Community Service
In high school, students’ attitudes towards community service are negative. They say that it takes up too much time, or their parents will not let them go to certain places, excuse after excuse. Some students think community service should be mandatory, while others think that it should not. Community service in high school should be mandatory because not only does it help the community, but it also builds morals and makes students more competitive when applying to colleges.
Community service builds morals and self-worth. People involved with community service tend to have different morals and be humbled than those who do not. The Dalton School says, “Doing community service is empowering. When an individual goes out in the world and interacts with other people in the spirit of bettering, that individual makes a contribution and will feel a sense of accomplishment,” (76). These high school ...view middle of the document...
Washington-Lee High School’s Phang and Grothman “admits that the club began “as a ridiculous joke,” but is proud that “we made something of it, which is more than a lot of school clubs do.” (Bahrampour 78). Even though these students thought of it as a joke, at first, they enjoy doing it for the community. Almost every club has some type of community involvement, but some clubs are focused on going out into their environment and bettering it. Phang and Grothman just prove that students can change a club for the better when it involves the community.
Community service isn’t just good for bettering the environment; it makes students more competitive when they apply for college. If schools didn’t require community service the students would not willingly go out into their community and serve. Community service shows leadership and a person’s involvement in their community. In source seven, people who are more educationally successful favor required community service. This shows that those who are involved within the community are more likely to be on the right path to college. Lots of colleges look for these students that are involved and gain experiences and skills from doing different types of community service.
Lots of teenagers tend to not favor community service because they “don’t have time” or the means to it. It is the same excuses over and over again. Yes, some of these excuses do happen, but within the four years a person has to finish community service can easily be done, students are just to self-absorb and lazy, making them not want to do anything good to better themselves or their environment. In order to accommodate for these students who do not have time, schools should provide a chance for students to get hours during the school day with field trips to a local shelter every once in a while. This will help students who cannot provide themselves with the resources to find community service, transportation, and time. Schools should make community service mandatory, but make it to where students that need help with getting the hours done during the school day to help improve this system.