forth what was meant to remain hidden. We are not only educators, whether we are in the classroom or the community — we are memory keepers. We are the architects of bridges, building the paths that will connect the scattered fragments of history to the hope of a more just future.

The work of remembrance, the work of restoration is a calling. In reflecting upon this, here are some thoughts for your consideration:

Teach Against the Gaps

Every silence in the curriculum is a decision.

Every missing voice is a choice — a choice that has been made for us and one that we now have the power to undo.

Think about the history of Black nurses in Canada. How many students are taught about the civil rights movement in the United States, yet few learn that, for decades, Black women were systematically excluded from nursing schools and hospitals right here in Canada? This wasn’t just an injustice in the world of healthcare; it was a societal wound that affected entire communities, denying them proper care because white hospitals refused to treat Black patients, relegating Black nurses to segregated spaces when they were allowed in at all.

Yet this story, this truth, remains obscured in most textbooks.

When we teach about healthcare, when we teach about systemic racism, when we teach about public policy, we must not treat these truths as a mere footnote, a token addition to a curriculum that’s already complete. These histories must be woven into the very fabric of what we teach. They must be foundational, not optional.

Teaching against the gaps means asking hard questions, challenging assumptions, and pushing the boundaries of what we think we know:

• Who is missing from the story?

• Why have they been left out?

• What happens when we refuse to allow their stories to remain hidden any longer?

Expand the Definition of Knowledge

Some knowledge is written in books but much of it is carried in the body, passed down through generations in the language of experience, in the muscle memory of practice, in the collective wisdom etched into our bones.

Some knowledge lives not in written records but in stories that are told through generations, through the patterns of movement that cannot be captured in ink but must be embodied.

Take the Mi’kmaq birchbark canoe, for example.

For centuries, these canoes were crafted with meticulous precision, designed not just to float but to glide gracefully through the rivers of the Atlantic provinces. These canoes were not relics of an ancient past; they were technological marvels, deeply attuned to the land, to the rivers, to the very nature of the people who created them. Yet, when settlers arrived, they dismissed this knowledge as “primitive.” They saw the canoes as curiosities, not as sophisticated works of engineering.

The knowledge of how to build these canoes was passed down orally, shared through hands-on teaching and lived experience. As colonial policies sought to erase and assimilate Indigenous cultures and oral traditions, this knowledge was threatened.

Today, Indigenous canoe creators are working tirelessly to restore what was almost lost — an act of reclamation, of returning what was taken, of ensuring that this knowledge is not swallowed by time. However, in many schools, this knowledge is not taught as engineering. It is not taught as design or technology. It is treated, at best, as a cultural artifact that is something separate, something distant, something disconnected from the broader conversations of science, design, and innovation.

Expanding the definition of knowledge means recognizing that Indigenous knowledge is just as valid as the knowledge written in textbooks. It means honouring that oral histories carry just as much weight as written records. It means shifting the way we teach so that students see these histories not as marginal, but as central to our collective understanding of the world.

Transform the Classroom into a Living Archive

If we are responsible for what remains, then our classrooms must be living archives — places where history is not simply told but actively remembered, places where it breathes and lives, places where it transforms us and calls us to action.

In New Orleans, alumni and community members of McDonogh 35 Senior High School have worked to document the school’s history; established in 1917, “McDonogh 35 remained the only public four-year high school for African Americans until L. B. Landry transitioned from an elementary into a high school in 1942. Booker T. Washington also opened its doors in 1942 for African Americans” (“ASC 35: The History of McDonogh 35,” City Archives & Special Collections, 2025).

Through interviews with former students and faculty, along with the collection of photographs and historical records, these efforts have helped piece together a legacy that was in danger of being forgotten. This work is not just about preserving the past; it is about revitalizing it. By rediscovering and sharing these stories, this initiative reconnects the current generation of students to a legacy of resilience, resistance, and triumph in the face of adversity.

This effort has provided students with more than a sense of pride and has offered them a profound understanding of their place in a much larger story. They are not merely studying history; now, through the efforts of this initiative led by educator and board member Wanda Herbert-Romain, they are witnessing the continuation of a powerful legacy that they now have a hand in shaping.

