A friend’s little sister was talking about high school
graduation the other day, and was complaining about having to finish her
community service requirement so that she could get her degree. Her school
required that she complete 80 hours of community service (and provide
documentable proof of them) throughout her four years of high school.
Personally, I remember having a similar requirement in
middle school, and I was asked to complete 20 hours of community service a
year. My parents always made sure that I made volunteering a part of my
extracurricular activities from a young age, so the requirement didn’t really faze
me at the time. But every year, my friends would rush around at the last
minute, looking for a way to reach their quota.
Hearing my friend’s sister made me think about whether or
not it is effective to require community service hours in schools. When I think
about it in passing, it seems like an effective way to teach students about the
importance of giving back while also enforcing hands-on learning. The added
benefit is that each year, hundreds of students are going out in their
communities and helping. But there are some questionable issues that have been
addressed, such as the effects on service rates after graduation and the
morality behind forcing community service.
The New York Times published an article over 20 years ago on
high schools the then increasing rates of community service requirements (http://www.nytimes.com/1994/05/01/nyregion/high-schools-mandating-community-service-for-graduation.html?pagewanted=all).
The article addressed the various ways in which this was becoming a trend, from
graduation requirements to course-specific requirements to incentives for those
with the most hours at the end of a school year. Some schools said that
requirements were working, and kids were meeting the needed hours without much
complaint. Other schools scoffed at the idea, focusing on how they fostered a
spirit of giving back instead of forcing students to oblige.
One major concern was how students finally completed their
hours. While some got involved in programs and, little by little, worked their
way toward the requirement, others waiting until the last minute and then
rushed to complete service. This meant that it wasn’t so much of a learning and
engaging experience, and more of a way to accomplish as much as possible. Students
were no longer mindful about the giving experience, but instead looked at it as
yet another high school task.
A study published by the Economics of Education Review
examined Maryland, which was the first state to set a community service
requirement for all public school graduates. The study found that students who
were forced to fill community service hours actually ended up volunteering less
later on after graduation. The sense of requirement and burden that came from
high school deterred many students from engaging later on.
Now, this is not to say that nothing positive came from high
school requirements. Articles such as this one from the Washington Post (https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/high-school-seniors-in-mad-scramble-to-finish-community-service/2015/04/05/35aa73b8-d943-11e4-ba28-f2a685dc7f89_story.html)
cited negatives from requirements, but also had anecdotes of students who only
discovered a passion for giving because of the requirement they had to fulfill.
But the idea poses an interesting question of whether or not giving should be
required, and if someone should be forced to do “the right thing.”
Do you think high schools should require students to
complete community service hours for graduation? Why or why not? What benefits do
you see to a requirement, and what shortcomings?
I really enjoyed this post; this is an idea that we haven't discussed much in the classroom, but it is something that we have most likely all experienced. Last year when I was in high school, there was a community service requirement to graduate, and also a community service requirement to be a member of the National Honor Society.
ReplyDeleteSimilarly to you, I have always been encouraged to volunteer by my parents since a young age. My mom teaches religion class on the weekends, so I would go to our church with her and help out at the Sunday school, making the mandatory community service easy to complete. However, at the end of the year, I would often have friends ask me to sign their community service logs next to forged hours as they scrambled to make up activities. This was sad to me, but at the end of the day, would we really want people who aren't passionate about donating their time to volunteer.
Say for example you have a child in after school care, where volunteers look after them. Do you want someone who is going to pay no attention to your child, sit on their phone, etc. to be looking after them? I know for me, the answer is no. That is why I do not think that high schools should require students to complete community service hours.
While there are benefits to mandatory community service, such as increased numbers of volunteers and instilling a sense of civic duty in youth, there are more shortcomings. Mandatory tasks, no matter what they are, are often viewed at as negative, simply because none of us want to be forced to do something. As you mentioned, this can create an animosity towards community service, and prevent individuals from volunteering later in life. Community service should come from a place of passion, not to fulfill a graduation requirement.
