Activity 7: I am Heritage

This activity aims to help participants understand that heritage is not only outside them but also within, as the most sensitive/emotional, deep-rooted element of ourselves.

• Reflect on how heritage helps us to achieve more self-knowledge.
• Connect with heritage personally and emotionally.
• Explore our emotional triggers through heritage.

1. Form random pairs of participants.
2. Each participant is given a couple of minutes to introduce themself and explain an important heritage element for them (historical figure, historical event, object, place, practice, reference, etc.) with the help of these questions:

• What is it?
• Why is it important to me?
• Why should it be preserved for present and future generations? (It does not always have to be heritage that we relate to in a positive way).

Instruct participants to be detailed about their heritage element. 

3. Bring all participants back into the group.
4. Each pair then presents the heritage element of the other person in the first person (I am the Argentinean empanada; I am the Civil War, etc.) using the cues that were discussed in pairs. (For example: ‘I am the Argentinian empanada. I am made out of such and such ingredients … I am eaten on such and such occasions… I am important to such and such groups because of such and such… I should be preserved for present and future generations because of such and such…’).
5. Record the heritage elements on the board, flipchart or paper.
6. Have a discussion in the group with the help of these questions:

• What was easy and difficult?
• What have we discovered?
• Learned? About us?
• About the group?
• What happens to us when we see someone interpreting/representing our voice, our heritage?
• How does it question us? Are we possessive about our heritage?

7. Have a 5 to 10 minute break.
8. Divide participants into groups of 3 or 4.
9. Each group should:

a) Create their own definition of heritage.
b) Ask them to consider themselves curators of a museum who have been assigned the task of exhibiting the different heritage elements that have come up in the first part of the activity. They must give the museum a name, decide how many rooms are in the museum, name each room and assign the different heritage elements to the different rooms. Ask them to make a map of the museum with the different rooms and elements on it (using words, there is no need to draw the elements, although do not discourage this if participants wish to do so).
c) Choose someone from the group to present their museum to the larger group.

• Reflect on the exercise. Close with words about how you feel. Encourage participants to alos do so.

The hard copy of the heritage elements mentioned. The maps of the museums presented.

Reflect together on the questions:

What was easy?
What was difficult?
What have we discovered and learned about ourselves and about the group?

Can you identify heritage elements within your teaching practice? If so, how are they present? Does becoming aware of this make you want to change something about the way you approach your teaching?