Community Service

[shinyskarmory]

Not sure if this deserves a serious tag or not, maybe it's halfway in between.

Right now I'm sitting on a bus getting ready to go to my school's new yearly event. It's essentially a community service event where they load us onto busses and send us to essentially do unpaid work for a day, with the threat of not graduating if we don't do it. On top of that, there's the forty hours of community service that we're required to do to graduate, which I've already completed.

Our teachers always tell us that the point of community service is to give back to your community and really become a part of the area you live in. My friends think it's a way for them to get free work out of us while they have our diplomas hostage.

I think that there are personal benefits to community service, but only if you're doing it out of your own voluntary choice. IMO if you're doing it because your school or something requires it and not because you enjoy it or want to help, you're defeating the purpose of doing it. Mandatory service doesn't attach me more to my community, it makes me resent it.

-what (to you) is the point of community service

-is community service devalued by being forced upon you? Does mandatory community service actually accomplish the personal goals that are the stated reason for being forced to do it, or does it just result in people doing whatever it takes to get done without ever actually doing it because they care?

-should schools be allowed to mandate community service? Should they provide incentives instead?

 

[Brap]

Well we can all tell what part of the world you're from...

 

[capefeather]

As somebody who's been through this kind of thing, I don't think that mandatory community service does much for the majority of students. I don't think that there's an easy alternative (other than just not having it) because it speaks to a deeper issue of how public education keeps being set up to "teach to the test", and mandatory community service is just another part of that. Unfortunately, the only thing that some people can ever think about on the subject of education is appeasing the desires of parents, which can sometimes lead to bad things. All this is, itself, a symptom of an even bigger problem in society where we cling to inefficiencies in the education system, government, etc. You'd think that taking stuff like record keeping to the 21st century would be a good thing, but nope, gotta cut funding in ways that won't solve anything.

All that said, the use of words like "threat" and "hostage" is really exaggerating the issue and that's what's going to make people dismiss this thread as FWP. We just have to deal with it. It's actually not very hard to get all 40 hours. For me, school band concerts counted toward it. Though, there was this one volunteering thing where the organizer refused to give hours because that would make it about the reward and not about the SPIRIT OF GIVING. What a jerk.

 

[Stratos]

mandatory service is the greatest oxymoron and whoever implemented it in schools is the greatest moron

 

[Steamroll]

mandatory service is the greatest oxymoron and whoever implemented it in schools is the greatest moron

And then you find out most schools don't even enforce it.

 

[toshimelonhead]

I don't see the point of forcing people to perform community service. Any fuzzy feeling for mandatory community service is much smaller than the fuzzy feeling one gets for willingly performing community service. These things are 1000 times worse when people are complaining all the time about doing it, though. Might as well "fake it till you make it" for as long as you can.

 

[Eggbert]

Community services geared towards school requirements and college applications are a complete joke, and you are being used to do chores that they don't want to pay for. I've seen people from my school cleaning out the dirt and moving garbage cans in front of our school over the summer, ie free janitors. Real community service shouldn't have to be logged or related to advancing your resume, it should be done voluntarily and without such obvious motives and gain. Who cares if you logged 400 hours moving garbage cans around if the only reason you are doing so is to have the 400 hours on paper?

 

[Chou Toshio]

I understand wanting to foster the "spirit of giving," but really-- all service/giving activities provide some benefit to the giver. Whether it be looking better in the eyes of the community, or simply that feeling of accomplishment or feeling of doing something good. It's so hard to separate the act of giving from the benefits of giving that I don't think it's easy to just dismiss people who "do service for their own sake."

The "meaningfulness" of the activity probably comes not from expecting no benefits/rewards, but in actually caring about what you're doing.

 

[Solace]

I find that compulsory service for anything is likely to make a person resent it. The idea of community service should be that it's something you want to do. College "requirements" for it are bogus, and it inevitably becomes another race of "how much community service can you afford to do?" My classmates find themselves signed up to spend a week/month in Costa Rica / Vietnam / some African country and add it as out of school community service out of "the kindness of their hearts". It really becomes just more fodder to add to your college app to distinguish you from other people who don't have the opportunity to do community service.

