NBE3 · Final Performance Task

How Do We Learn to
Live Together?

My learning journey through NBE3

By: Sheraz Khan

Kindness is where my understanding began, not where it ended.

Begin My Journey
Several distinct paths meeting in a shared open space while remaining separate
01My starting point

What I Used to Think

At the beginning of this course, I thought learning to live together was mostly about being kind, treating everyone equally, and helping people when they needed it.

Kindness
Equality
Respect
02A memory that stayed with me

A Moment That Shaped My Thinking

When I was fifteen, I saw an elderly man unloading Christmas trees from his truck outside his shop. I decided to help him. When we finished, he thanked me, and I felt proud that I had noticed someone struggling and made his work a little easier.

My Reflection

That experience taught me that small acts of kindness can make people feel supported.

Two silhouetted figures carrying a Christmas tree together beside a small truck stacked with trees, in a paper collage of navy, forest green, and beige
03The Fracture

Was Kindness Enough?

This course did not make me reject my belief in kindness. Instead, it made me question whether kindness alone is enough. At first, that was uncomfortable because treating everyone equally had always sounded obviously fair to me.

Good intentions do not automatically create fairness.
04Alootook Ipellie

Fairness Is Not Sameness

Through Alootook Ipellie’s poem, I began to understand how a person can feel divided between Inuit and Western cultures. The speaker carries a conflict he did not create. I realized that treating everyone the same can still be unfair when it pressures people to hide part of their identity in order to belong.

My Reflection

Belonging should not require someone to erase part of themselves.

Two feet side by side, separated by a thin line, standing on two different surfaces representing two cultural worlds
One foot on grass, one on concrete: two cultural worlds under one person.
“It is never easy
Walking with an invisible border
Separating my left and right foot.”
(Ipellie).
05Gayle Kabloona

When Help Becomes Control

“Utiqtuq” changed how I understood helping. Dr. English claims that he is protecting Aliisa, but he ignores her knowledge, removes her rifle, and continues taking her away after she changes her mind. His idea of help becomes control because Aliisa is not allowed to decide what happens to her.

Layered paper storyboard for Utiqtuq by Gayle Kabloona, showing an Inuk girl, a rifle, a relocation form, and a helicopter

The land

independence and knowledge

The rifle

control over her own safety

The relocation form

government authority

The helicopter

protection becoming control

Connecting back to my memory

This made me reconsider my own experience. The elderly man accepted my help and remained in control of what he needed. I am not comparing my experience to colonial control. Instead, the story helped me recognize a broader principle: help should involve listening to the person receiving it.

My Reflection

Respect means helping with someone, not deciding for them.

(Kabloona).

06Resistance · Language · Culture

Living Together Without Disappearing

Amanda Polchies’ account, “The Day I Held a Feather to Power,” and Jeremy Dutcher’s “Honour Song” showed me that resistance can be peaceful, cultural, and powerful. The feather, the prayer, the music, and the Indigenous language demonstrate that living together should not require one culture to disappear so another can dominate.

Water Docs · Water Talk · 2018“The Day I Held a Feather to Power: a Personal Account of Resistance to Fracking”by Amanda Polchies, Elsipogtog First NationRead the account →
Personal account (Polchies).
Video · Jeremy Dutcher, “Honour Song” (Dutcher).
ResistanceLanguageCultureSurvivance

My Reflection

Living together requires space for cultures to remain alive and distinct.

07 · Where I Am Now

What I Believe Now

Now, I believe we learn to live together by listening before acting, respecting self-determination, acknowledging unequal histories, and making room for people to remain themselves.

  1. 01

    Listen

    before acting

  2. 02

    Respect

    self-determination

  3. 03

    Acknowledge

    unequal histories

  4. 04

    Act

    with, not for, others

Beyond This Course

These lessons apply to friendships, families, schools, workplaces, and communities. Kindness still matters, but real respect means asking, listening, and allowing others to have a voice in decisions that affect them.

Paths meet in a shared space, then continue, still distinct.

08 · My Final Reflection

Kindness brought me into this course. Listening changed what kindness means to me.

We learn to live together when we stop assuming that we already understand others and begin making space to hear them.

View Works Cited

MLA · 9th Edition

Works Cited

  • Dutcher, Jeremy. “Honour Song.” Wolastoqiyik Lintuwakonawa, Independent, 2018. youtube.com/watch?v=dmYsJ8sKULY.
  • Ipellie, Alootook. “Walking Both Sides of an Invisible Border.” An Anthology of Canadian Native Literature in English, edited by Daniel David Moses and Terry Goldie, Oxford UP, 1998.
  • Kabloona, Gayle. “Utiqtuq.” Northern Voices: Inuit Writing in English, edited by Penny Petrone, U of Toronto P, 1992.
  • Polchies, Amanda. “The Day I Held a Feather to Power: a Personal Account of Resistance to Fracking.” Water Docs, 21 Mar. 2018, waterdocs.ca/water-talk/2018/3/21/ssh1z5g4jttrgsstwvu0ua138uexrn.
  • Zabriskie, Chris. “Cylinder Five.” Cylinders, 2014. Creative Commons Attribution 4.0.

NBE3 · Grade 11 · Final Performance Task · By: Sheraz Khan