As you enter the lobby of the Day School, you will notice a display of our “Mission, Vision and Values, as well as the twelve middot (values) from our “Middot Calendar”. There is no better way to start the 2019 – 2020 school year than to focus on the mission of our school, which is, put simply, to create a community of mensch’s
Some ways that we are building this community include:
- As part of the “Library Launch” celebration, the 5th and 6th graders will share reflections on menschlekeit behavior from biographies they have read and encourage other students to read about people who reflect the middot.
- The Day School will serve as a “hub” for the Community Food Bank to distribute food to seniors. Our students will take an active role in unloading the food and getting it organized for distribution.
- For the first Kabbalat Shabbat, the 7th graders “role-played” situations for the rest of the school that exhibited polite behavior (our first middah- politeness).
- The Upper School participates in the Alliance program, which includes community day schools from small communities in Ohio, North Carolina, New York, Connecticut, and Nebraska. These schools participate in a three-year curriculum focused on social justice. Year one’s theme is “Civil Rights” with local travel to Birmingham, Selma and Montgomery. Year two culminates in a trip to Washington D.C. and in year three, the students travel to Israel together. These experiences forge bonds between Jewish students who share common values and strive together to support one another as they become mensch’s that reflect Jewish values.
These are just a few examples of how we answer the question, “What makes a mensch?” at the Day School. We make mensch’s by integrating the middot with everything that we do, which empowers our students to be citizens who can fulfill the school’s mission to “impact the world with courage and compassion”.