The Tikkun Project
Lesson
1
Introducing the Critical Challenge
Concept
To become true difference makers, students must recognize that positive change is a shared responsibility rooted in personal, observable actions, regardless of size or scale - and that we judge someone's character not by a label, but by specific things we see them do.
Focus Question
How significant of a difference can one young person make, and what does it mean to change the world when a problem feels too large to solve?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Language, Comprehension Strand C, Grade 3: Identify and describe observable actions and behaviours in a text or image, distinguishing what a person does from assumptions about who they are.
Language, Literacy Connections and Applications, Strand A, Grade 3: Analyze how diverse texts, including multimedia narratives, reflect cultural values and community relationships.
Thinking & Learning Skills
Thinking Skills: Diagnosing personal assumptions about capability and duty before instruction begins; distinguishing an observable action from an abstract label.
Learner Profile Connection (Principled / Caring): Recognizing that positive change is available to anyone, not only the famous or powerful.
Context
This introductory lesson launches the entire module by confronting a common misconception among children - that one must possess immense wealth, advanced age, or formal authority to change the world. It also introduces the unit's central criteria-based habit of mind: judging character by observable action, not label.
Lesson Outline
MEETING THE GALLERY
Gather students facing a classroom gallery displaying photos of every student mixed with photos of global change-makers and local community figures (the school caretaker, a crossing guard, a familiar teacher, neighbourhood helpers). Give each student their Difference Maker Journal and introduce the Critical Challenge: every student will design, carry out, and measure a real-world action that helps their family, neighbourhood, or school.
TAKING AN INITIAL POSITION
Ask students how significant a difference one young person can make: no significant difference / just a little difference / a big difference / a very big difference. Record initial choices as a diagnostic baseline and invite students to explain their reasoning, noting any assumptions about what's needed to make a difference.
LEARNING TO LOOK FOR EVIDENCE, NOT LABELS
Point back to the gallery. Ask: "How do we actually know someone is a caring person, or a brave one, or a helpful one? Can we see 'caring' itself, or do we see something else?" Introduce the sentence stem the class will use all unit long: "I know someone is ___ (a characteristic) when I observe them do ___ (a specific action)." Model it with one gallery figure (e.g., "I know the crossing guard is caring when I observe them wave to every kid by name"). Explain that from now on, whenever the class talks about someone being a certain kind of person, they'll be expected to point to something that person actually does.
IDENTIFYING CHALLENGES THROUGH A JIGSAW
Divide students into three groups - Home, Neighbourhood, School. Using a Jigsaw structure, each group first lists 5 challenges that would be a good focus for a Difference Making Project - a good challenge is one students see or experience firsthand, and can do something about with the resources and time they have. (In some years, this has included challenges connected to plants, soil, or habitats around the school - a natural link for classes also studying these topics in science.) Students then form new groups with one "expert" from each original group and share their lists, so every student ends up with a combined list of 5 challenges across all three settings in their journal.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Recording students' initial position on how much difference "one young person" can make, before any instruction, is the same before/after design used throughout the Tikkun curriculum to make a genuine shift in thinking visible.
Jigsaw: dividing the challenge-brainstorming by setting (Home/Neighbourhood/School) and then recombining groups ensures every student leaves with a full, three-setting list, without any one group having to brainstorm all three domains alone.
Introducing the "I know someone is ___ when I observe them do ___" stem here, early, plants a habit of mind the unit returns to formally in Lesson 4 (mapping actions to values) and Lesson 5 (testing debatable cases against criteria) - rather than a new tool introduced cold partway through.
Naming the science-connection possibility (habitats, plants, soil) here, without requiring it, keeps the unit's three settings open to a fourth track for classes where it makes sense, without forcing an artificial science tie-in where it doesn't.