Alex, thank you for writing about this. As we have discussed, community service is a form of philanthropy and many of us have completed community service for one reason or another. I know I personally have had to complete hours for honor societies both in high school and now in college. Specifically, I have hours due this week for National Residential Honor Society. On one hand, I think requiring students to give back to their communities is a positive thing. I have always been encouraged to do community service and have found it rewarding. Moreover, many young people benefit from different things in their community and should give back to "repay" that reality. Additionally, the requirement could increase the number of volunteers, alleviating some potential costs of local non-profits and teaching young people useful and transferrable skills and life lessons. On the other hand, people doing community service when they really do not care about it, makes me nervous. Many volunteering opportunities for high school students include opportunities working with children and animals. I personally would not be comfortable with a child or animal being in the care and supervision of someone who has no interest in them and could be distracted easily. Additionally, there will always be some students that forge volunteering records or who know someone that is willing to say they completed their hours when in reality they hadn't. I personally believe that if community service does not come from a honest and passionate place, it is meaningless. People will almost always reject things they are forced to do, especially teenagers that may be rebellious. Moreover, students may decide later in life that they do not need to give back any more than they have because they fulfilled their requirement in high school, deterring them from community service. The language of "fulfilling a requirement" in itself makes the person who receives that designation believe that they have done their part and no longer need to do more. But in reality, so long as you are benefitting from the society in which you live, you should continue to give back to that society.
ReplyDeleteThe high school I went to also had a community service requirements in order to graduate. The only difference between what you described and what we did was that the number of service hours were modified depending on when you started them. I looked back at my high school handbook and it said, "40 hours community service per year (or 2 years of 40 hours and 1 year of 100 hours)". The additional 20 hours of service that was required if you did not delegate 40 hours per year was set so that students wouldn't rush to try to complete their hours. However, a majority of students (including myself) found themselves Junior year with a pitiful amount of service hours and none closer to fulfilling the 180 hours of community service that was required. At this point your two options were to complete your hours or find someone to fib the numbers for you. I ended up volunteering at my local library to complete the remaining hours. Those hours of volunteering were dreadful and boring due to its lack of engagement. Instead of being productive and volunteering my time towards something I was passionate about, I was in the backroom scanning returned textbooks for hours at a time. Others who were under pressure to complete the required hours were able to find someone willing to fill out the forms saying that the number of hours were completed even though they weren't. Popular choices were parents who coached a local sports team or a student who was the head of local club that had authority to sign off service hours.
ReplyDeleteWhat this experience taught me was the some way or another, people will find a way to work the system to their advantage. Setting community hour service requirements was not the engaging, life-changing, passion-instilling experience it was meant to be. Instead, it was a pestering requirement that accompanied an already rigorous academic environment that in of itself required you to join two clubs a year, study for hours after school, and complete a major project per term.
What would have made this requirement better was if the school listed resources of places you could volunteer at with reasonable locations and hours. It was only during my senior year that a forum was set in place for students to search for volunteering opportunities. Before that, you had to search for them on your own and many times the organizations you found interesting to work for had age requirements or unreasonable hours for a student. One organization that I volunteered at and loved was the New York Road Runners however, the number of hours I could work was limited to weekend race days in the Spring and required that I be in Central Park at 6am to report.
The hardest part about community service hours is that you have to find an organization that engages you. If not, it becomes another requirement to fulfill. I agree that community service should not be required. A better approach would be to encourage community engagement by introducing students to local organizations or having service clubs in which the students are offered volunteering opportunities to join.
THHS Student Handbook
http://www.thhs.qc.edu/ourpages/auto/2010/7/16/54508194/Townsend%20Harris%20High%20School%20Custom%20Pages%202014-2015.pdf
Hello Alex,
ReplyDeleteInteresting post! I believe high schools should implement a requirement. It is slightly embarrassing to admit, but I was the student who had to cram in a minimum of 50 hours of community service because I wanted to join the National Honor Society (NHS). Traveling from Brooklyn to Staten Island every day for school was time consuming and I never paid attention to the volunteer opportunities offered at my school. On the other hand, my sister (went to a different high school) volunteered at least once a month at a park cleanup with Key Club (the oldest service organization for high school students). Seeing her volunteer did motivate me to check out the Key Club in my school, but once again, staying after school to attend the club’s meeting meant taking the later bus home, where I might not get home until 6pm.
