"Required" public service? Is it hazing?

hoosier · #1 07-07-2002, 12:58 PM

I agree with this CT newspaper editorial. Forcing someone to do something would be hazing, if XYZ chapter of GLO did it.

EDITORIAL: Colchester (CT) school board mandates public service

By: July 05, 2002

Mandating public service is forced labor which is no longer volunteerism.
It's unsettling how the exposure to feel-goodie, do-goodie, fuzzy-wuzzy liberalism can sometimes be much like crawling through the paddle run at a fraternity rush.
These days, it's a whack here and a whack there from the post-Clinton, post-9-11 neo-liberals who are increasingly imitating neo-conservatives in proposing and enacting bothersome new laws that mandate us to pledge the allegiance, worship the American flag, subsidize religious institutions or donate some of our spare time to those in need.
Because elected officials often do ridiculous things to children -all in the pious name of education - that they wouldn't dare do to adults under any circumstances, the Colchester Board of Education recently voted to make 10 hours a year of so-called "community service" a requirement for high school graduation. In a 3-2 vote, the school board decided that teenagers, in the manner of indentured servants, should be required to perform tasks normally funded by taxpayers or performed by volunteers who have a far nobler purpose than pleasing elected do-gooders. (Remember Rev. Sung Young Moon's mandate to smile and all the thousands who complied?)
In their narrow and foolish vote, the board has managed to:
1.Permanently degrade and corrupt the meaning of local "community service."
2.Forever guarantee that the town of Colchester can never again proudly point to a wealth of "student volunteers."
3.Completely disregard free will and individual rights (both too easy to do when it comes to minors) which includes the inalienable right to be selfish, to not want to "volunteer" and/or not be part of a social experiment that is really an insidious reversal of child labor laws.
4.Guarantee that future generations of Bacon Academy students will have a perverted, if not cynical, view of what it means to perform public service.
5.Infringed on student's private lives by dictating the use of their private, off-school time.
6.Failed to logically state why any governing body would mandate something which was already occurring naturally.
7.Put Bacon students on the same level as those (usually donning orange jumpsuits) whose "public service" is also mandated - by the state Department of Corrections.
Luckily for opponents, the school board's new mandate fails to address their main concern which dealt with precisely when this volunteer work is to be done. This surely opens the door to a court challenge to determine if any school board can dictate "extra-curricular" activities and whether such activities can or should ever be used as a graduation requirement. There could also be a court challenge on the issue of mandating "volunteerism."
Ironically, attorneys who specialize in tort, labor, civil rights and Constitutional law and those pesky trial lawyers seem to be more esteemed by liberals and are usually the bane of neo-conservatives.

©Regional Standard 2002

Kevin · #2 07-07-2002, 01:06 PM

I went to a Catholic HS and we had to do 100 hours of community service in order to graduate. I actually enjoyed it. It got me out into the community and showed me the real world.

I think it's OK to include community service as part of an educational experience. It teaches more than book learning possibly could IF you take it seriously.

Tom Earp · #3 07-07-2002, 01:18 PM

Hoosier you take alot of heat, but this may have set the candle on the cake!

If the Brothers do not want to be part of the Group and be asked to do something for Charity, then do not join in the first place!

Hazing you ask? Is it hazing to ask members of the Greek Org to Participate to do better for others?

It is not a Right to be a Memeber of a Greek Organization but a Privilage.

We as Greeks do more for others than anyone else!

LXA has Its North American Food Drive, the largest in the world! Is That Bad? NO!

pbear19 · #4 07-07-2002, 01:24 PM

I have to agree with Tom. In this particular instance, if the situation were about a GLO instead of a high school, I don't see how it could possibly be construed as hazing. Community service is something all members participate in, not just new members. Also, no organization that I know of hides the fact that their members do community service.

Besides, if required community service were hazing, my service sorority, as well as APO, GSS, OPA, and all the other service orgs out there would be based on hazing.

