Should public schools be allowed to force students to perform community service?
 

Should public schools be allowed to force students to perform community service as a condition of graduation?

I say no. Being for or against community service is a matter of political/philosophical/social values. It seems to me that that having a community service requirement crosses the line between education and forcing students to live according to the views of some teacher or bureaucrat. :orly:

I'm interested in hearing other peoples' thoughts on this.

Indoctrinating students with values and habits is about 75% of the educational racket. Community service isn't even the tip of the iceberg.

No, indoctrinating students with values and habits is a job for the PARENTS. Educating the students is the job of the public educational racket.

Schools do a lot of wrong, so why not help out the community? I can't think of any parents, ever, that have forced their kids to do community service. The only time I know young people do community service is the following:
1) The school forces them
2) They've been arrested
3) They want to sleep with a really hot social liberal

That's it. So yes, if not for the student, for the community. Most kids are selfish fuckers, anyway.

For a school to force any student to do community service is wrong. To approve of it because "hey, why not?" is just stupid.

Nope, I'm hella smart.

Parents used to be in charge of this kind of thing, but they obviously can't be bothered by it. It's also a parent's job to help a kid at school, but there are still tutors out there. It's a parent's job to teach a child about health, but PE still exists. I think it's time to admit that most parents aren't going to do what most people consider to be a 'parent's job' all the time, but the kids still need to learn. Calling me stupid doesn't change that. If anything it weakens your position.

The kids need to learn civic duty from somewhere and if it's not from the parents it has to be from somewhere else. At least if it's from the school we know they're being taught. We don't have to guess whether a parent will remember to do this or not. I'll teach my daughter to help out in her community, AND she'll do it for school. I hardly see that as some great wrong.

Is "civic duty" just a euphemism for "involuntary servitude"? Why does civic duty need to be taught?

If you want to make your daughter help in your community, fine. But it seems intrusive to make that decision for others.

Community service is not just helping others...it is a valuable "real world" learning experience for High School students (working in a professional environment, learning and using communication skills, budgeting time, etc).

What better role for schools?

Behaving yourself, effectively communicating and budgeting time are generally necessary to get through school in the first place. Aside from being inappropriate, I don't think that community service is necessary.

I think its a great out-of-classroom learning experience beyond the civics lesson, which is important in itself. It exposes students to much more complex and ultimately important work and social scenarios that I personally found more beneficial than chemistry, calculus, or study hall.

translation for all of this - "we need to implement more socialist minded plans to continue indoctrinating our kids with the idea that there is no such thing as 'individual' or 'self-determination'.

That'd be fine if we worked in a society where kids are taught that serving the society is a good thing, but they aren't. This is about teaching them. Civic duty needs to be taught in order for there to be a civilization left when the next generation is done with it. Self service does not lead to civil development and action. It's not invasive when a parent sends their child to a piano teacher so they can learn music. It's not invasive when I take 11 fucking years of English.

Everyone seems to be setting a double standard. You have to learn all this stuff, but civic duty should be optional. That makes no sense. I'm with DC on this one, or he is with me. Either way, we're in agreement.

This is about helping the kids turn into better adults, preparing for the real world which means you have to sacrifice a bit for others. This planet fails when we act selfishly.
Ah, the exaggeration. Feeding the homeless takes nothing away from self determination. In fact, it helps to build the ethical character that can help in discovering who you are as an individual. I know you don't want anyone to help anyone else (see how I exaggerated there?), but the kids learn responsibility and the community gets help. It's win win.

It is not your duty, responsibility, or your 'civic duty' to force me or my children to be required to perform some sort of socialistic community service. It is not your right or duty to teach me or my children YOUR ethics, nor is it the communities. You are infringing on my right and the rights of my children by forcing your beliefs on me, just as you would be screaming to hell and high water if some christian or muslim were trying to force their religious beliefs on you.
Nobody teaches my kids responsibility but me and their mother. If I fail in that responsibility, it is NOT the communities to pick it up.