Fast forward to the two and a half months before I had to submit an application for NHS, my sister connected me to an after school program her friend volunteered at. For the next two months, rain or shine I went to volunteer after school every day for 3 hours for around two months because I really wanted to be part of NHS. Long story short, I joined the National Honor Society. But that wasn’t the highlight of this experience. It was through this maybe “selfish” reason that got me interested in philanthropy. After I graduated from high school and moved to Binghamton, I came into college with one goal. My goal was to volunteer more because I loved the “good-feeling” I get when I help someone or a cause. It makes me feel important and part of the community. And this is the impact high schools want to introduce to students at an early age. If it wasn’t for this required service hours, I might not have been exposed to the enriching experience of doing community service. A short-coming of this requirement could be that students who weren’t really there for the right reasons might not be putting their full heart into the service they are performing. But I was that student once before, and after the first week I was immersed in working with the students at the after school program, so I do not see this short-coming as a potential problem. This requirement could be the first time these students are “working,” so it might take them longer time to adapt the environment. A suggestion I will like to tell the school is to encourage group volunteering and really advertising volunteer opportunities through their daily announcements.
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ReplyDeleteAlex, I enjoyed your post as it brought something different to the blog and the conversations that we have been having. Personally, I have been very involved in community service throughout my years in both middle school and high school. Even though I was involved in much community service in high school, I do not believe that students should be required to have a certain amount of hours of community service to graduate. I believe that whenever you force someone, especially a teenager, to do something, they will resent doing it as they do it and in the future. Therefore, requiring students to perform 80 hours of community service will cause them to not want to be involved in community service in the future because in the past someone forced them to do it. Also, for the most part, most high school students are involved in community service even without the requirement for graduation because they need to build their resume. So, requiring students to do community service is useless and makes it seem like a job instead of the students doing it by themselves like they would have anyway. Community service also teaches you numerous lessons, but if the entire time a student is doing community service they are resenting it because their school forced them to do it, they will not pay attention to the benefits and just notice the negatives. Finally, it is not the teacher’s job to teach students values, which is what making them perform community service is trying to do. It is the teacher’s job to educate students so that they are able to formulate their own opinions and develop their own values instead of just listening to someone else’s.
ReplyDeleteThe counterargument to not requiring community service is that some students realize that they actually enjoy giving their time; however, these mandatory hours will make many more students not want to participate in community service in the future than make students realize that they enjoy community service. In addition, those students who realize that they enjoy giving their time more than likely would have realized this without the mandatory hours because most people will partake in community service without being forced.
The two positive things that I see about requiring community service are 1) the community will benefit and 2) the individual may discover a passion they hadn't realized before. But the same can be said of a lot of other hidden passions that may be within someone. I am not really in favor of schools doing this. I don't think morality should be forced upon anyone. What one's owns morals are is up to the individual; it's personal. I also agree with some of the other comments that said when young people are asked to do something, it makes them not what to do it. Making community service a requirement turns it into an obligation, but helping others and doing good should never feel like that.
ReplyDeleteI think a healthier alternative to this would be for schools to try to foster a general spirit of doing good. Make it part of the school's values and make the students feel proud and responsible for helping others. My favorite English teacher told us around the holidays that it is our duty, as people who are fortunate enough to have food, safety, and an education, to give back. I think it's more effective to instill a sense of moral responsibility in students, but ultimately to leave the decision of whether to do community service up to them. Some students might be passionate about other ways to improve the world. They shouldn't be hindered in developing their passions by having to do a lot of community service.
This is definitely a thought-provoking topic, thanks for posting Alex. I do think that schools should have a community service requirement, but I don't think it should be structured in the way that it usually is.
ReplyDeleteMy school actually had a slightly different system than the other ones that people are commenting about. Community service was optional, but you could earn half a credit on your transcript per every 60 documented hours, with a cap of 2 credits earned. You would also receive an award at graduation depending on how many hours you completed. I think this system is a step in the right direction, as it motivates kids to do service, without requiring them to. However, I still don't think this is enough.
