The Tikkun Project
Lesson
6
Auditing Our School: From Hypotheses to Evidence
Concept
Intentionally assessing our immediate environment allows us to uncover hidden barriers to inclusion.
Focus Question
How accessible and inclusive is our school right now? How does collecting real physical evidence change what we think we know about our space?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Social Studies, People and Environments: The Local Community, Strand B, B2.2: Gather and organize information and data about the school environment, using direct observation.
Social Studies, Strand B, B2.5: Evaluate evidence and draw conclusions about how well a space meets the needs of its community members.
Mathematics, Data Literacy Strand D, D1.2: Collect data through question prompts, and display the data using a concrete graph or visual scale (the Dashboard).
Thinking & Learning Skills
Thinking Skills (Hypothesizing vs. Verifying): Stating an initial opinion based on casual memory, then systematically testing that opinion against rigorous, objective criteria.
Learner Profile Connection (Reflective / Thinkers): Students analyze their daily home turf through an empathetic lens, realizing that a space that works perfectly for them might contain obstacles for others.
Context
Having completed the community practice audit and built a Universal Design Toolkit chart (Lesson 5), students now apply those same observational skills to the real, consequential audit of their own school, moving from passive occupiers of the school space to active, empathetic system designers.
Lesson Outline
BRINGING OUR TOOLKIT
Post the Universal Design Toolkit chart built in Lesson 5 alongside the three Inspection Lenses. Remind students: last lesson, we learned to recognize what good accessibility design actually looks like. Today, we're checking whether our own school has those same features — or where it's missing them.
PREDICTING BEFORE INVESTIGATING
Write the question on the board: "How accessible and inclusive is The Leo Baeck Day School?" Bring out the physical Class Dashboard. Ask students, based on what they saw in the community site audit, to predict where the school lands before gathering any evidence. Give each student a name magnet or sticky note to place their prediction — expect a thoughtful spread rather than everyone clustering at the top, now that students know what real accessibility tools look like.
REVIEWING THE THREE LENSES
Review the Seeing and Hearing Lens, the Moving and Going Lens, and the Feeling and Thinking Lens from Lesson 5. Hand out school blueprint maps or quadrant clipboards. Assign small teams of 3-4 to specific zones: the Playground & Recess yard; the Main Entrance & Front Office; the School Library; the Gym & Corridors.
CONDUCTING THE IN-SCHOOL AUDIT
Lead teams into the building to conduct physical inspections: testing automated door buttons, checking for raised Braille lettering or clear pictures on signs, measuring whether a wheelchair or stroller could navigate the playground or library aisles. Mark green checkmark stickers for existing assets and red exclamation points for remaining obstacles. When a team finds a real obstacle (a heavy door without a push-button, loose gravel that wheels sink into), connect it explicitly back to the core text: this is what a physical "stumbling block" looks like today.
REVISITING OUR PREDICTION
Return to the classroom and gather around the Dashboard. Have each team present one Green Asset and one Red Obstacle. Ask: now that we've looked through our inspection lenses, do we need to move the needle? Guide the class to collaboratively adjust the Dashboard dial to a more realistic position, and explain that the final unit challenge is to design a plan that moves that needle all the way to the top.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Asking students to predict the school's Dashboard rating before the audit — and revisiting that exact same prediction afterward — is the same before/after design used throughout the Tikkun curriculum to make a genuine shift in thinking visible, rather than just telling students their assumptions were wrong.
Connecting a specific, real obstacle (the heavy door, the loose gravel) directly back to the core text's language, in the moment it's discovered, keeps the text functioning as a living evaluative standard rather than a one-time reading from earlier in the unit.