Quote:
Originally Posted by UGAalum94
If all the high school kids need is to turn in a log sheet, I don't think you will see any appreciable benefit to the community. The kids will track more hours, but I don't hold out much hope that they will actually do more hours.
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How do you figure that? When I was in high school, the only groups that did community service were the National Honor Societies (NHS, Spanish NHS, French NHS, etc). In all those groups we had log sheets, where you wrote down what you did, the hours you were there, and then you got the person in charge of the community service to sign off (plus their telephone number to be reached at).
I remember thinking that 50-100 hours of community service was a lot for a whole year until I realized what was considered "community service." I was in a dance group at the time (ballet folklorico) and any performance we had counted as community service. We used to have at least 3-5 performances a month. So in the 9 month span, I racked up anywhere between 20 to 50 hours just in dancing. Not to mention we got hours for making holiday/birthday baskets for custodians, or volunteering as candy strippers.
I remember I always had fun volunteering at an elementary school's Halloween carnival. Shoot playing games w/ kids, eating candy, dressing up, scaring kids, etc was the best way to spend 5 hours.
I do think that it will be hard to get people to do the community service, especially in areas (like mine) where none are required. But to say that it's "forced labor" or whatever is a little far fetched.
ETA: i think that there are many good things in mandating community service, but at the same time I think people will lose the "thrill" of voluntarily volunteering. People will see community service as just something they HAVE to do instead of something they WANT to do. I've always found it impressive when someone in MS/HS says they volunteer at so-and-so, I wouldn't feel the same way if it was mandated.