In this class, we talk a lot about doing the most good. I have found our class discussions and readings interesting, they have definitely shaped my view on giving. After taking the course, I was inspired to give more and give in a smarter way. In most high schools, children don't get this kind of education. Students are not introduced to the study of philanthropy, they are not made to analyze their impact. Instead, schools tell them to complete an arbitrary number of hours.
By placing hours as the central focus of the requirement, schools make it seem like all time donated is equally impactful to society. I'd have to imagine Peter Singer would scoff at this idea. Kids are not in any position to question or analyze the impact of their work. Yes, they may gain positive experiences from doing service, but they are not made to see the bigger picture.
Shouldn't schools be aiming to make their students smarter philanthropists? Perhaps adding an educational component, similar to the style of our class, would be a better way to view this program. A few meaningful discussions about philanthropy may be enough to change the mindsets of students. If kids are made to think about how their time and service impacts the issue area as a whole, they may realize the importance of their work and want to do more in the future. Sure, there may still be some who go through the program without caring about anything other than their resumes. However, allowing the students time to reflect and analyze their own giving might give these service programs the boost they need.
Alex, I really enjoyed your post and thought that required community service hours is a topic most of us can relate to. My high school required 10 hours of community service senior year in order to graduate. For some people who were already involved in volunteering at animal shelters, church programs or through athletic fundraisers, getting these hours was not a concern. Still, a good amount of kids were kind of lost as to how to get these hours and weren't given much instruction on how they could go about finding volunteer opportunities they might connect with and enjoy, so they ended up faking their hours or doing them the month before graduation. In this circumstance, the required hours weren't accomplishing their purpose of getting kids to meaningfully engage in their community. One class I took senior year was a public affairs course, where we examined public policy and how it could be changed to solve societal issues. The course also emphasized gaining important life skills through experiential learning experiences in order to become more active global citizens. As part of the class, we did group volunteering projects and also did a food drive and volunteered at a soup kitchen as a class, making community service seem important and fun. Considering the issues with mandated community service, I think that schools should only require volunteer hours if they will actively help kids to find volunteer opportunities, incorporate community service into classes, and maybe have forum discussions a few times a year to check in with kids and allow them to share what they are learning from their experiences. If kids can get a better sense of the good they have the potential to accomplish, and have volunteering with their friends and classmates as a more integral part of their lives in school, they will most likely be more willing to complete their hours and seek out volunteer opportunities even after their service hours are completed.
ReplyDeleteI can relate to this post because in my high school I was required to do 20 hours of community service each year also. Although I see where some people may find negatives to this, I feel that the good strongly out weighs the bad in this situation. An understandable negative result of this mandatory community service is that students rush through their service, and therefore don't really do it because they care, but just do it to check it off a list. This may be the case for some students, but I believe it is not the case for most. In my small high school with 100 kids per class, we were all mandated to do 20 hours of community service each year. Me and a group of friends got involved in a local soup kitchen, and it was something that we did almost every week. Even after we surpassed our required community service hours, we still went and helped out at this soup kitchen; we even formed relationships with some of the regulars there. It was something that we all enjoyed doing together, and helping the local community. This is why I feel that overall the mandatory community service requirements in high schools is an overall great thing, because if it weren't for that requirement, I don't know if i ever would have even known about this soup kitchen...Which turned into something that I looked forward to every week.
ReplyDeleteI think this is an excellent post, Alex, because it addresses a philanthropic theme that I've expressed concern about myself in the past: reception. Specifically, I was concerned that the BCUL's integration of fun and learning may not have been as effective as the staff were touting, mainly because of my initial doubts about student receptiveness to working amidst playing. The issue you've raised about the receptiveness of high school students to mandatory community services resonates with me for that reason
ReplyDeleteWhile I do agree that this sort of mandate likely turns a large amount of students off to the notion of philanthropy, I still believe that schools should place focus on philanthropy, especially within the school's respective community. However, I think that a better incentive than mandated service to reach this goal is a class focused on interdisciplinary issues, which includes philanthropy as a subject area. There was a course in my high school and middle school curricula called Interdisciplinary Core, wherein we studied about a number of social issues, as well as supplements for grammar, how to apply mathematic skills in real-life situations, etc. I think that a course like this would be a much better facilitator of philanthropy, because the class would act as an informer and promulgator of charitable giving rather than seeming like an obligation auxiliary to course work. And maybe extra credit assignments could be afforded to incentivize hands-on contribution, in the community? Either way, I believe that a class and constituent learning environment are much more conducive to learning about philanthropy, as evidenced by this class, for instance, than being handed a spreadsheet with daunting requirements for the year.
