Universal Service

Parent Cafe
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<p>This is a thread about feelings about universal service for all Americans to give a year or two to thier country. It is not a thread about recruiters or Iraq or bringing back the draft. But all of those threads did get me thinking about a philosophy I’ve always had.</p>

<p>In the Viet Nam era, I did two years of “alternative service.” While I was opposed to that war, I was never opposed to the idea of “service.” I think that every citizen should give one or two years of service to the country, with a wide definition of what “service” entails; it could be military service or teaching or public service.</p>

<p>Seems like we’ve become so “pre-professional” that to most people a year or two out of the upward climb to success would be unthinkable.</p>

<p>What do you think?</p>

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<p>dig,</p>

<p>Don’t know how the high schools do it out in your area, but In Maryland, the schools require a certain number of hours before qualifying a student to graduate. I cant remember the exact number, but my kid has far exceeded it with 400-plus hours, so that would be the equivalent of, say, 10 weeks of work. Not quite the 1-2 years you are suggesting, but its a start. I think most kids in my sons class have closer to the minimum requirement, which, might be 80 hours…but that is just off the top of my head.</p>

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<p>gnu -</p>

<p>I think that’s a start, and is very commendable. And your kid’s committment is admirable. I wish everyone had that attitude.</p>

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<p>My Ds do volunteering all the time. I think doing something, anything, is good. I volunteer alot. </p>

<p>At Ds schools, service is required. And it must be working directly with people for part of it. It is amazing what these kids do. And once they start, after the get the necessary hours, most continue.</p>

<p>I know with us, it will be a lifelong commitment- we are in VA- volunteer anonymous</p>

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<p>Over the course of my career, one thing that has struck me is the camaraderie, the immediate fraternity, the leveling factor, whatever you want to call it, that exists among men and women who have military service in common. It’s an incredibly attractive and appealing thing to see. </p>

<p>Does it translate into other forms of service? Perhaps…The Peace Corps, for example seems to engender a similar sense of having been there. But the fact of having served in the military as a leveling force–where a guy so influential that he can literally pick up the phone and call a Governor or a U.S. Senator on a private line any time he wants to becomes engrossed in a conversation with a guy who has shown up to fix a copying machine because they served in the same Airborne unit at different times is amazing. And I’ve seen examples of that over and over. Compulsory service is a fascinating topic, and I don’t know where I come out on it. Our population is so large. The Israelis pull it off in a much smaller and more threatened society. Great post.</p>

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<p>Students from our church conference delivered 72,000 hours of service in the period of one week, mostly helping the elderly and others with home repairs, painting, clearing land, building wheelchair ramps and such. Do this event every year. The kids also work through out the year tutoring younger students, working local Angel Trees, etc. </p>

<p>While our local high school has service requirements to graduate with honors, it’s not uncommon for students to blow those requirements away. We’re proud of them.</p>

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<p>I agree that service is important, but I’m not sure that requiring it in high school is the best way to teach compassion. Students at my school complete 80 hours of community service in high school, 60 of which are during junior and senior year, and 30 of which must be devoted to a single project. Most students see it as a hassle, and choose activities that require them to do as little work as possible. I think that’s a shame, because that’s really not what service is about.</p>

<p>For me, the fact that I’m fulfilling a requirement always leaves a bad taste in my mouth. It cheapens my sense of accomplisment. When I bring in the form for my supervisors to sign, I feel the need to explain myself: “It’s not just for the requirement. I would’ve done it anyway.” I’m all for serving the community, but there has to be a better way of condoning it than that.</p>

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<p>Everyone should give back, but requiring one to two years of mandatory volunteer service isn’t the way to go. Some people can’t handle that much concentrated VS. Other people give back in their jobs, and to delay them from beginning those jobs would be to delay their service to humanity.</p>

<p>Let people find their own ways and times to serve, but impress upon them that they have a responsibility to do so.</p>

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<p>“Mandatory volunteerism” is as much an oxymoron as “military intelligence.”</p>

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<p>If there should be a requirement (which I don’t support), it should be for when one turns 50, not at 18 or 20. (and you’d likely have more to contribute.) Otherwise, it’s mostly just cheap labor, and in many cases, it will swear people off community service activities for the rest of their lives (that’s just what has happened with the requirement placed on high schoolers.)</p>

