The Tikkun Project
Lesson
8
Learning from Community Experts: Building Our Hospitality Toolkit
Concept
To practice true hospitality (Hachnasat Orechim), we must actively listen to the lived experiences of others including using their feedback to make our own plans genuinely better, not just learning facts from them.
Focus Question
What can we learn about welcoming others by listening to their lived experiences — and how can their feedback make our own proposal better?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Social Studies, People and Environments: The Local Community, Strand B, B2.1: Formulate questions to guide investigations into the diverse needs and heritages of individuals within their school and local community.
Social Studies, Strand B, B3.6: Identify physical and social features of a community and explain how they meet the needs of diverse community members.
Health and Physical Education, Active Living Strand A, A1.4: Apply social-emotional learning skills to foster a supportive environment that honours human diversity and identity.
Thinking & Learning Skills
Research Skills (Primary Interviewing): Actively listening to first-hand narratives to extract specific, operational accessibility solutions.
Learner Profile Connection (Open-Minded / Caring): Students approach differences with curiosity and respect, expanding their understanding of what it means to create an equitable space.
Context
Having established what a community is (Lesson 1), built a physical baseline map (Lessons 3-4), and drafted an initial proposal (Lesson 7), students now bring that real, specific draft to two guest experts for direct feedback turning the guest visit into a genuine revision opportunity, not just a listening exercise.
Lesson Outline
MEETING OUR GUESTS WITHOUT ASSUMPTIONS
Introduce Pirkei Avot 4:20: "Do not look at the vessel, but at what is inside it — there may be a new vessel full of old wine, and an old vessel that doesn't even hold new wine" (Al Tistakel BaKankan). Explain: this teaches us not to judge someone by how they look or what container they come in — a person's outside doesn't tell you what's inside. Ask: when we meet our guests today, what assumptions might we accidentally make just from how someone looks, speaks, or moves? How can we make sure we're really listening to what's inside — their knowledge and experience — instead?
BUILDING BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE BEFORE THE GUESTS ARRIVE
Divide the class into specialized "Research Teams" and read aloud a targeted text to each to anchor their empathy: the Vision Team reads Keep Your Ear on the Ball (Petrillo), noticing how a community adapts a game using sound cues; the Hearing Team reads Proud to Be Deaf: Discover My Community and My Language (Beese), introducing Sign Language as a vibrant cultural asset, not an obstacle; the Mobility Team reads The Ramp Man (Anderson) or Dana Also Deserves a Playground (Manor), discovering how physical steps trap people outside a community space.
HOSTING OUR GUESTS
Host community partners for structured, interactive learning blocks, framed through Hachnasat Orechim — the class is hosting honoured guests, and a great host listens deeply. Workshop A (STOPGAP): the guest demonstrates the structural difference between a permanent step barrier and a portable, bright-red STOPGAP ramp, showing how a simple ramp turns a barrier into an open doorway. Workshop B (Silent Voice): the guest introduces Deaf culture and teaches essential ASL survival signs ("Welcome," "Friend," "Thank You," "Play"), with students physically practicing.
GETTING FEEDBACK ON OUR OWN DRAFTS
Before the guests leave, each group presents their Lesson 7 draft proposal directly to whichever guest is the best match (a ramp/entryway proposal to STOPGAP; a signage/communication proposal to Silent Voice). Ask the guest: Does this seem like it would actually help? Is there anything about how it's designed that could work even better? Is there a detail we're missing? Groups take notes directly on their draft proposal — crossing out, adding, and annotating in a different colour so the revision is visible.
BUILDING OUR TOOLKIT
Once guests depart, gather in a reflection circle. Log the expert feedback — both the specific notes on each group's draft and the general clues about what makes a space welcoming — into Thought-books and onto a two-column anchor chart: the Moving Lens (STOPGAP clues — brightly coloured ramps, automatic door buttons, wide pathways without steps) and the Hearing/Seeing Lens (Silent Voice clues — clear visual signs, people who look at you when speaking, simple signs or gestures).
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Reading a targeted text to each Research Team before the guest visit — rather than introducing guests cold — means students arrive with vocabulary and context already in place, so the guest's time is spent deepening understanding rather than covering basics from scratch.
Logging guest feedback directly into the same Thought-book and anchor-chart format used throughout the unit (rather than a one-off reflection sheet) keeps this real expert evidence integrated into the same evidence base students will use to build their final proposal.
Having students revise their draft in a visibly different colour, rather than rewriting it clean, is a small but deliberate choice — it keeps the evidence of revision visible, which matters for Lesson 9's presentation (being able to show "here's what changed and why" is itself persuasive evidence of a well-reasoned plan).