I do believe that high schools should require students to complete community service hours for graduation. In my opinion it teaches them many important things including what services are provided within their community, the importance of the type of work that they do, and how their contributions can make a difference. Yes, there are going to be some kids that rush to complete their hours and do not learn the benefits of community services. However, even if some students do not gain anything from it, there are still going to be many that do which is worth making it a requirement. Although there is one piece of research that says that individuals were less likely to engage in community service later on if they felt forced into doing so, there is no way to prove that these youth would have even gotten involved later in life had they not been forced. These youth that this research refers to are those that would probably not have gotten involved regardless of the requirement. Because of this, I believe that by being required to do this service, more people would be inclined to participate later in life than would be deterred from doing so.
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, many college courses have community services requirements such as this. I, personally, have taken multiple courses with this requirement at Binghamton University and have had a history of involvement in community service, so this requirement was not a difficult thing for me. Due to this, I feel like regardless of why one has been engaged in community service—be it that they did it due to a requirement or on their own free will—they will still have the practice and be prepared for such requirements in their higher education experience.
This is a really interesting topic, and although I was never forced to do community service in order to graduate high school or middle school, it was strongly encouraged and it was a requirement for me to receive Confirmation. Based on my past experiences, I really don't think that it should be a requirement for students to complete community service in order to graduate. One reason I feel that it shouldn't be a requirement is because it makes students dislike completing community service and it becomes a tedious task and you have to get it over with before the end of the year. A way to prevent this, and something that my schools used throughout my high school and middle school experience was giving an incentive instead of making it a requirement. In order to be in NHS and wear that pretty white sash at graduation with just about every other person there, or even something like extra credit in class. This way it is your option and you can learn to enjoy volunteering, but you don't need to if you don't want to. It might not seem like such a great idea to offer extra credit because then that would be the only reason students will donate, but just getting students involved in the community is important and it might make them like getting involved eventually. Every year my schools offered credit for donating gifts to pediatric cancer patients, and at first I donated enough toys just so I could be one of the select few to actually go to the hospital and give these kids the toys. I was chosen after 3 years and that was such an amazing experience that now I donate toys to the Blythdale Children's Hospital every year. There can be positive experiences from both forcing students to volunteer and by offering an incentive, but I think the better route would be to offer them an incentive. Everyone knows that when forced to do something, it just makes it something you don't want to do.
ReplyDeleteGreat post! I think that encouraging students to start philanthropy work and donating their time/money at a young age is influential and necessary to expose those in society to helping out the community. Personally, I was involved in the Key Club in middle school which helped me to gain a small amount of exposure to philanthropy. A specific project that left a lasting impression on my mind is when we made nice holiday cards to donate to Meals on Wheels. Meals on Wheels is a organization that hands out free meals to the poor during the holiday seasons. At the time, I did not fully understand the correlation between card making and philanthropy, but as I grew older, I was abel to fully understand and appreciate the small amount of philanthropy work that I was able to do at such a young age. I credit some of my passion for philanthropy to this early exposure to community service at such a young age.
ReplyDeleteFast forward to high school, I was actually required to complete at a minimum of 50 hours of community service by the time I was a senior to obtain a special high school degree. Personally, I went to Brooklyn Technical High School, a specialized high school in NYC that required students to complete 50 hours to obtain a Brooklyn Tech Diploma, which is an extra special diploma. However, the school made this accessbile and easy to complete by allowing participation in certain clubs to count as community service. For example, holding eboard positions in organizations, being a part of a sports team, or student government counts towards these 50 hours. I think that this was a conscious effort by the school to help students gain exposure to philanthropy work.
I think that all these small experiences in my life in participating in community service definitely helped to mold me into the person that I am today. I definitely contribute my interest in philanthropy to all these experiences that I was exposed to since middle school.