Newton North student paper: Make community service a graduation requirement

by | Nov 8, 2012 | Newton | 6 comments

From an editorial in the Newtonite…

This school should make community service a graduation requirement because it benefits students academically, emotionally and socially and helps out worthy causes.

6 Comments

  1. Julia Malakie
    Julia Malakie on November 12, 2012 at 12:04 am

    I was going to say “as long as they don’t call it volunteerism” but I see the editorial writers already thought of that.

    My cynical side thinks that college admissions seems to have gotten so competitive, it’s surprising students aren’t doing community service to have it on their resumes. My practical side wonders where they will find the time. Will it come out of sports, theatre/music/newspaper, homework time, paid work time which a lot of students need to do, or sleep time? But I don’t have teenagers. I’ll be interested to hear what actual parents and high school students think.

  2. Anil Adyanthaya
    Anil Adyanthaya on November 12, 2012 at 8:10 am

    I think this is a good idea. My high school had a 100 hour service requirement for seniors. I remember it being a valuable experience (I volunteered at a hospital). It gave me something to think about other than tests and extracurriculars and applications – so I think there is a potential for this to be stress relieving as well.

  3. Barry Cohen
    Barry Cohen on November 13, 2012 at 7:48 am

    Sounds nice. But school is intended for education, not for serving other people. If a student wants to do it, fine. It shouldn’t be a requirement for graduation. From Wikipedia:

    Involuntary servitude is a United States legal and constitutional term for a person laboring against that person’s will to benefit another, under some form of coercion other than the worker’s financial needs. While laboring to benefit another occurs also in the condition of slavery, involuntary servitude does not necessarily connote the complete lack of freedom experienced in chattel slavery; involuntary servitude may also refer to other forms of unfree labor. Involuntary servitude is not dependent upon compensation or its amount.

    The Thirteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution makes involuntary servitude illegal under any U.S. jurisdiction whether at the hands of the U.S. government or in the private sphere, except as punishment for a crime: “Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction.”

  5. Barry Cohen
    Barry Cohen on November 13, 2012 at 9:53 am

    Interesting article. Smolla is an academic. It’s a lengthy article, which I may read in its entirety later, but it seems that these are his arguments in support of community service for kids, not a court decision. Has it ever been tested in court?

    I don’t want to be the grinch that stole Christmas here, but we have fundamental principles we are supposed to live by. An alternative might be that a student can elect community service in place of an academic course, and be required to write about and be graded on his/her service. Then the compensation would be not having to do the course.

  6. Anil Adyanthaya
    Anil Adyanthaya on November 13, 2012 at 11:24 am

    Barry, you’re correct – this is the author’s analysis of the issue. If you check the footnotes, you’ll see citations to court opinions that the author believes support his view.