No. This sort of thing is just another form of Conscription, and Conscription is nothing but a eupemism for Slavery. Any time someone forces you to work against your will, they are attempting to enslave you. Anyone who attempts to enslave me, or my future children, will find himself in a most unpleasant situation.

Situations like this are why my children will be home-schooled.

wow, lots of hyperbole from people here.


honestly, its not a bad thing. I've been in a school that did stuff like this before. Basically the goal was to get students to participate in actively taking care of thier community. Things like getting groups together to clean up garbage along side the streets, or painting projects for defaced buildings and such, as long as its productive and condusive to a positive trait, then whats the big deal?

as far as the Conscription stuff goes, I'm pretty sure I wish I could have used that as an excuse for my math classes when I was back in school "halp halp, i'm being conscripted to add 1+1 against my will, damn it for being the building block to becoming a better human being."

lets be real here. Work never hurt anyone, and this IS a workers society.

No, this "society" is a group of Individuals, all of whom have Rights which must not be mucked about with. One of those universal, individual, Constitutional Rights is the Right not to be dragooned into working for someone against your will. When the Rights of a single Individual are violated, the Rights of everyone else are threatened as well. It doesn't matter how good "the cause" might happen to be; when you force someone to work for your cause by threat of violence (which is what an order from the State always is; a threat of violence against your person or property) you are enslaving that person. It doesn't matter if I'm helping duckings cross the street: if I force someone else to help me, I am enslaving that person. It doesn't matter if there are 100 people in my town, 98 of them are helping of their own free will, and one holds out: nobody has the Right to force someone into the service of a cause, not an Individual (who has Rights) and certainly not an aggregate or group such as "society" (which has no Rights.)

The difference here is that you take a utilitarian view of Rights, vewing them as things which may be violated "for the public good" or if a large enough majority votes in favour of such violation. I am an absolutist with regard to Rights, among these the Right not to be made a Slave, whether field-hand or a Jannissary.

The "math" example does not hold, since the work you are being forced to do is not being done for someone else's benefit; forced "volunteer" work is. The example you put forth is more correctly a case of forced indoctrination, although that could more correctly be held true of the various Social Studies classes than of mathematics. Enslavement means being forced to do work for someone else's benefit, Conscription is a subset of Slavery whereby the Slave/Conscript is put to work killing his Master's enemies, rather than picking his Master's cotton.

Once more I find myself siding with Will, and considering the fact that he and I differ MAJORLY in some of our opinions, this is interesting.

I find it almost INCREDIBLE that some of you out there are just assuming that having our students perform some type of community service is FORCING them against their will to do something, or enslave them? This is REDICULOUS! If I am reading WillRavel correctly, we are NOT saying to force them to walk around the community picking up trash, or hit the streets and scrub the Grafitti off the walls(that were probably painted by many of them in the FIRST place) But what we are saying is to teach our children to VOLUNTEER to help in our communities in whatever capacity that child wishes. My daughter LOVES to help out in our town. She volunteers at MANY of the city functions (i.e. parade preparation, halloween 'haunted house'...etc.) and she LOVES it. I am not saying tell the kids they have to go pick up trash, but to teach out own children that it is the RIGHT THING TO DO. Not by forcing them, but by raising them to know what is right and what is wrong in our society. Face it people, we have raised a society of children who are all "ME" oriented. All they care about these days is self-gratification. What ever happened to a community who CARES about itself? We tend to teach our children to worry about themselves, and NOT society as a whole. It is about time that the children learn that the world CAN be a better place with THEIR help.

