<p>Teaching a child to read is relevant to me and it should be relevant to you, but it doesn’t necessarily matter what’s relevant to you or me - it’s what is relevant to the community. It is clearly beneficial to society as a whole for its population to be literate - that includes the deaf and the blind. Many years ago, they were institutionalized - very expensive to the community if nothing else and it removed from the community many people who should have had a lot to offer. Anytime something is done that makes it more likely for an individual to be a productive member of society, it benefits the community. Teaching a belief only serves those who believe. That’s as far as it goes.</p>
<p>HGFM - you’re wrong about the wicca comment. It’s not community service if someone wants to teach kids that the Devil is the way to salvation either. It has nothing to do with religion - you’re really wanting to feel persecuted here, but that’s not happening.</p>
<p>I was using algebra as an indication of someone you know who is developing intelligently.</p>
<p>How the heck can a 5 year old make a decision about Christinaity? Has he examined the historical and spiritual record of Christianity against other religions? How does he know Jesus died and rose to save us from sin? Can he read the Bible or other more accurate records from the time?
This is nonsense. This is indoctrination. Religion is a belief system that can’t be understood by someone of that age.</p>
<p>Here’s more from them [YouTube</a> - A Nation down the Drain ( Jesus Camp ) part 1](<a href=“http://youtube.com/watch?v=8bB2rt3IKJc]YouTube”>http://youtube.com/watch?v=8bB2rt3IKJc)</p>
<p>^If you want to believe that, go ahead.</p>
<p>I am done with this thread. I am not going to sit here and listen to all of you tell me that I am indoctrinating small children. </p>
<p>Apparently you are ignorant to the concept of faith. They don’t have to examine the historical and spiritual record to know that that’s what they want to believe. They don’t know that Jesus died and rose again. But neither do older believers. That’s why it’s called faith.</p>
<p>Go ahead and continue and flame me if you want, just wanted to let you know I won’t be responding anymore.</p>
<p>I call it like it is. I didn’t attack you personally. You know what when you are 80 percent of the country and control the Exec. Branch and SCOTUS, you’re not a persecuted minority. On the lighter side of news,who’s gearing up for the War on Christmas?! :)</p>
<p>Interesting. Never knew there were so many definitions of community service. Our local schools specifically include religious activities. The idea behind their CS requirement is to get kids used to giving of themselves without pay. Volunteering. The only requirement is that they do it for a recognized charity (according to tax laws), and do not get paid. </p>
<p>That makes sense to me. It avoids putting the school in the position of deciding whether or not any religious beliefs are valid or important to the community. Lets the individual (or his/her parents) decide that, just like in the constitution.</p>
<p>They do limit the number of hours you can claim with any one organization, though. </p>
<p>It seems the focus behind some of the policies mentioned here has more to do with the end result of the activity, rather than the effect on the student him/herself. In other words, schools use this requirement to get free work out of the kids. Whereas our school used the requirement to get kids to get involved somewhere. I like our school’s policy better.</p>
<p>Here is how our district defines what can be used for service learning hours -
I think it is fair. Interestingly though, religious service is allowed for hours in the National Honor Society. </p>
<p>“There are many activities through religious organizations that students can use to earn service-learning hours. These include: preparing and serving meals to homeless; working in shelters; clothing/food/book/toy drives; community improvements/renovations; participating in community clean-up projects; or participating in vacation bible school (if not teaching religious content). As specified by the federal guidelines on the separation of church and state, service that is conducted for religious practice will not be counted for service-learning hours. This includes activities such as Altar services, Acolytes, choir, teaching and/or assisting in the teaching of Bible/Sunday school, and setting up for religious services.”</p>
<p>I had originally answered this from our own experiences in the student forum. I am surprised at some of the answers here being so negative against counting this activity. So I guess I still stand by my original answer, to get the definition in writing from the school. In that way, even if one were to disagree with it, no one should claim they did a particular activity and then had it not count afterwards if the regulations are known ahead of time.</p>
<p>I don’t think it should count. Teaching a Sunday school class about Jesus is prosetlyzing - you are trying to spread your own religion. Thus, if you boil it down, it’s not different than going door to door as a Jehovah’s Witness, which, I assume, also doesn’t count.</p>
<p>If you were doing an activity through a religious organization which did not include religion, that would count. But if you count this, then what else? Is Bible study community service if you offer to have it in your home? What about prayer meetings about a sick person? In fact, should you log every hour that you pray for others, since technically, you’re serving the community? Where does it end?</p>
<p>There IS that little matter of separation of church and state, isnt’ there? Although, who knows, HGFM, you may still get your hours. Last month, a student in your neck of the woods sued his school over the same issue. Might want to watch how that case unfolds…</p>
<p>[Press-Telegram</a> - LBUSD is sued over church service work](<a href=“http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_7122702]Press-Telegram”>http://www.presstelegram.com/news/ci_7122702)</p>
<p>Stopped back in here. I’m sympathetic to OP. Hopefully still reading but I can udnerstand not responding; points were made again and again. </p>
<p>I understand that if you teach children a moral basis for decision-making, you are providing a community service. The reason is that when I taught in an innercity setting, the ONLY lessons the kids had to express why not to get into fights, bullying etc were church-lessons. So I think there is definitely some violence-prevention proactive STUFF imparted in those Sunday School lessons with spillover effect in the poorest public schools. </p>
<p>Also, I could always pick out the kids who could sing well in class; they all referred to church choir or church singing experience. So they are becoming more “literate” in the sense of the language of music.</p>
<p>We assume we’re helping those less fortunate when we go to nursing homes, but you could counter-argue that some of them are well-off in terms of monetary resources. </p>
<p>No, you say, you’re keeping them from feeling lonely. You’r helping their…what? spiritual sense? … to sing to them in the wheelchairs. </p>
<p>I understand that faith generates action, and isn’t limited to belief alone.
