The Tikkun Project

UNPACKING THE CRITICAL CHALLENGE

Explain that in this unit, students will create and implement an effective action plan to engage with the legislative system to address an important issue of injustice in the community by learning about the rights and responsibilities of individuals and the government in a democratic society.

An action plan is effective if:

• it demonstrates a good understanding of the roles and responsibilities of individuals and of the different levels of government
• it is feasible for students to implement, or it involves productive collaboration with the appropriate people in positions to take action
• the impacts of the action can be measured.

IDENTIFYING POTENTIAL PROBLEMS

Use a Wordcloud interactive poll, Google Form, or graphic organizer to document students' initial ideas about problems in the city/neighbourhood, province, country, and globally. Students this age may have a limited understanding of problems at different scales, so start with existing knowledge, then build toward discovering and evaluating others. Index cards, sticky notes, or a digital whiteboard work well as manipulatives.

PROPOSING CRITERIA AND RANKING PROBLEMS

In small groups, ask students to consider the identified problems and suggest some criteria that will determine which problems they believe should be the focus on the class’ work.

Ask: “How should we decide which problem(s) we should focus on?"

As a whole class, students suggest the critieria that would make a problem an ideal focus.

As criteria are proposed, test each one directly against real candidate problems — for example, if students suggest "focus on local problems," try sorting the class's problem list by that criterion and see which cases turn out ambiguous. Some criteria will hold up; others won't survive contact with a real example, and get revised or dropped.

Suggested criteria to arrive at, if not already generated:

• the class can engage with through action or advocacy with the tools, knowledge and time we have available
• is a barrier to the vision of a just-world vision from Lesson 1
• has a clear connection to an identified level of government
• the issue has a significant impact on people's quality of life
• progress on it can be measured

USING THE CRITERIA TO NARROW THE LIST

Students rate their strongest candidate problems against the finalized criteria and share it with the class.

Examples:

1. Poverty — very large impact on quality of life, may be inequitable, but impact of a single class action could be difficult to measure.
2. Lack of accessibility — impacts many people, significant impact on quality of life, may be discriminatory or inequitable, and progress might be measurable (e.g., increase in ramps in a neighbourhood).

RUNNING OUR STRONGEST CANDIDATES THROUGH THE HILLEL CHECK

Take the class's 2–3 strongest candidate problems and test each one against the "Hillel Check", a three-question routine tied to Lesson 1's core text:

1. In what way does this problem impact me, or people I know?
2. Beyond my own stake, what are the most important reasons this deserves action — for others, not just me?
3. What's the best way to actually effect change here — personal action, advocacy, collaboration, or civic engagement?

A problem that scores well on the numeric criteria but produces thin, generic answers to the Hillel Check is worth a second look before the class commits further research time to it.

HOMEWORK: BUILDING A BANK OF PROBLEMS

Drawing on conversations with parents or family, or their own reading or observation of the new, each student creates a list of 15–20 candidate problems — local, provincial, national, or global — that meet the criteria. This gives the class a wider pool to choose from once they narrow toward a final issue.