The Tikkun Project
Lesson
6
Reflection
Concept
A capstone reflection should ask students to look both backward (what changed) and forward (how will this transfer) - and, as the final unit in the K-8 arc, it should also ask them to look across their whole Tikkun journey, not just this one unit.
Focus Question
How has your understanding of diversity changed throughout this unit, and how will it shape how you engage with diverse communities going forward?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Language, Strand A (Literacy Connections and Applications), Grade 8: Reflect critically on personal learning and growth, using evidence from across a sustained inquiry.
Thinking & Learning Skills
ATL — Self-Management: Metacognitive reflection.
ATL — Thinking Skills: Evaluating whether initial assumptions were confirmed or changed; synthesizing learning across a multi-year sequence.
Learner Profile: Reflective.
Context
The final lesson of the final unit in the entire K-8 Tikkun sequence. This is the single highest-leverage place in the whole curriculum to make the cumulative arc explicit nothing else does this. The lesson has two parts: a unit-scoped reflection, and a genuinely new K-8-scoped reflection connecting this year's learning back to the sequence students have moved through since Kindergarten.
Lesson Outline
REFLECTING ON THIS UNIT
Students respond individually to: How has your understanding of diversity changed throughout this unit? In what ways do you believe diversity strengthens a community — what specific examples support that, from our discussions or your own experience? Can you think of situations where diversity might pose real challenges to a community, and how might those be addressed? How did working with people from different backgrounds influence your perspective? How can you apply what you've learned to your everyday life, and how might you help promote diversity in your own community? Reflecting on the collaborative project specifically, how did the group's diversity shape the final outcome? How might you approach working in a diverse group differently next time, based on what you've learned?
LOOKING BACK ACROSS OUR TIKKUN JOURNEY
Display a simple timeline or organizer listing each grade's Tikkun unit alongside a one-line reminder of its focus: SK — Individual and Community Wellbeing (caring for your own needs and others'); Grade 1 — Accessibility (making shared spaces welcoming for everyone); Grade 2 — Environmental Stewardship (caring for the natural world); Grade 3 — Difference Makers (taking direct action and teaching others to act); Grade 4 — Poverty (identifying real barriers and building a two-part plan to address them); Grade 5 — Government and Change (civic responsibility and how systems of decision-making work); Grade 6 — Immigration (welcoming newcomers and learning from lived experience); Grade 7 — Sustainability (weighing individual action against the need for systemic change); Grade 8 — Diversity (this unit).
Students choose two or three units from their own journey — not necessarily consecutive — that feel most connected to what they've learned about diversity this year, and write a short explanation of the connection for each. Prompts to support this, if useful: How does this compare to what you learned about community in SK or Grade 1? About taking direct action in Grade 3? About identifying and responding to systemic barriers in Grades 4 through 6? About balancing individual responsibility with collective, systemic change in Grade 5 or 7?
SHARING OUR REFLECTIONS
In small groups or as a class, students share one connection from the K-8 timeline activity that surprised them or felt especially strong — a connection they hadn't consciously made before this lesson.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Providing a one-line reminder alongside each grade's unit name matters because students — especially reflecting on SK or Grade 1 content — may only have a dim memory of the specific unit; the reminder gives them enough to make a genuine connection rather than guessing or skipping units they can't recall clearly.
Asking students to choose their own two or three connections, rather than requiring a response to every single grade, keeps the activity feasible in one lesson while still requiring real synthesis — a forced response to all nine units would likely produce thin, generic answers rather than a few genuinely considered ones.