Does Mandatory Equate to Meaningful?
As we are continuing to go further into the research project on Olive Grove Academy in Jordan, it is clear that the school emphasizes the importance of community service. After reading the interviews with the students and alumni, many took part in a few different community service projects that the school emphasizes, such as Habitat for Humanity or other local volunteer organizations that helped refugees in Jordan. Community service is a big part of the student life at Olive Grove, and many students say that it is integrated into the social life of the student body. From an interview with a student, Sara, at Olive Grove, she said, “…And so if the school doesn’t emphasize how important it is to care about your own community, then a lot of those people might not come back to build their community”. This is one of the main ways that the school emphasizes community service, through teaching their students how important it is to give back to their community. In an interview with alumna, she spoke about how the community service she completed at Olive Grove shaped her experiences in college in terms of what she participated in on campus, and now has influenced what she wants to do post graduation by returning to Jordan and using her economic skills from college to improve the community of Jordan.
In comparison to Olive Grove, many high schools (both public and private) in the United States require community service or volunteering for a graduation requirement. While my high school in particular did not, I knew students from other towns or other schools that had to complete multiple hours of community service per year in order to graduate. I remember one school in particular that a friend of mine attended required 80 hours of community service per year. While this shakes down to about two hours per week during a regular academic calendar, the 80 hour requirement may sound like a lot for students at the beginning of the year. I remember speaking to my friend at this school about the requirement, and how many of the other students complain about completing it and tend to look for the easiest ways to fulfill the community service requirement, without truly meaning what they were doing.
Looking back on this, doesn’t this almost defeat the purpose of completing community service? Community service does good for yourself and others, and teaches students how to be an active member and help those within their community. But if students at this school were just looking for the easiest ways to get their hours without caring about giving back to the community, I believe it may be setting the wrong mindset for the students – that the only reason they are doing these good deeds is for the sake of graduation rather than encouraging students to make a difference within their community. In a New York Times article, this exact debate was brought up about how meaningful community service is if high schools require it. Some educators strongly believe that it should not be mandatory, and one educator from Port Washington specifically said, ‘’I want to emphasize to students that excellent citizenship and giving to others not only helps others but makes you feel better about yourself… ’” These schools that did not make it mandatory still had many students do volunteer work throughout their high school career, so is it necessary for it to be mandatory if students don’t value the work they are doing?
At Olive Grove, while there are no community service hour requirements necessary for students to complete, the school emphasizes the importance of giving back to one’s community so much that nearly all students partake. So if Olive Grove can get their students involved and truly care for the community around them even post graduation, do high schools need to make community service mandatory for students? Schools around the world can emphasize the importance of students making a difference within their communities, and do so in a way that allows students to recognize the importance of service on their own.