Helping people just becomes another competition and chore and the whole spirit and good feelings that come out of it are forgotten.

 

[moonbound]

Community services geared towards school requirements and college applications are a complete joke, and you are being used to do chores that they don't want to pay for.

Usually, but my school has strict requirements about what you can do for the service requirement. If it isn't directly helping an organization which assists the poor, disabled, elderly, refugees etc it doesn't count.

If people in need are getting legitimate help, I don't think it matters why the "volunteers" are helping them. As the service coordinator of my NHS chapter, I know that plenty of people are too lazy to serve even when it's required. I'd rather force people to do it than just leave jobs undone or put more strain on legitimate volunteers.

 

[Lanturn314]

I love how all of these posts assume that community service is just something you're supposed to do to give yourself some sort of fuzzy feeling, and that the fact they don't get said fuzzy feeling doing mandatory community service defeats the entire point.

Not everything is about you, you know. Ideally, it's about the people you're helping, because that's what community service is: serving the community. People whining about having to do it kind of irritate me because they always sound so entitled and self-centered. "Ohhh poor me, I have to HELP people for 40 hours instead of sitting on my ass in front of the computer all day! The town is getting free labor from me and I personally am not benefitting at all from it! Jerks!" Like, really? It's not that hard, and if you go into it with the right attitude, it can actually be very rewarding and a lot of fun! And even if it isn't rewarding to you personally, you're at least contributing to making the community a better place, which can only ever be a good thing.

And also, I think that if implemented correctly, mandatory community service programs are a really good thing. Not only do they make the community a better place overall, but they also give people a chance to see what really goes on outside of the gated world they live in. And if people actually connect with those who are less well-off, get to know people who have experienced true poverty, they can gain so much more perspective and empathy. In an era of increasing narcissism and entitlement (which is readily apparent in this thread!!!), we could all use a little more empathy, as it makes the world a better place. Even without that, though, the net impact of mandatory community service is a good one-- the community is better off, and the students are only mildly inconvenienced.

Just my 2 cents

 

[tehy]

I didn't care about community service, still don't really. That probably makes me a bad person but w/e.

All that meant was that I 'missed' graduation, except I was in the choir so i was there anyhow. GG High School.

The problem with the whole college thing is just the problem with colleges in general these days, too hard to get in. There's no real way to weed out who does it because they like it and who does it to get in, which would be a stupid exercise but would at least stop people from doing it to get into colleges.

 

[PttP]

Even if it's forced community service, who fucking cares. You're helping someone in the grand scheme of things and that's what matters. If you're doing it to boost your resume, that should not be viewed as a bad or immoral thing because again, you're making someone's life better. To deflate the value of any community service, even forced or incentive based, is just stupid.

 

[Audiosurfer]

I find that compulsory service for anything is likely to make a person resent it. The idea of community service should be that it's something you want to do. College "requirements" for it are bogus, and it inevitably becomes another race of "how much community service can you afford to do?" My classmates find themselves signed up to spend a week/month in Costa Rica / Vietnam / some African country and add it as out of school community service out of "the kindness of their hearts". It really becomes just more fodder to add to your college app to distinguish you from other people who don't have the opportunity to do community service.

Helping people just becomes another competition and chore and the whole spirit and good feelings that come out of it are forgotten.

Exactly what one of my friends is doing this summer basically. I think mandatory community service for school is dumb, as others said, but I also agree we just have to suck it up and deal with it. I don't see why it should be looked at in terms of college acceptance, since while in theory the idea of having people who will give back to the community and reflect better on colleges seems good, in practice the purpose of trying to distinguish people based on service doesn't work when you make everyone serve to graduate, so it really is just how much time do you have and are willing to spend.

