The Tikkun Project
Lesson
2
What Makes a Community Inclusive and Welcoming
Concept
True hospitality (Hachnasat Orechim) means designing a space where every person is known, valued, and socially included without hidden emotional hurdles.
Focus Question
What does it mean for a person to feel truly welcomed and included in a space? What are the invisible stumbling blocks that might make someone feel left out or unknown?
Knowledge & Understanding Goals
Social Studies, People and Environments: The Local Community, Strand B, B2.2: Gather and organize information and data about the school environment using direct, structured observation.
Social Studies, Strand B, B3.6: Identify social and physical features of a community and explain how they meet the emotional and social needs of diverse individuals.
Health and Physical Education, Active Living Strand A, A1.4: Apply social-emotional learning skills to foster a supportive environment that honours a sense of belonging and identity for all classmates.
Thinking & Learning Skills
Thinking Skills (Criteria Application): Evaluating an everyday space to see if its social design makes everyone feel equally invited and valued.
Learner Profile Connection (Caring / Reflective): Students reflect on how their classroom's layout, routines, and symbols affect the feelings of safety and belonging for others.
Context
Building on Lesson 1 (defining a community), students look inside their own room. This lesson launches the unit's Critical Challenge with an exclusive focus on making the community socially welcoming and inclusive, establishing their baseline data on the class Dashboard.
Lesson Outline
LOOKING PAST THE BUILDING TO THE FEELING
Gather students at the circle. Pull out the "Yes, this is a community" cards from Lesson 1. Challenge the class to look past the buildings and look at the feelings in the spaces: are they practicing Hachnasat Orechim — ready to welcome a new friend so they instantly feel at home? Introduce the core inclusion check-rules: everyone feels like they belong (known, respected, valued); everyone feels safe (safe to share ideas, try new things, make mistakes); everyone can participate (no one left on the sidelines).
Create a T-chart: "I think this is welcoming and inclusive because..." / "I don't think this is welcoming and inclusive because..." Have students analyze a visual card and record indicators.
MEETING THE CORE TEXT
Write Leviticus 19:14 on the board: "You should not put an obstacle (stumbling block) in front of a blind person." Discuss: what happens when someone trips over a real stumbling block? Explain that an obstacle isn't always a physical rock — sometimes a classroom or playground has invisible stumbling blocks that hurt people's feelings or block them from joining the fun (secret rules nobody explains, nobody greeting you by name).
REVEALING THE UNIT MISSION
Explain that students will work together as community designers to create a plan that removes barriers to accessibility and makes the school community fully welcoming and inclusive. A great plan is: realistic (Grade 1 students can actually do it); inclusive (creates belonging for more people); evidence-based (responds to an observed challenge); persuasive (presented clearly and kindly).
AUDITING OUR OWN CLASSROOM
Pair students up with clipboards for a focused walkthrough of their own classroom, investigating three questions: What features make people feel welcome (a visual morning schedule, a cozy corner)? What features make people feel known and valued (names on cubbies, drawings that show who we are)? Can everyone participate in all the things we do (pictures on labels for early readers, fair turn-taking)?
Gather back as a class; each pair shares one welcoming feature or one hidden stumbling block. Each pair places a token on the Dashboard chart to rate how welcoming the classroom currently feels: not welcoming at all / just a little bit / mostly welcoming and inclusive / super welcoming and inclusive. Explain that the rest of the unit is about moving that needle higher.
Notes for Teaching and Evaluation
Introducing the core text only after students have already generated their own inclusion criteria (the T-chart) — not before — means the text tests and deepens independent student thinking rather than pre-determining it, the same sequencing principle used elsewhere in the Tikkun curriculum.
The Dashboard token-placement gives every student a concrete, low-stakes way to register a judgment, and — because it will be revisited later in the unit — sets up the same before/after design used throughout Tikkun units to make a shift in thinking visible.