By Guest Author Janet Pozmantier, Director of the Parents Under Construction Program at ChildBuilders

It is no secret that law schools, medical schools, MBA programs, universities, and colleges of every sort are becoming increasingly more competitive in both their admissions and their academics. Internships are in similarly high demand, as it seems many students are striving to get "hands on" experience before entering the unknown of the "real world." But even the finest Ivy League education will leave the majority of today's students frighteningly unprepared for the most enduring, influential, and significant profession they will ever have -- parenting.

By Guest Author Dr. Marvin Berkowitz, University of Missouri-St. Louis

For several years, I have written articles with variations on the theme of urging parents to raise children of character in their homes, communities and schools. For over a quarter of a century, I have been studying children's moral and character development and working with schools, communities, and families to foster such development.

Why is this so important? You may think that I am a broken record stuck in my own groove, and becoming annoying by making a mountain out of a molehill. Every now and then, as I look at hunger and war around the world, I wonder whether I should pick up a different banner. After all, those are real issues with import for everyone. Matters of life and death. Global issues.

But my doubts are only rare and momentary, as I keep coming back to the same refrain. It is people who do good and people who do bad. Wars don't start by themselves. Hatred is not a natural force. Cruelty is not perpetrated by plants or minerals. People do these things and they do them in large part because of their characters.

If we want to live in a moral world, we need to raise moral children.

The MindOH! Foundation's fourth annual Character's Cool Contest was a huge success, with 5,502 student survey entries and 1,134 essay entries from 240 schools in 40 states. The total estimated value of prizes was more than $12,200, and included items ranging from a Nintendo Game Club to gift certificates from Old Navy. With 388 total student entries, D.A. Smith Middle School in Ozark, Alabama won the grand prize: a new computer and a one-year license to MindOH's Discipline and Life Skills Series. With 321 total entries, East Hanover Middle School in East Hanover, New Jersey won the second-place prize: Project Wisdom's Character Education Series.

The Character's Cool Contest is an annual program developed by the MindOH! Foundation to further character education and empower youth to practice ethical behavior. All secondary school students (ages 11-18) in the United States and Canada are eligible to enter.

Open from January 1 to February 11, 2005, this year's contest theme was bullying. One definition of bullying is "hurting or teasing others on purpose to try to overpower them." Thirty percent of students in grades six through 10 in U.S. public and private schools report moderate or frequent involvement in bullying either as a bully themselves, a victim or both. This year's contest strived to help kids understand the thoughts and emotions that go along with this cruel phenomenon, and realize how bullies are not always the people you expect.