Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community - View Single Post - Should public schools be allowed to force students to perform community service?

joshbaumgartner · 06-19-2007, 09:15 AM

Community service should be an available tool to the public schools. It should be allowed as an educational exercise, and as well as a tool for judicial discipline.

As an educational exercise, given to students for academic reasons, why is it really any different than any number of other exercises from writing assignments to field trips to investigative studies? Personally, I think there are many educational aspects to community service, so it seems a reasonable assignment to consider giving to students.

Slavery? Not any more so than making a child attend class in the first place.

Rights of the kids? Kids don't have the same rights as adults. We as parents give them as many rights (often too many) as early as we can as part of them learning to be adults, but we have to reserve the right to intervene and suspend them as necessary for the child's own good.

Should schools teach values? I sure hope so. Our schools have a tradition of teaching community values to our children. Unfortunately, this is in decline, and we can see the result in children's attitudes. Of course not all community values are shared by all parents. Truth is, as was noted before here, that if a parent is one of the responsible ones, their lessons will trump what the school teaches.

Is it the schools responsibility to pick up for irresponsible or incapable parents? Absolutely, that's what we have them for. If all parents could or did do everything, we wouldn't need schools. But don't make the mistake of thinking schools are just a backstop for bad parents. Schools are there for the benefit of all of us. If a child grows up not knowing the values that we all (or at least the majority of us) hold dear, then we all suffer. It's not a matter of force-feeding a specific worldview. Children have many influences on them, and some stronger than school. Schools need to teach them what the values of the community are. Whether the children adopt those values themselves is up to them.

As far as service as discipline, I don't see it as any different from court-assigned community service. Communities need to exercise their oversight to ensure that this is something they want to do, and that appropriate rules are in place to ensure fairness in its use, but fundamentally, I see nothing wrong with it.

Thus, whether as an academic or disciplinary exercise, I think community service is a reasonable tool for school boards to consider allowing schools to use to further educating our children.

06-19-2007, 09:15 AM	#55 (permalink)
joshbaumgartner Insane	Community service should be an available tool to the public schools. It should be allowed as an educational exercise, and as well as a tool for judicial discipline. As an educational exercise, given to students for academic reasons, why is it really any different than any number of other exercises from writing assignments to field trips to investigative studies? Personally, I think there are many educational aspects to community service, so it seems a reasonable assignment to consider giving to students. Slavery? Not any more so than making a child attend class in the first place. Rights of the kids? Kids don't have the same rights as adults. We as parents give them as many rights (often too many) as early as we can as part of them learning to be adults, but we have to reserve the right to intervene and suspend them as necessary for the child's own good. Should schools teach values? I sure hope so. Our schools have a tradition of teaching community values to our children. Unfortunately, this is in decline, and we can see the result in children's attitudes. Of course not all community values are shared by all parents. Truth is, as was noted before here, that if a parent is one of the responsible ones, their lessons will trump what the school teaches. Is it the schools responsibility to pick up for irresponsible or incapable parents? Absolutely, that's what we have them for. If all parents could or did do everything, we wouldn't need schools. But don't make the mistake of thinking schools are just a backstop for bad parents. Schools are there for the benefit of all of us. If a child grows up not knowing the values that we all (or at least the majority of us) hold dear, then we all suffer. It's not a matter of force-feeding a specific worldview. Children have many influences on them, and some stronger than school. Schools need to teach them what the values of the community are. Whether the children adopt those values themselves is up to them. As far as service as discipline, I don't see it as any different from court-assigned community service. Communities need to exercise their oversight to ensure that this is something they want to do, and that appropriate rules are in place to ensure fairness in its use, but fundamentally, I see nothing wrong with it. Thus, whether as an academic or disciplinary exercise, I think community service is a reasonable tool for school boards to consider allowing schools to use to further educating our children.