The first student transcript I read caught my attention immediately. This student was asked about the community service aspect of their school and how it is implemented. This student got right to the point and stated that, “For being like one of the pillars of the Grange, social service, it’s really poor. It’s really basic. Like you build houses like 3 times a year and then I mean the last times I haven’t gone because it’s like, they don’t need me. You need a small amount of people and it’s just too much so it’s like overdone.” In other words, the service that the Croft School does is repetitive and doesn’t tackle big problems, just accessible ones that are convenient for the school. Then, the same student made a point about her friend that shocked me, “Like I have a friend who’s on the school council and she wanted to do a campaign, or she wanted for us to go every Saturday for us to go help this foundation or something like that and they put so much trouble like no you can’t go on Saturdays without school uniforms cause you’re representing the school, there’s always like barriers. It’s hard.” Essentially, the school doesn’t allow students to do community service outside of school days and hours because they aren’t in uniform and won’t be representing the school. The school basically wants attention to the school and recognition for doing good, without actually doing anything.
Other students explained that although the service values of the school “have been lost a lot,” the school does organize some other activities that are rare alternatives to the house building. Some kids go to other schools that are in bad conditions and teach there. The school emphasizes to their students that since they have a higher education that there is a responsibility to pass their education to others that aren’t as fortunate. While sounding good on paper, I find this statement and way of thinking to be sort of condescending. It feels like another way the school is showing its privilege and holding its power over others. It all goes back to the privilege bubble and the division of class.
The last overarching thought I had about this service pillar, other than just a sense of it feeling wrong, is that the school could be using this as another opportunity to push kids to even a higher level of the privilege bubble. Community service is a way of projecting a public image to the community and the world, and it is also about legitimizing their elite status. In an article by Jane Kenway and Johannah Fahey, they describe this validating that elite’s do with service as a way to make them feel better about themselves. “Lavish giving indicates superior wealth. Prestige accrues in proportion to the comparative value of the goods given away. Such conspicuous philanthropy also involves the capacity to ‘waste’ money on glittering and high-profile events; money that could otherwise be used by those in need” (Kenway & Fahey 108). They also touch on the fact that elite schools are infamous for their part in this superiors’ lavish giving, “There is an increasingly popular notion that it is the responsibility of the privileged to address the big problems of the world. Implicit in the transnational practices we have discussed is the view that elite schools are a training ground for the individuals who will eventually do this” (Kenway & Fahey 107).
The last snippet of evidence I want to include from this article is the fact that they actually mention that these elite schools make it seem like the students are the best option for bettering our world, and this can start with building things. Like houses. Like a student mentioned the Croft School doing repeatedly earlier in this blog post. “The implication is that it is these students who are the best equipped to decide which global issues are worth addressing. And that an elite global class is the only class that has the power to solve global problems, even if such global problem-solving starts small; with the building of infrastructure in remote villages, for instance” (Kenway & Fahey 107). It is a sad reality if the community service pillar of the Croft School is a fad, and with all of this evidence it does seem to look that way, but the choice is up to you whether or not to believe that an elite school would care so much about a community that they believe they are above and a community that they exclude themselves from.
Jane Kenway & Johannah Fahey (2015) The gift economy of elite schooling:
the changing contours and contradictions of privileged benefaction, British Journal of Sociology of
Education, 36:1, 95-115, DOI: 10.1080/01425692.2014.970268
