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The Tikkun Project

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Lesson

1

Imagining a Just World

Concept

A vision of what a just society looks like gives us the criteria we need to recognize injustice when we see it.

Focus Question

What might the characteristics of a just world be?

Knowledge & Understanding Goals

Social Studies, People and Environments Strand B - The Role of Government and Responsible Citizenship, Grade 5: Analyze a variety of texts and sources to identify perspectives on rights, responsibilities, and the conditions of a just society.
Language, Strand C (Comprehension), Grade 5: Extract and synthesize explicit and implied ideas from a range of text forms (legal text, song lyrics, poetry, formal goals documents).

Thinking & Learning Skills

ATL — Thinking Skills: Distilling abstract criteria from varied source types; tracking how initial thinking shifts after encountering a foundational text.
ATL — Communication: Synthesizing group findings via Jigsaw.
Learner Profile: Principled, Open-Minded.

Context

Launch lesson for the whole unit before students can identify what's unjust (Lesson 2), they need a shared, source-grounded vision of what "just" looks like. This is also the first appearance of Hillel's core text, which establishes a recurring three-part habit of mind the unit keeps returning to: (1) personal responsibility, (2) identifying who else has a role, and (3) the importance of civic engagement and just societies.

Lesson Outline

IMAGINING A JUST WORLD


Divide the class into groups, each given one source text:

  1. the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms
  2. the lyric sheet for "Imagine" by John Lennon
  3. "The Merger Poem" by Judy Chicago
  4. the list of the 17 UN Sustainable Development Goals.


Draw a large circle on a posterboard (or digital whiteboard) with the prompt:

"A society is just if: ___."


Give each group a highlighter and paper for individual notes — students will re-group later, so everyone must be ready to present their group's thinking. Students read their assigned source and highlight words or phrases suggesting an answer to the prompt, using a Jigsaw structure. Groups select the 3–5 ideas they believe are most essential and prepare to explain why.


SHARING AND COMPARING IDEAS ACROSS GROUPS

Students re-group so each new group has one representative from each original source group. In the new groups, students share their 3–5 essential ideas and reasoning, recording them on a Placemat organizer.


BUILDING A CLASS CRITERIA LIST

Groups' Placemat organizers are handed to the teacher, who transcribes key points into a class-wide Dashboard organizer, grouping or paraphrasing overlapping ideas as needed. The teacher facilitates a whole-class discussion to critique, add to, and identify themes or categories in the generated criteria.


Examples of Critieria that might be suggested include:

  • Equity, Basic Needs, and Ending Deprivation: In a just society everyone shares equally in the earth's abundance and basic resources.
  • Rights, Protections, and Legal Frameworks: In a just society formal rules, legal rights, and strong, accountable institutions to protect individuals.
  • Peace, Unity, and the Removal of Divisions: In a just society people live life in peace and feel like they belong. Compassion, Mutual Care, and Human Well-being: In a just society people care for each other and especially for the vulnerable (sick, old, weak, young etc.)
  • Environmental Sustainability and Global Stewardship: In a just society protecting the planet, climate action, and sustainable ecosystems are treated as fundamental indicators of a thriving, just world.


REFLECTING ON OUR RESPONSIBILITY

Explain that throughout the unit, students will be inquiring into their own role — and the role of others — in creating and maintaining a just democratic society.


Then introduce the text:

"If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? If not now, when?" — Pirkei Avot 1:14 (Hillel).


Discuss, using the three-part lens this unit will keep returning to the following 3 questions:

  • Personal responsibility — “What does "if I am not for myself, who will be for me" ask of me specifically?"
  • Others' roles — “Does "if I am only for myself, what am I" mean other people — organizations, government, individuals — also have a role? What might that look like?"
  • Civic engagement / urgency — “Why might "if not now, when" matter for how we think about acting, not just believing?"


WRAP-UP

Exit-ticket: students write the criteria they feel best describe a just society — "I would say that a society is just if: ___." The teacher facilitates a brief discussion to critique, add to, and categorize the class's criteria.

Notes for Teaching and Evaluation

Jigsaw: works here because the four source texts require genuinely different interpretive approaches — the Charter states rules, the SDGs and "Imagine" list conditions, "The Merger Poem" describes a vision — so the reshuffled "sharing" groups are hearing substantively different thinking, not repeating one approach four times.

Placemat: protects against one confident voice dominating the synthesis — every student's source contribution has to be visible on the page before the group negotiates consensus versus disagreement.

Dashboard: gives the class a single, cumulative, revisable artifact of "what does a just society look like," designed to be updated as understanding deepens.

3-2-1 Bridge (Project Zero thinking routine): makes a shift in student thinking about personal responsibility visible and nameable, not just felt — sets up a habit of metacognitive tracking the unit deliberately reuses when the Hillel text resurfaces later.

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