Personally I don't really bother much with service projects except occasionally. I usually like to spend my time doing programs that relate more to my talents and interests as opposed to how much I'd like to serve (not saying that service can't reflect a talent or interest, just that in the case of mandatory service it usually doesn't). However, when I do serve at like soup kitchens or stuff, I do feel like I've done something worthwhile and as if I've gained something from doing it, so service to the community does have merit.

 

[Pocket]

Solace, I am only naming you, because you presented the dissenting view point in detail. However, thinking of these mandatory community service as a chore and a competition among students to get into college is the WRONG way of perceiving things. If you think your colleagues are traveling to Egypt, Africa, etc, just to "build their application," well that's just sad. I know a lot of my friends come out of these experiences with fresh outlook in life, that there's more to this world than the comfort of their home. Although, they may not know full well what they're getting themselves into, the exposure to these foreign people and their drastic life conditions are an eye-opener to almost all students, and it will certainly impact some life decisions they will make in the future.

I say that we should stop comparing ourselves to others. The moment we do this, we will feel pessimism from these students' ambition and passion. Instead, we should look into ourselves and seek our own passion and ambition, and strive toward them. This will change our outlook in life for the better. Now you will see mandated community service more as an opportunity to discover your passion & ambition than an excuse to do some janitorial work / win the race. It all depends on what you make out of this opportunity.

 

[Shiruba]

eh. at least the stuff ends up getting done in some way. i'm thinking that a lot of charitable organizations can use all the help they can get. being forced to do something might actually show people that they like it, too.

personally, i love helping others and doing charities, though i very rarely have time to do so, as it takes almost two hours to get home from school - god forbid i'm staying until 9 or something working for the food bank when i have school the next morning.

i also used to do things with my friend, but he moved, so it's not as fun without spending time with him...


that said, if you can bring a friend, do it. it makes the experience way more fun, and the both of you can spend some good time together and also help build up your resumes for future jobs. also a lot of the other volunteers are pretty cool people and if you're not a hermit crab like me you'll probably make good allies, if not friends.

 

[Soul Fly]

Man, people always complain about anything made mandatory.

Mandatory Sports? Check

Mandatory Minimum Attendance? Check

Mandatory Dress Code? (The one that prohibits visible tattoos and bubblegum hair dye) Check

....

My two cents on this issue is just live with it. A few months before your diploma it shouldn't fucking matter. You can either enjoy it and bear through it.
No point bringing up your 'rights' and that general first world entitlement into this. Just treat it as a part of your school course. You're not 'harming' anyone/anything/any interest by doing Community service, so why not just play nice.

 

[shinyskarmory]

Man, people always complain about anything made mandatory.

Mandatory Sports? Check

Mandatory Minimum Attendance? Check

Mandatory Dress Code? (The one that prohibits visible tattoos and bubblegum hair dye) Check

....

My two cents on this issue is just live with it. A few months before your diploma it shouldn't fucking matter. You can either enjoy it and bear through it.
No point bringing up your 'rights' and that general first world entitlement into this. Just treat it as a part of your school course. You're not 'harming' anyone/anything/any interest by doing Community service, so why not just play nice.

I don't think anybody in this thread has brought up rights...

If you really want to bring up the whole "first world problems" argument, 99% of the people on these forums live in first world countries. That may be a slight generalization, but it's probably not too far off. Derailing the thread by going "entitled first worlders" doesn't contribute to the discussion at all and only shows the hypocrisy of the person posting it.

The point of community service is that you give your time out of your own free will to make the community better. But if you're forced into it, you don't give a shit about doing a good job. You're just counting the hours until you're done, without any interest at all in improving the area you live in.

Realistically, if you're not doing work for either an actual reward or because you want to do it, you're not going to do as good a job as somebody who legitimately wants to improve your community.

 

[skylight]

I remember doing community service back in high school and I actually enjoyed it. I can't remember how I got up most of my community service points (since we needed 20 iirc) but I remember I went back and helped out at my old primary school which was p awesome!

