The choices teachers make about both form and content in designing their courses shape students' perceptions of the connection between "real life" and the "classroom." The choice to begin a first-year law course with stories told by residential school survivors provides an example of how to bring "real life" into the classroom in a way which develops both critical understanding of ideas and capacity for identity-based roles and responsibilities. Classroom and "real life" merge through issues and pedagogical approaches that combine deep reflection with active participation.