We like to imagine time as a river moving ever forward, with the past left behind like water flowing swiftly toward an unknown future – but history never leaves us. It is not a thing that drifts into the past and remains there, silent and still. History stays with us. It lingers in the architecture of our institutions, in the very walls and halls we walk through, the floors we stand upon. It seeps into the structures we live within, shaping our systems, our schools, our hearts, our minds. It rests in the wounds we carry, wounds that have yet to heal, that may not even have names yet – wounds whose origins we may never fully understand but that nevertheless shape the way we see the world.

The truth is, history does not pass us by — it moves through us.

The question is not whether we will be shaped by history. We already are and we always have been.

The real question is:

What will we do with what we have inherited?

What happens when we stop accepting erasure as inevitable, when we stop pretending that silence is the default and that forgetting is a natural course of time?

What happens when we begin to see our classrooms not as places where we simply deposit knowledge but as spaces where we unearth what has been buried, where we excavate the truths that have been pushed aside and neglected?

What happens when we commit to teaching in a way that ensures the next generation will not have to ask, “Why didn’t we learn about this before?” because the knowledge, the stories, the wisdom were always there – woven into the foundation of who we are, spoken aloud, remembered, and honoured as part of our shared narrative?

The classroom is not just a room.

It is an archive that is alive, breathing, ever-changing, filled with the whispers of those who came before us.

It is a memory space, where the past is not buried but called upon, where the echoes of history are allowed to reverberate in the hearts of students who will carry them forward.

It is a site of possibility where we plant seeds of truth, of knowledge, of justice, and where, through patience and persistence, we begin to see the shape of a more just world grow.

So we ask ourselves:

What remains?

What are we holding on to?

What will we do with what we have been entrusted to carry?

Will we let the past define us in ways that hurt, that divide, that diminish? Or will we honour it as the source of our strength, our clarity, our vision?

The choice is ours. The work is ours.

To unearth. To recover. To rebuild.

To transform.

A classroom becomes a living archive when we invite students to be historians of their own lives. When they research the stories of their families, when they dig into the histories of their communities, when they engage in projects that ensure the past is not forgotten, they become the keepers of memory, the architects of a future rooted in truth. We are merely the facilitators and mediators of connecting this to our expertise, our understanding of the curriculum, and finding the space where reclamation resides.

History is not something fixed. It is not a stagnant pool of old facts and dates.

History is unfinished.

We inherit it as something unfinished and, with that inheritance, comes a choice.

The students in our classrooms will inherit what we leave behind — not just in textbooks, not just in the policies we write, but in the way we teach them to think, to question, and to remember.

So what remains?

And what will we make of it?

New Insights: The Shape of Us

The work we embark on is not one of isolated actions. Our work is an unfolding journey and an enduring responsibility. 

As we push forward, we must remember: the past is not a distant country, nor a chapter we can simply close. It lives with us, shaping every step we take, guiding every choice we make. It waits, expectantly, for us to make the right decisions, to confront it, to unearth what has been buried, to breathe life into what has been forgotten. 

This work has no finality, no neat conclusion. It is a current, alive and flowing, shaping us and the generations that will follow. The questions we ask today will continue to echo through time. 

So, let us pause. 

Let us listen more deeply.

Let us consider what it means to carry forward what has been forgotten.

Let us consider what we are leaving behind for those who will come after us.

We Are Always in Relationship With the Past

History does not live in textbooks alone.

It breathes through us. 

It is not merely a record of events we study but a living, breathing force that moves within us, shaping the way we see, think, and act in the world. The biases we hold, the opportunities we give or withhold, the systems that govern our lives are not born in a vacuum. They have been passed down through generations, sculpted by the choices and actions of those who came before us. History courses through our veins, whether we recognize it or not.

We are always in a relationship with the past. Whether we acknowledge it or not, the choices made long before us ripple through the generations, carving paths in our hearts and minds. History informs the way we judge, the way we exclude, the way we prioritize. It dictates the opportunities we are given and the walls we find ourselves trapped behind. It is not a relic of something gone, but an active participant in our present.

Justice does not ask for acknowledgment alone. It demands an encounter, a reckoning, and a reconciliation with what has been left unaddressed. Acknowledging the past is not enough. True justice calls us to act and, through education, to unearth the truths that have been buried deep in the soil of time. Only in confronting the past will we find the freedom to reshape our present and future.