I also think it's a good idea for high schools to require this, but then again, I did join a service sorority, so that's obviously a priority for me.

SilverTurtle · #5 07-07-2002, 01:25 PM

10 hours of community service in four years?!

I think that it's important to teach kids the value of service. Especially today when I see a lot of, for lack of better terminology, spoiled brats who spend 20 hours a week just hanging around the mall.

I know a lot of students who were required to do community service to graduate high school, and most of them enjoyed it. I did it, when it wasn't required, because I enjoyed it.

As for GLOs... no it's not hazing to require members to participate in service. The prospective members are well aware of these requirements before they join. That's a big reason why a lot of them join GLOs in the first place.

Oh, and the article isn't very well-written. The author is throwing around terms like "neo-conservatist" & "neo-liberal" without any obvious clue what s/he is talking about, politically. Let me guess, it's a high school student who doesn't want to spend 10 whole hours helping their community?

hoosier · #6 07-07-2002, 01:31 PM

the gist of this is not "Is public service good?" It is.

The gist is should it be required? It should not.

If you go to a private school, and they publish the requirements in advance, it's your choice - enroll or go someplace else.

If you go to a public school (elem., high sch., college) and the government/administration requires you to do public service, it is unpaid servitude (usually a part of the common hazing definition).

If LXA wants to do public service, and collect food, I love it, and I hope they gets lots of good publicity. If they tell prospects/members in advance that "we are all going to participate in collecting food", they have made it a choice: "Don't join if you are against collecting food."

The next step is for the public school to publish it's list of "approved" public service projects. These liberals will probably say it's OK to "volunteer" at the abortion clinic, but not OK to "volunteer" teaching an NRA gun safety class.

And finally, I think LXA should hire an outside group (maybe Arthur Anderson - they need the work) to audit their food collection to prevent "inadvertent over-counting" of results and especially to prevent members/pledges from eating the food. Some of the local LXAs seem to be getting a lttle plump.

Kevin · #7 07-07-2002, 01:49 PM

My school actually didn't publish a list of what would be okay. If you wanted to you could count mowing your grandmother's yard. Your parents didn't count but I think that was it.

Anything that forces kids to get out of their comfort zones and into the community is fine with me.

I might have a problem if it were ONLY the abortion clinic on the list (not that I really have a stance on that one way or the other, it's just the principle of the thing) but you KNOW that's a red herring.

No matter how "liberal" as you call it the list is I'm sure you'll still have places like The United Way, Special Olympics, Nursing Homes, etc... 10 hours is NOT that much to ask in 4 years but it could probably teach a more valuable lesson than your Algebra class did.

RedAngel · #8 07-07-2002, 02:31 PM

Personally, I see nothing wrong it. A lot of the high schools in my area have the service requirement and the teens that talked to me about the requirement have no problem with completing it. It's usually volunteering with another organization.

squirrely girl · #9 07-07-2002, 02:33 PM

lol. this reminds me of the time when my high school had all of the biology classes plant flowers and trim the bushes in front of the school. they said it was valid for bio classes but the real reason is because they didn't want to pay the custodial/yard workers any overtime. HAH HAH. it wasn't horrible but it was pretty shady.

as for the original point. i truly feel that public service is a necessity for our country. if a couple of schools want to require a few hours to graduate. DANG - stop whining and help and old lady cross a street. or even better, help some of the 1st graders learn to read. 10 hours is extremely easy to achieve and i think that EVERYBODY (not just teens) need to develop a little more respect through volunteering/public service.

as for the arguement against forcing it. hey - we're forced/expected to do things all the time that we don't wanna do. i most certainly didn't want to take a stupid proficiency test ever 3 years at my school. i didn't want to go to school at 7.30 in the morning, i didn't want to disect a frog, and i definetely resented being forced to do a stupid science fair project every year.

point is...it's just one more thing. kids will survive.

marissa

ROWDYsister · #10 07-07-2002, 05:10 PM

I had to do 75 hours of community service in high school (public.) I had to do 50 hours of community service in middle school (Catholic). It wasn't a big deal at all. My friends and I didn't gripe about being candy-stripers, it was fun and taught us some responsibility.