Belief spurs people on to good acts. </p>
<p>You arent’ “indoctrinating” kids; at age 5-9 all teaching is “indoctrination” whether it’s about Abraham Lincoln or Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.</p>
<p>I’m not even a Christian and I know that much. </p>
<p>My real problem is that the schools don’t count work that’s done as ACCEPTABLE FORMS OF CS (such as riverside litter pick-up) because it’s
being done under the roof of a house of worship. If the same litter pick-up
happened but the point-of-oriigin were at a YMCA or public library, the kids activigty WOULD count. This is the sense where I feel the house of worship is being discriminated agianst. </p>
<p>I think the ones who sent kids across lawns with leaflets to spread a religious faith to strangers’ homes kind of muddied the waters, and since then all relgious activity that originates from a house of worship suffers, even if they instead send kids out to pick up litter or help the needy.</p>
<p>As for teaching in the Sunday School classroom under a church roof, I honestly wonder where ELSE do you expect kids ages 5-8 to hear an uplifting
age-appropriate lesson in “helping others” or “Charity” or “nonviolence” except at a church these days. It’s not happening in the malls, it happens in some but not all families’ living rooms, and don’t expect much out of the TV.</p>
<p>So maybe the case to be made is the crossover between what the kids learn from the OP re: antiviolence, respecting elders, etc. (Bible lessons, basically), for that is a great community service when kids incorporate that into their thinking.</p>
<p>WAAAY too subtle for the h.s. checklist on CS, I’m afraid, but religious people understand what OP means…even if I’m not even Christian :)</p>
<p>scansmom - community service is done on the student’s own time - at least in our community. No one is REQUIRING the student to do religious-based work. There is no issue with separation since it is voluntary and on the student’s own time.</p>
<p>You ask some good questions, luckycharmed. How much effort should something involve? Should the benefit be “provable”? Who gets to define “community”? Who gets to define “good”? </p>
<p>If I live in GA, but help in Louisiana, is that my community? If I sell items at a stand at church to stop human trafficking in Cambodia, is that community? </p>
<p>In our local schools, the activity must be an organized one, and the hours must be signed off by the person in charge. It also involves an activity, not just an attendance. So your examples of prayer meetings and such would not count. A Christian is supposed to “pray without ceasing.” I don’t think they generally think of that as “community service” but rather, practicing their beliefs. Your questions seem hard to answer, but around here, pretty much everyone understands what counts and what doesn’t. There are, of course, exceptions.</p>
<p>I always wondered about the kid who claimed trick-or-treating for Unicef hours (since he also carried a bag for candy). Or the teachers’ kid who got her hours by helping her mom grade papers or decorate the classroom. Our school is also notorious for assigning a certain number of hours for dollars spent – donate this or that to the school (or sometimes to food banks, or other charities) and you get community service hours. Since it’s usually the parents’ money, I’m not in favor of that, regardless of the fact that it does help the community. Collecting the donations, yes. Donating? No.</p>
<p>“Now let me add to this: I have 93 hours of community service already, and to graduate I have to have 115. I’m not worried about getting that extra 12, but shouldn’t I be able to get it doing something I enjoy, whether or not it’s a religious activity?”</p>
<p>115-93=22</p>
<p>You’re working with little kids and not getting paid. You’re teaching. I’d say it should count.</p>
<p>Re - the prayer:</p>
<p>If you spend, let’s say, an hour of your time praying for a sick elderly person or underprivileged children, and you truly believe your prayer will help them, then you are doing service for them. They are in the community, thus, community service.</p>
<p>Now I’m sure we all agree that praying can’t be counted in community service hours, and if we allow teaching about God to be counted, what next? I say, just keep religion and public schools separate. You should be able to do community service through your church in a nonreligious based activity, such as feeding the homeless, or working at a youth center, or in some way, not prosetlyzing and making faith in God the central component of your work.</p>
<p>I smile… we live in the “Bible Belt” and I’d imagine there are lots of kids whose hours are ONLY church-related. At graduation (large public school) when the Salutatorian thanked her Lord, Jesus Christ, (and 2/3 of the arena clapped, while the rest of us gasped and muttered under our breath)… made me realize, “Toto, I’m not in Kansas anymore.” (To be fair, there was quite a flap and letters (on both sides of the issue) to the editor in the newspaper. There were 2 or 3 Muslim students graduating—my husband wondered what would have happened if one of them had been the speaker and said, “Praise be to Allah.” It would have NOT been a good thing.</p>
<p>paying3tuitions, I agree with much of what you said. I don’t believe the OP is indoctrinating young minds. I have no problem with what she is teaching, but what if she were teaching white supremacy in that church? What if she is a member of the Westboro Baptist Church and tries to claim protesting at soldiers’ funerals is community service? It’s best for the schools to just not be involved in those value judgments.</p>
<p>Schools ARE involved in value judgments all the time. That usually is called socializing. “Biting is not nice”; “Take your turn”; “please share” (day care center); “Use words, not your fists” 'don’t use bad words"(kindergarten). Later on, it’s called civics.</p>
<p>As an agnostic, I don’t feel it should necessarily be up to schools to decide what counts as community service; nor should the separation between church and state be maintained outside of the school, where community service is performed. Should it matter if it is a church or a secular group that decides to build houses for victims of storms or fires, collect toys for children, deliver meals for the housebound?