Questions for Deeper Reflection:

• How do the past's influences show up in my teaching?

• In what ways does my classroom reflect the history that has shaped me and my students?

• What actions am I taking to confront and acknowledge the past that still lives in the present?

Knowledge is More Than What is Written

To believe that knowledge is confined to the written word is to erase the very essence of human experience. Knowledge is not only what has been documented, catalogued, or published. It is in the stories passed from one generation to the next, in the practices and rituals that are carried in the body, in the knowledge we embody through our actions and experiences. These forms of knowledge are often silenced, dismissed, or rendered invisible by the written word, yet they hold the deepest wisdom.

When we fail to honour oral traditions, embodied knowledge, and lived experience, we allow a vital part of human history to remain hidden. To expand our understanding of knowledge is to recognize that the ways of knowing which come from lived experiences – be it from marginalized communities, from oral storytelling, from hands-on learning – are just as powerful, just as valid, and just as necessary as what is captured in ink. We must try to shift our awareness and positionality to validate these truths, making space for all forms of knowledge to inform our lessons, to enrich our lives, and to guide our future.

Questions for Deeper Reflection:

• What forms of knowledge do I prioritize in my teaching?

• How do I ensure that voices and experiences outside of the written word are heard and valued in my classroom?

• What can I do to create space for the knowledge that lives in bodies, stories, and experiences beyond textbooks?

Absences Speak, If We Listen

Absences are not empty spaces, they are loud with meaning.

A missing name, an untold story, a gap in the curriculum — they are not voids to be filled, but markers of power. They speak to us of the histories that have been erased, of the lives that were deemed unworthy of remembrance. These absences are not the result of chance, but of a deliberate choice to ignore, to forget, and to exclude.

What remains unsaid is often as telling as what is spoken.

These silences are the architecture of inequality, the foundation of the systems that have kept certain voices quiet. To listen to these silences is not just to acknowledge their presence but to respond to them with action, with intention, with education. We must not shy away from these absences; instead, we must listen to them and, in listening, we must make the choice to fill them with truth, to breathe life into the stories that have been denied.

These gaps are not merely mistakes in the curriculum. They are intentional. They are the legacy of a history that sought to silence and erase. Our work is not to ignore them, but to listen. To hear the voices that are still waiting to be heard and to amplify them.

Questions for Deeper Reflection:

• What absences do I notice in the content I teach?

• Whose voices are missing in my curriculum and how can I amplify them?

• How can I create space for the silences in my classroom to speak — and then take action to fill those gaps?

Education is Inherently Transformative

To teach is to make a choice.

Every lesson, every story we share, is an act of shaping the future. It is not merely about the transfer of knowledge. It is about the values we embed and embody, the way we encourage students to think for and about themselves, others, and the world around them.

In each classroom, we hold the power to create spaces of possibility, to offer perspectives that expand the horizon — or to limit them. The ideas we present, the stories we choose to tell, and the way we engage students all reflect the kind of future we are helping to shape. We are not simply filling minds with facts; we are nurturing minds that will carry forward the knowledge of today into tomorrow, impacting not just their own lives, but the lives of others.

As Spider-Man’s Uncle Ben said, “with great power comes great responsibility.” Education is not a neutral act; it is one of influence, of guidance. In our teaching, we are actively participating in the creation of the kind of world we want to build. Are we fostering empathy, understanding, and critical thinking? Are we encouraging students to question, to push their understanding of the complexity of the human condition and knowledge, to dream of a world that is more just and inclusive? Or are we reinforcing the same cycles, the same limitations, the same divisions that have been handed down?

Teaching is not just about imparting knowledge. It is about guiding the minds of the future and shaping the path they will walk. It is a responsibility that many of us do not take lightly, because the future is always unfolding and we are the ones who help to shape what it will look like.

Questions for Deeper Reflection:

• How do I recognize the transformative power of my role as an educator?

• What kind of future am I helping to shape through my lessons and interactions?

• How can I create opportunities for students to question, challenge, and create a more inclusive world?

This Work Has No End Point

There is no checklist, no final lesson, no single text that completes the work of justice in education.

This work is not finite. It is ongoing, generational, and evolving. There is no “finish line” to cross, no conclusive moment when we can say we have done enough. The questions we ask today will shape the questions we ask tomorrow — and the questions that will emerge in the years to come. This is a continuous process of inquiry, of action, and of deep reflection.