However I think it's pretty useless for high school students though, we pretty much all dreaded it and just thought of it as a thing we had to face rather than thinking "oh we're doing good".

Fun fact: While we didn't necessarily have to feel like we're doing good, we (by we I don't mean necessarily me because I enjoyed the stuff I did) got out of it any way possible. I remember when we got to be "school host", or "year group host" where we got out of classes all day and just delivered things to teachers, which wasn't really... community service. Then there was other stuff like getting people to fake sign the hours or points etc. It'd be good if we actually did something for the community but for the most part high school community service (here at least) really does very little.

But yeah, I think it's better off if this sort of community service was optional and not a thing we had to do to graduate. :x Or at least go through to the final grade. I honestly can't remember what it was for anymore tbh. It just added extra stress on us when we didn't really need it at that time.

 

[Soul Fly]

I don't think anybody in this thread has brought up rights...

If you really want to bring up the whole "first world problems" argument, 99% of the people on these forums live in first world countries. That may be a slight generalization, but it's probably not too far off. Derailing the thread by going "entitled first worlders" doesn't contribute to the discussion at all and only shows the hypocrisy of the person posting it.

The fact that you resent and want to bypass stuff that is mandatory just because you feel it is undue of them to make you do it by "holding your diploma hostage is in fact complaining about your rights. Your right to refuse to do community service regardless of whether you use the word

"99% of the people on these forums live in first world countries."
and? your point being?

The point of community service is that you give your time out of your own free will to make the community better. But if you're forced into it, you don't give a shit about doing a good job. You're just counting the hours until you're done, without any interest at all in improving the area you live in.

Realistically, if you're not doing work for either an actual reward or because you want to do it, you're not going to do as good a job as somebody who legitimately wants to improve your community.

Well if there were so many people "legitimately willing to do it" out of care concern and general human empathy, then I don't think that the country's education system would have conscripted the Young Adults (high schoolers) of the country into doing it.
You may not be as productive as a genuine volunteer but you cannot actually do "negative" social service because you were forced to do it. Anything you do... even grudgingly can only be of benefit.

 

[Solace]

Solace, I am only naming you, because you presented the dissenting view point in detail. However, thinking of these mandatory community service as a chore and a competition among students to get into college is the WRONG way of perceiving things. If you think your colleagues are traveling to Egypt, Africa, etc, just to "build their application," well that's just sad.

Except that your friends probably did some actual work and their main intention probably wasn't to use it to get into college. They probably stayed with the people they were helping and learned more about their culture. Most of the kids I go to school with live very privileged, sheltered lifestyles, and the second they get to these countries, they flip out when they find out the nice hotel they stay at doesn't have the electrical means to let them style their hair for five hours. At the end of the day, they spend tons of money to go to 3rd world countries in order to do a whole lot of nothing for all but a day and take lots of pictures and talk about how their lives were changed by doing absolutely nothing and then trying to reap their own personal rewards from it. There are a lot of good people who want to help out others out of the kindness of their hearts, but in high school it really is mostly just a competition between who has the "nicer, fancier, flashier" community service.

These flashy community service programs hardly help anyone though, and just become an opportunity for a photo op. Community service shouldn't be something that colleges look at, because the application process is already a competition. Why make helping people another competition, where people will lose sight of the actual important reason for doing community service?

It may be the "wrong" way to think about it, but that's how every other high school student who is competing for a spot at a "prestigious" university is looking at it.

 

[tennisace]

To preface: I was the Philanthropy Chair for my fraternity for a bit more than a semester. I truly enjoyed the charitable work I have done in college (and for that matter, outside of my high school). However, mandatory community service in high school can be extremely detrimental when you realize that most high school students that are looking to get into competitive universities have extremely full plates as it is. I had to juggle 3 clubs, 6 honors classes, the tennis team, and the mandatory community service associated with my National Honor Society, which left me very little time during the week (and sometimes on the weekend) to study / relax. Because I wasn't able to pick my own hours, I can tell you time and time again I would get home at ~10 pm and still have a paper to write or problems to do or what have you. The teacher who ran it was extremely unforgiving in regards to attendance, and everybody in National Honor Society looked at it as an extra level of bullshit they had to wade through in order to get into a good college, because unfortunately, without it on your resume, colleges will look at your application differently.

