Even if initially this does not sound appealing, required service will show young people some realities and will also make them feel very good about themselves

Solinas, Patricio

English

DOCS@RWU

Reason and RespectVolume 3Issue 2 Spring 2007 Article 42-4-2008Should institutions of higher learning make servicea graduation requirement?Patricio SolinasRoger Williams UniversityFollow this and additional works at: http://docs.rwu.edu/rrCopyright ©2-4-2008 by the authorsReason and Respect is produced by The Berkeley Electronic Press (bepress).For more information, please contact mwu@rwu.edu.Recommended CitationSolinas, Patricio (2007) "Should institutions of higher learning make service a graduation requirement?," Reason and Respect: Vol. 3:Iss. 2, Article 4.Available at: http://docs.rwu.edu/rr/vol3/iss2/4•• RESPECT IShould Institutions of Higher Learning Make Service aGraduation Requirement?Patricio Salinas, Undeclared Liberal Arts, '10Community service, as its name says, means that people do something for their community without receivinganything in exchange. Community service has always been optional, but as time has passed, people havebecome less concerned about their community; therefore, the number of people who have done communityservice has decreased as well. Because of this, many institutions including colleges and high schools now insiston community service as one of their requirements. This is done to create a sense of conscience in youngpeople, which makes them care more for their communities. To help students experience what communityservice really is and to make students connect more with their community, community service should be arequirement for high school and college graduation.Requiring students to do community service in order to graduate is not a bad thing, and it can be verygratifying. The high school I attended in Ecuador required students to do 30 hours of community servicein many institutions that helped poor people in the community. To be honest, the idea of doing 30 hoursof community service every year didn't sound very interesting, but once I finished doing every single hourof community service, I felt really good because I knew that I was doing something good for people whoneeded my help. I used to go to a small village abom 30 minmes away from where I lived, called Puembo. Thecommunity had a small library, which had old books that had been donated by many people. In the library, Ihad many functions including helping to clean, organize books, set up the compmers, and even give Englishclasses to kids from the community. Every time I went, I finished my service being really tired but it was reallygratifying to know that because of my work these kids would have a better environmenr in which to learn. Italso made me feel good that these kids could learn something new that would help them in the future.My community service experience taught me that those kids, even though they are poor and have fewresources, have an amazing desire to learn. These children would go to that library to learn something newevery day, no matter what problems they had at home. There is something that the reader must know andthat is about the kind of lives these kids have. I focus a lot on this because when I say these kids are poor, I'mtalking about a kind of poor that many of you would not be used to seeing. I'm talking about many days whenthese children don't have anything to eat, when they have to skip school just to try and earn some money onstreets selling candy, or when they stand next to the stop light with no shin on in the middle of the cold night,waiting for someone [Q give them money for a piece of bread. I'm also talking abont the kind of life in whichthese children suffer abuse from their parents, in which they don't have a childhood at all because rhey arenot able to go to school, play with their friends or do anything that other kids do because they have [Q workand try to bring as much money as they can to the house. Even in these circumstances, kids attend the libratybecause they want to learn and be educated [Q succeed and be someone in life. If I didn't do the communityservice hours that my high school required me to do, I wouldn't have learned the truth about these kids'lives, and I wouldn't have felt so gratified when I helped them and taught them what I knew. In other words,even in this country we might be missing many things that are going on in our community because we don'tinteract with many of the residents; the only way [Q ensure that people panicipate in our community wouldbe by requiring community service in institmions such as colleges.Besides being very gratifying, the main purpose of doing community service is [Q help, which is a verygood thing. That could be considered as our daily community service, helping people, and making a goodaction every day. I believe the modern goal of society is [Q get everyone [Q help always, or in other words [Qdo community service everyday. Society has lost this desire to help people and the only way to accomplish thisgoal is by staning again. Making community service a requirement of college will make people want [Q helpalways, and that way, we will reach that desired goal. People will begin to volunteer on their own even withoma requirement to do so. That is why institutions should require community service.Our modern society has lost the desire to help people, and we need to create that sense of service again.A very good and very gratifying way to accomplish this is by requiring community service from the young.1Solinas: Should institutions of higher learning make service a graduationPublished by DOCS@RWU, 2007Even if initially this idea doesn't sound appealing, required service will show young people some realitiesand will also make them feel very good about themselves. In a very shore time, people in our society willhave a different point of view wwards each other and will become more considerate wwards each other. Toaccomplish these goals, we need w stare somewhere and I believe community service as a requirement for highschool and college graduation is the right choice.2Reason and Respect, Vol. 3 [2007], Iss. 2, Art. 4http://docs.rwu.edu/rr/vol3/iss2/4

Should institutions of higher learning make service a graduation requirement?

HELIN Digital Commons

https://docs.rwu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&amp;context=rr

Should institutions of higher learning make service a graduation requirement?

Abstract

Similar works

Full text

Available Versions

DOCS@RWU

HELIN Digital Commons