Justice in education requires that we never stop asking: What remains? 

What have we yet to uncover? 

What truths are still waiting to be revealed?

And, more importantly, what will we leave behind for those who come after us?

The measure of our work is not in what we accomplish in one lifetime but in what we pass forward, what seeds we plant for the future, what stories we preserve, and what truths we ensure are never forgotten.

Questions for Deeper Reflection:

• How do I understand the ongoing nature of my work as an educator?

• What are the questions I’m leaving my students with and how will they carry them forward?

• How can I ensure that my teaching continues to evolve, uncovering truths, and planting seeds for a better future?

And so, the work continues, always unfolding, always transforming. It is not a work that ends with a neatly wrapped conclusion, nor a journey that can be measured by a single moment of success. It is the steady, deliberate act of walking alongside our students, of guiding them toward a world they have yet to fully see but can already imagine. It is the quiet, uncelebrated labour of weaving truth into every lesson, of breaking open the silence that has kept so many truths locked away. Our classrooms are not just places of learning — they are spaces of spectacular possibility, where every word spoken and every truth revealed holds the power to reshape the future.

As educators, we are the keepers of a sacred responsibility, the torchbearers of a light that will not be extinguished. The echoes of our work will ripple through time, carried by those we teach and those who come after them. What remains and what we choose to leave behind will continue to shape the world long after we have moved on to wherever we go. This is a call to action and a call to reflection, to carry forward the weight of the past with courage, to confront the absences with clarity, and to shape the future with intentionality.

The work is never done and that is its beauty!

This is why we must always ask: What will we leave behind? What story will we write for the generations to come?

The Shape of What Remains: Reclaiming the Silence, Rewriting the Legacy

If we listen closely, we can hear them.

The voices that have waited centuries for the chance to be heard. The echoes of those whose words were silenced before they could take root, whose stories were lost to time, whose knowledge was deemed expendable but refused to disappear. 

Deep down, something always remains.

Maybe not as it once was. Not pristine or whole, untouched by the ravages of history. 

What remains now is shaped by the spaces in between — the hollows left behind, the unanswered questions that persist like echoes and whispers, waiting for their moment. What remains is never fully whole, but neither is it empty. It lives in fractured places and in the absence that refuses to be forgotten.

Remember where we began at the beginning: history is not a distant place, left behind for us to visit only in dusty books. It is here, with us, breathing alongside us. It hums in the language we speak, pulses in the systems we navigate, lingers in the silences we inherit, and in those spaces where truths have been ignored, erased, or overlooked.

Everyday, we stand at the threshold of possibility, at the edge of something vast and transformative. We cannot rewrite what has been done. We cannot change what has already unfolded. The past is carved in the bones of the present and its echoes will reverberate long after we are gone. We can refuse to let its absences remain unnoticed. We can stand in defiance of the erasure and reclaim what was stolen. We can place back into the light that which was meant to be forgotten.

Our responsibility is to not be passive inheritors of the world as it was given to us, but to be architects of something better.

We are not here to continue a legacy of silence, to accept things as they are, or to turn away from the work before us. We are called to build something more, to shape something true, something just, something that will honour these echoes of the story of us.

History is not fixed. It is shaped by the choices we make in this moment; the choices we make to elevate voices, to tell truths, to ask questions, to listen with the intent to understand. 

Let us be the ones who remember.

Let us be the ones who listen.

Let us be the ones who ensure that, long after we are gone, something remains.

Something true.

Something just.

Something worthy of those who paved the way and those who will carry it forward.

The measure of our work is not only in the facts we teach — it is in the legacy we leave behind. 

The world is shaped by the choices we make now and by the truths we tell, by the stories we uphold, by the way we refuse to let the silence remain. Let us shape the story of what remains, not as gatekeepers of a single narrative, but as weavers of a story so vast, so honest, and so inclusive that it can hold all of us – every voice, every truth, every loss, and every possibility.

This is our charge. This is our responsibility. We don’t have to turn away.

We can face forward, as a flower facing softly towards the sun, illuminating us into our becoming.

In the end, the question will not only be what we taught, but what we left behind.

In the echoes of what remains, let us leave something worthy.

In truth and transformation,

– Ms. K