I hate to disagree with you there Dk, but if YOU fail in your responsability as a parent, it is not only our job as a society to pick it up, but it is our DUTY as a community! Otherwise we will have a society of children who weren't taught the meaning of self-responsability, and civic duty...oh wait, it is too late, they already ARE for the most part. So yes, it IS our job to pick up the torch if someone drops it. Not in forcing religious ideas, but yes, ethic as a COMMUNITY should be taught. What is right and wrong in a society, what is legal and NOT legal, what is the right thing to do when you are a member of a society!
What about the children who dont HAVE parents? Should we not teach THEM what is right and wrong in society? I mean Heaven forbid we infringe on THEIR rights, or the rights of their drug-dealing parents who don't know the first THING about raising children. It is our JOB and DUTY as a society to help form our youth into law-abiding, contributing members of society. Not by FORCING them to do something, but by leading them in the right direction, and giving them the opportunity to find a good civil service to help out in is a part of that.

Is "being against community service" a euphemism for "I'm too lazy/I don't wanna"?

Honestly. Is anybody actually against community service?

Until I saw this thread, I didn't think it did. Now I'm not so sure.

volunteer community service? not against it.
forced community service? Did I commit a crime and that's my punishment?

part of the 'It takes a village' idea, right? And what do you do when the community feels that some particular idea or tradition or pattern of parenting that your family has done for generations isn't 'proper parenting' or bad ethics? Do you submit to their ideas and let them tell you what to teach your children?

I had to do community service for my high school in the late 80's. Granted it was a private high school, so it's by no means a perfect analogy to today's public school students, but I don't see why this is such a big deal assuming that the student has a choice of where they want to volunteer.

I think that a couple of years I worked at some road races handing out water (and once running the official clock) and another year I cut the grass for the neighborhood park (which was neighborhood property and not the city's). I assume that today's students have the same freedom to choose their own causes to work for subject to faculty approval. That means that dk's kids could go spend a couple of weekends gathering up spent brass at the local non-profit gun range, teaching gun safety, putting a new coat of paint on their church, pulling weeds at the local cemetary or whatever. If there's a very limited list of causes to work for, then I have a problem with that, but if the student is given the freedom to choose, this seems much more like a tempest in a teapot than anything else.

One more vote against the imperialist Salvation Army. Because of the whole rights thing, yes, but mostly because I'm too lazy/I don't wanna.

To compare this to slavery is about as absurd as comparing everything on the internet to Hitler. Godwins law may as well apply here.


The math example holds just fine, you reap the same benefit of a clean community as anyone else would. *shrug*

we're not talking labor camps or, pardon me, "slave" camps here people, use your head and stop exaggerating the hypotheticals for the sake of finding something to argue about and lets stick to a little bit of reality.

To drive this point home, take it back to the source of this problem, back to the parents. Statistically speaking, given the amount of people who seek government assistance, A LOT of people aren't ready to have kids when they do, and you know what? out of all of them, the children of those aren't getting the kind of quality parenting it takes to be a model citizen of the United States.

Now, if your parenting is worth a damn, it's pretty easy to drill it in to the head of your progeny that "what I say, goes" and any half assed attempt to instill social values into your child via a little community service (which, guess what, i'm pretty sure they'd require a permissions form anyways) would pretty much roll off the sholders of your superior parenting in which you declare "community be damned, every man for himself!"

in any case, I'd want it there for the majority of those children who hail from the families of lazy parents, selfish parents, inattentive parents, the ones who think video games and TV will raise the children for them.

Oh noes! Teacher is forcing me to make the world better place! That means less time on my XBox!! :eek:

Seriously, any student or parent that has a problem with this isn't adequately grounded in what it is to be a citizen or a member of a community. Oh, sorry, I mean they're not sufficiently brainwashed into Socialism. :rolleyes:

Also: given the slant of the OP, we're not really dealing with reality in this thread. Can somebody talk factually about the sorts of programs that are actually being implemented in public schools? Because without that, it's just rhetoric.

I've noticed that it's a common tactic for you to use a strawman argument, especially in the face of legitimate points against your debate or belief. Is it your belief that we should remove all choice from the citizenry because they are too stupid to know what is best for them?

Absolutely not. The school is there to teach my child "readin', writin' and 'rithmatic". Outside of that, there are any number of religious and civic organizations in place to help instill any values that I may deem apropriate. It is the function of the public school system to educate...not indoctrinate.