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<p>Our schools require 60-100 hours of service- my oldest had over 2000 but that was just because she lucked into something that floated her boat.
.
My oldest began in middle school ( thats how she got so many hours) she also took a year off after high school to work in a community service organization. She worked with homeless elementary school kids, taught inner city high school kids how to write resumes and use computers and did some environmental clean up as well.
It hasn’t gotten her to think about public service as a career, but it did give her additional perspective and she intends on doing more service when she graduates from college.
I do support the requirement of young people either putting in their time in the military or at home before college. I think they have plenty to contribute after 13 years of education, at the very least they have energy and some of the things that need doing just need energy and a little focus.
More and more kids are now taking a year or so off from their formal education and some of her peers have even taken more. along with her friend that lived and taught in Micronesia and then joined the Marines, she has friends who have worked on a kibbutz, build houses in the south and teaching school in Azerbaijan.
The program D was involved in not only gave her time to gain some maturity and focus, but they helped kids who didn’t have such priviledged academic backgrounds as well prepare for higher education.
I would disagree that requiring students to put in hours turns them off from further commitment. While some may be putting hours into a program which doesn’t really engage them, there are so many agencies which utilize volunteers there really isnt any reason not to take advantage.
Every week there is an article about how teens are having an impossible time finding summer or partime work. Volunteer work is a great way to get experience and investigate what fields you might enjoy. Kids might be working in a food bank- which isn’t that exciting but desperately needed, but then they also might get interested in helping to prepare meals for low income families.
Recycling computers is very popular in our area, they use workers to tear them apart after they have determined what is usable.
Lots of our high school kids are paired up with younger kids and help them with their reading, math, to play an instrument or help coach a sport. I have observed that this is particulary beneficial for kids who are having trouble in school. It reinforces what they know, to teach it to someone else, and the younger kids are so thrilled to have an older kid interested in them, it is a huge ego boost.
I acknowledge that some will balk at anything that is required, but I think fundamental changes need to occur in our society, just expecting people to feel connected and responsible for others( or even themselves)isnt’ enough. We just need to read the headlines to see that.</p>

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<p>I agree with Lhasa–the concept of service to others needs to be taught in the home–and the best way is by example of the parents. There is no service requirement at our local high school, but there is certainly lots of voluntary service given by the students.</p>

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<p>Naw … I can’t go with the mandatory volunteerism thing. At that point, it becomes forced state servitude. Throw in a little paramilitary training and the whole idea reminds me a bit too much of the Reichsarbeitsdienst. What would we “volunteering” for anyway? Exactly who and what would we be serving? The Free Market Capitalists seem to get outraged any time prisoners are put to good use because of unfair competition. Why wouldn’t they whine about this, too? I say let the free market take care of itself. In a way it already does since you can’t get into a decent college without having done some time in the soup kitchens, building HFH houses, etc. Besides, volunteerism should be rooted in compassion and compassion isn’t compulsory. Real compassion is like your right hand instantly covering your left when you accidentally smack it with a hammer. Like Thisyearsgirl, my h/s also had mandatory service hours. We even had to keep journals and give presentations about what we’d learned. You wouldn’t believe some of the disingenuous tripe being laughingly written by those who resented what they were doing. Some kids were even openly laughing and mocking the whole policy when they gave their presentations. You can bet most will never have anything to do with such a thing again. Every bit of their intention was poisonous and any future intentions were likely poisoned. I think pre-professionalism has to play into rejecting it, too. Think about it … At least on this board, most of us are going to be in school until we’re twenty-four or twenty-five as it stands since a Masters Degree is now worth about what a Bachelors was in the past. Does anyone really want to force the brightest minds to wait until they’re twenty-six or older to enter the real world? Personally, I’ll do what I can when I can, but it’ll be because I feel like it’s something that needs to be done - not by some mandate.</p>

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<p>See I don’t understand what this is about “waiting to enter the real world”
What the heck are you living in now if not the real world?
What are trips to Ghana to train villages in using computers if not the real world?
Working in a food bank isn’t the real world?
My older daughter school did a homeless trip when they were in (8th?) middle school. The whole class, broken into groups spent 3 days on the streets- walking- looking for businesses that would allow non customers to use bathrooms… they worked at a soup kitchen and took their meals there, they spoke to homeless vets and teens.
My daughter upon meeting a man who wanted to try on her glasses was so touched when he was so excited about being able to see, gave them to him.
I don’t think that jsut because some students aren’t utilizing their education the way it was intended means it should be ended. Perhaps that program needs to be reevaluated so that teens are helped to find service organizations that are meaningful to them, but life is not divided into the “real world” Your life doesn’t start when you graduate highschool/college/when you buy a house …</p>

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<p>It’s 60 hours…many classmates (including myself) FAR exceeded that amount though. The type of activities allowed really vary - from working in soup kitchens to tutoring students to streamlining the school website.</p>

<p>Why mandatory community service, however? From what I’ve seen, classmates who would rather be doing something else deliver a poor product, as if to say “you shouldn’t have forced me into this”. On the other hand, the type of classmates who really enjoy the service would have done such work even without the requirement…and exceed the 60 or so hours currently mandated.</p>

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<p>Emeraldkity4,
The common definition of “real world” is the practical world as opposed to the academic world. In my view, it’s more that it begins when you attain economic self-sufficiency and are in a position to make contributions through your chosen course in life with all it’s implications - whatever that may be. You don’t really enter it or have an appreciation of its implications until you’re through with school and have that status… At least that’s how it’s been beaten into my impressionable head. “Just wait ‘til you’re out in the ‘real world,’ young lady!” :wink: Sure, it’s possible to get a glimpse of the “real world” while immersed in academics and it’s all “real” in the sense that reality is reified conceptualization. I’m also not averse to some form of compulsory service for those in a high school like the one I attended where it’s a privilege and neither compulsory nor a right. I can’t go with it in a regular public school where it could work to the disadvantage of kids who might have to work to help support their families, though. Shoot … Don’t think I’m against public service. I was President of my school’s public service club and I’d have built those Habitat houses whether it was compulsory or not. The initial poster to whom I was responding, however, referred to a situation in which we’d be forced into mandatory servitude by the state for one or two years after high school. They already have most of us for twelve years. Now extending it to fourteen is being discussed? Sorry … Can’t go there …</p>