So while yes, there is a net benefit on the community when community service is forced, there is definitely a net negative on the individual in terms of stress and schoolwork.

Also Pocket:

However, thinking of these mandatory community service as a chore and a competition among students to get into college is the WRONG way of perceiving things. If you think your colleagues are traveling to Egypt, Africa, etc, just to "build their application," well that's just sad.

This happens all the time. College admissions is so competitive nowadays that many top students will do anything possible in order to make them stand out from the crowd, including large service trips like these. I also read an article somewhere where it claimed that most large trips like these cost more to send the student doing the service by plane than it would to hire a somewhat skilled laborer in the area (though I wish I had the source on that one).

edit: SOLACE GOD DAMN IT GO TO CLASS AND STOP NINJAING ME

 

[elcheeso]

You guys are mistaking community service for volunteer work. They aren't the same thing. That's why community service can be a punishment for people who have committed crimes, they don't say, "hey, go help clean up the streets if you can, we'd appreciate it." Your comfort and whether you want to do it is not part of the point. The point is helping the community. If you get some warm fuzzies out of it, great. If you don't, tough shit, that's not why these jobs exist.

Honestly, the kind of people who find the idea of being forced to do community service a giant pain in the ass are almost always going to be the same people who would never do volunteer work of their own free will. I cannot imagine someone being like, "fuck yeah, I'd totally love to do volunteer work", then being forced to do it via whatever ridiculous high school system there is in place and being like, "I HATE THE IDEA OF VOLUNTEERING NOW I'LL NEVER DO IT AGAIN." Did anyone here want to do volunteer work before they did it through high school and then get turned off it? If so, why?

Anyway, community service for high schoolers isn't really a thing here, though I don't mind the sound of it. I can think of a lot of worse things for kids to be doing after school, though I can definitely see tennisace's point about time consumption when you're managing so many other extracurricular activities. Ultimately though, with college applications it's a lot like the job search; having the qualifications alone gets your foot in the door, but you'll need other shit to make you stand out from the crowd. Unless they stop all other extracurricular shit from "counting" on your college applications I can't see community service being a particularly problematic example of it.

Anyway guys, beyond that, while you might've preferred to spend time on the computer or whatever, you being there was not actively disadvantaging the community, saying that someone else could have done the job better really is just... reaching. Those people would still be able to volunteer, except with these systems you ALSO helped the community. Only person that loses in that situation is yourself because you had to get off your arse for 25 hours a year or so. The only person removing this requirement would benefit is yourself due to getting more free time/not having to work. These complaints aren't about other people, they're about yourself. Try and be a bit more honest about it, hey?

 

[capefeather]

I understand the point that Lanturn314 / Pocket / elcheeso are making, and I agree that a lot of people are looking at this in the wrong way. Contrary to what many people like to think, obligating people to do things is not a new or oppressive notion (e.g. taxes). I just don't think that this is the most effective way to get people to care about their community or whatever. Short-term benefits are great and all, but what I care about more is the long term. Are people actually connecting to their community? Are they actually making a difference? Will the experience actually empower them to do more? I'm sure that in some cases they do, but I'm going to need the statistics to tell me that there's no better way. Right now, it just seems like a system that can be easily abused to mitigate its intended purposes, which themselves usually have to do with vain attempts to keep people out of prison. It's the kind of shallow measure that I've come to expect of certain people in my provincial government, with the same kind of justification used to support standardized testing. I suspect that similar mentalities go into some of their implementations elsewhere.

Growing up, I used to buy into the feel-good, good-intentions, no-substance justifications that adults love to tell children (and their parents) to support their actions or criticize others'. Such justifications can be used on just about anything. It's a great way to pretend to care about things.