One of the greatest gifts we can give our children is the gift of good character—being kind, compassionate and patient toward others, as well as having a healthy self-esteem.
That’s why the Middos Contest for Schools was started. This program was created to give teachers the extra push to teach their students about middos and develop their students into kinder, more sensitive and more spiritually aware people.
This Middos Contest for Schools is unique in that it not only encourages schools to teach about middos, but also empowers students to put those lessons into practice in their daily life.
After signing up to join the program, each teacher chooses which middah he or she wants their class to focus on during the upcoming month. Next, the teacher chooses a “middos challenge” that would be reasonable for each student to try to accomplish every day. For example, if the teacher wants students to focus on gratitude (hakarat hatov), the challenge might be to say “thank you” to at least one person every day. If the class wants to work on the middah of simcha (happiness), the challenge might be to tell at least one person something that you are happy about, every day (e.g., “I’m so happy to have a warm coat!”).
Students keep track of which days they successfully completed the challenge on special contest cards handed out by the teachers. At the end of the month, teachers collect the cards and take note of which students did the challenge for at least five days within the month. The names of these students are then submitted to the organizers of Middos Challenges, who do a raffle from all the names of students they received. The student who wins the monthly raffle can then choose a prize from a list of prize options provided by Middos Challenges.
In the month of Shevat 5777, over one hundred students participated in this middos contest, from a wide range of schools, including Maayan Torah Day School (Portland, Oregon), Yeshiva Rabbi S.R. Hirsch (Washington Heights, New York), Ramaz (New York, New York) and Hebrew Academy of Nassau County (West Hempstead, New York).
The winning student was Benny Bader from Rabbi Avrohom Hoffman’s class in Yeshiva Rabbi S.R. Hirsch. Benny’s class focused on the middah of hakarat hatov (gratitude), and the class challenge was to say “thank you” to three people every day, as well as say “thank you” to Hashem once a day.
The Middos Contest for Schools is open to students of all ages, from preschool, elementary, high school or even seminaries and yeshivot.
The contest is part of a larger ongoing program called “Middos Challenges”—a free, weekly email that offers tips and insights into how to work on different middos—such as humility, happiness, bitachon and anger. Middos Challenges was founded in January 2016 and so far has over 1,000 subscribers from 15 different countries around the world.
To sign up for these free weekly middos emails, visit MiddosChallenges.com.To find out how to run the middos contest in your school, email [email protected].
By Middos Challenges