As for calling community service in Greek organizations hazing, that is ridiculous. Most organizations take pride in their philanthropies and our philanthropies are one aspect of Greek life that justifies our existence. Just because we are required to do community service every once in awhile does not mean we are being hazed...if that was the case, our initiations and chapter meetings would be hazing, too, simply because we are required to attend.

If you happen to miss a mandatory event, the worst thing that happens to you is you are fined. Then life goes on.

James · #11 07-07-2002, 05:30 PM

I read the original article, I read the points that were made, and I am obviously missing something.

Someone please clear this up for me?

The point of the article seems to be that these kids are being required to perform service in order to graduate. Something above and beyond the normal educational curriculuum.

So the article makes the point that if you are forcing it, its not public service anymore. True. There is no spirit of volunteerism.

We can all agree on that? Without choice you are not a volunteer?
I mean being forced to do something and then saying some of us liked it anyway has never been much of a defense has it?

And yes, if a GLO mandated it and someone claimed to be harmed by it, it would technically be hazing. But no one is likely to get excited about it until someone gets hurt.

Kevin · #12 07-07-2002, 06:16 PM

I don't think that a reasonable person could possibly consider community service to be hazing. That's why I don't think there's much danger of litigation following from this requirment.

I don't think that the article ever said that anyone was MANDATING volunteerism. The original mandate never called it volunteerism, they called it community service -- that's what I get from careful reading of the posted article.

Courts prescribe community service as a way to make amends for your crimes regularly. Many student organizations require it, many public and private organizations require it as well.

"Forced labor" is a little harsh a name for 10 hours of community service over 4 years.

James · #13 07-07-2002, 06:43 PM

Lets just call a spade a spade ok? ITs forced labor. ITs non-voluntary public service. Or communiy service. In fact the article makes the same comparison that you alluded to, its similar to court mandated service.

Now I don't have a real problem with this type of forced labor, I don't think I would necesarily blink an eye at it. Although if my child didn't want to do it on ethical grounds i would defend that position.

In terms of student organizations: I have never been in a student organization that I was compelled to join that forced me to do service. These kids are in a public high school, they don't have a realistic option of changing schools in protest. Also, these are citizens with no enfranchisement. They don't vote and have no real voice. That is why the article makes the point of saying that you could never get away with this in an adult organization.

As far as a Greek organization: You can do almost anything as long as someone doesn't complain or get hurt. Let me assure you if someone gets hurt during a mandated event that looks forced, some plaintiff's attourney will work the whole hazing angle.

Just as a reminder, active members can also be hazed.

33girl · #14 07-07-2002, 08:31 PM

I don't think this has anything to do with Greek organizations at all. When you join, you are usually made aware of the fact that the chapter does comm. service. Plus, you can quit any time you want.

If a private school wants to require you to go to chapel twice a day and do 100 hours of comm service a month, they can. They're a private entity.

But students at a PUBLIC high school should not be required to do community service, any more than they should be required to be in extracurricular activities or play sports. You can't make something that is non-academic part of an academic degree.

Plus, I agree that it completely degrades what community service really is. I sure as heck would not want my grandparents to be in a nursing home with adolescents who are being forced to be there doing "service."

Kevin · #15 07-07-2002, 08:35 PM

How can you say that a public school has no right to choose its own curriculum?

If they want to include community service as part of their curriculum than why the hell not?

They MAKE you take Algebra and Geometry (completely worthless if you're a communications major like me) -- I had no choice there! It's just an attempt at broadening horizons, showing people the real world.

I think it's great.

James, I wouldn't consider this article to be any kind of expert opinion on the subject... As someone said earlier, it just sounds like the rantings of a HS student that's pissed that they have to get out from in front of their playstations and do something useful for a change.