Finally, my community is larger than the few square miles occupied by the city I live in. It is the world.
Homo sum, humani a me alienum puto (Terence, 184-159 B.C.)
repeated in his Essays by Montaigne (1533-1592).</p>
<p>Hm. I normally don’t like to discuss issues involving religion and state, even at the local level, but something about this thread compels me to jump in.</p>
<p>There is certainly a need for a separation between church and state, but schools do not necessarily function as state actors, except under certain conditions. (If there’s a legal ruling saying otherwise, please don’t hurriedly reply to this post citing said case without reading the rest of it.) Schools are microcosms of the communities they are located in. One of the primary components of a community is a place of worship, whether it be a Jewish synagogue, a Muslim mosque, or a local church. As such, schools cannot deny that such places of worship are part of the community in which students are encouraged (or nowadays, required) to serve.</p>
<p>Public schools should not be predisposed to one particular faith, nor should they exclude it. There’s a thick line between mandatory prayers in schools (which we all know is unconstitutional) and religious activities in school grounds, provided that the school is not taking steps to encourage one particular faith over another. Clearly, if I (as a school administrator) decided to accept credits from students volunteering at Church X while denying credit to students volunteering at Church Y, I would be in violation of the church/state principle. If, however, I accepted credit from Church X, Y, Mosque L, Synagogue N, Buddhist Temple Z on equal terms, I would not be violating the church/state principle. The First Amendment clearly does not prohibit expression of religious thought and incorporation of religion in state affairs (e.g. a politician voting on a certain bill based on his faith), rather it is a deterrent against unequal treatment and discrimination.</p>
<p>What the individual does to fulfill his or her own service to the community is up to them, as long as the community benefits. Think about it; if we took religion out of the equation of AWANA, it would undoubtedly be considered community service – working with children in a nurturing environment clearly qualifies as volunteer work. </p>
<p>And what exactly about the religious element is so offensive here? If you are so bold as to accuse the OP of indoctrination, then you’re mistaken. How exactly would the OP be responsible for said “indoctrination,” given that the child’s proclivity to practice one religion or another, at such an early age, would be determined by parents and their immediate environment? Surely, parents have a right to determine the upbringing of their child, just as children have a right to make an independent decision once they come of age.</p>
<p>That said, as a devout Presbyterian, I don’t necessarily agree with the OP. While I am a firm believer in the Christian faith, I prefer not to evangelize, as my personal belief is exactly that – personal. While I certainly do not deny that the OP’s work merits credit for volunteer services, I do think that there are better options for 1) serving the community and 2) incorporating faith into works. Such options wouldn’t be called into dispute by the school (such as zoosermom’s D, who went through a faith-based organization to perform undeniably good work), and at the same time, would be a testament to one’s faith… as the Christian principle goes, “Serve others.” While one could presumably make a First Amendment case out of this, I wouldn’t bother. There are greater injustices in this world that require the time and attention of Christians. Trying to legally correct what is a perceived wrong is not high up on the list.</p>
<p>P.S.: Not naming names, but for those posters who automatically put religion and modern-day American conservatism hand-in-hand, you’re terribly mistaken.</p>
<p>Many schools do allow community service sponsored by churches. Our school district is fine with service learning hours resulting from any of the things that Marite mentions - collecting toys, feeding the homeless, etc. They draw the line when the acitivity is worship related only or done only to spread a particular belief - no matter what the belief is. The value judgment I refer to is do we want the schools to say that there is value in teaching kids Bible stories but not in teaching them that soldiers are dying in Iraq because God hates gays or are they both community service? I think it is beter to say neither is.</p>