I also disagree with Willravel's assertion that the only time young people do community service is when the school forces them, they've been arrested, or my personal favorite...they want to sleep with a really hot social liberal. I was very active in the Boy Scouts when I was younger. And while I may have some issue with thier relgious stance today, I got an awful lot out of that organization. Not the least of which was service to the community.

Fwiw, I wouldn't be opposed to my own (fictional) son/daughter being made to perform community service. It's a good thing. But the 'inadequately grounded' parents and students should be able to refuse without losing that taxpayer-funded education they've been getting. I don't have much use for a community composed of unwelcome busybodies.

People constantly amaze me.

Just because you earn a wage doesn't mean you aren't a slave.

Just because you don't earn a wage doesn't mean you are a slave.

I would support mandatory community service not only for students but for everyone.

Fwiw (#2!), I don't think this comes anywhere close to slavery, at least not in the historical sense of the word. Maybe in a really general sense when slavery = uncompensated mandatory effort.

It is, however, none of your business. Even if we waste our saturdays playing stupid online games.

I've noticed that it's a common practice for people to cry "strawman" at the earliest given opportunity. It's really just a sign of poor debate skills. I thought it was quite on the nose of assessing your stance on this issue. But to address "Is it your belief that we should remove all choice from the citizenry because they are too stupid to know what is best for them?"

I think the answer is fairly obvious. If someone is too stupid to know what is best for them (for example, intoxicated, and making a decision about driving) then fuck, yes, take the keys away and make the decision for them. Thats part of the education process. It applies here, children are young and dumb, they just are, no matter how good thier grades are and how full of praise thier parents are about "ooooh little Jimmy is sooooo smaaaart!" they are still dumb when it comes down to real life applications in an adult world.

I'm starting to feel like we're pretty much going to have to agree to disagree on all of this, partly because it's all rhetoric, and partly because you referred to children as "citizenry". They aren't 18, they aren't adults, they aren't paying taxes, they aren't old enough to vote, they still fall under the category of governmental liability/non-asset.

anyways, thats my 2 cents

Hmmm...interesting concept you've got going there, MM. I have to give that some more thought, but it may be something that I could support. It could well be that people might actually care more, if they had more of a stake in it.

It is definitely something that I can see as a requisite for receiving public assistance. And I've long been of the opinion that any "tagger" that's caught automatically gets 250 hours of cleaning up not only his own, but also other peoples graffiti.

so children have no rights? Is that what i'm hearing you say?

zomg strawman! strawman! /bellow

lol.

I have no idea what you're "hearing" me say. But there were several paragraphs before that to be taken into context there. I fully realize they are legally guarded as "citizens" as a recipient of the title, but they are in no way legally responsible to uphold that title, kinda like how minors can't sign contracts. They aren't smart enough by our legal standards to make those kind of decisions.

this applies here as well. So therefore, in terms of determining who is and who is not fit to make these decisions for them, since i'm pretty sure lil johnny isn't packing a team of lawyers around with him, the answer is,... Community. For as big of an ego as most parents have, they really provide a fairly small chunk of the personality pie. Children are going to absorb personality traits and quirks from the people they interact with at school, the characters they see on TV, the bands they like to listen to. For a parent to say "its all me" is absurd. It's NEVER been like that.

edit: annnd this is why I try to stay out of the politics forum. I didn't even realize where this thread was.

you're on your own now.

I asked for your clarification, thank you. I did not propose a strawman.

Is the juxtaposition of these two sentences intended to be ironic, or was it accidental?

neither. I asked you about a position. I did not state that RB believes we are all too stupid to make our own choices because we don't agree with him. huge difference.

You did, actually.

To respond to your strawman, though: the fact is, YES, children have no legal rights before the age of 18. They have a great number of protections under the law, but whatever rights they're granted are an extension of the their parents' rights. Them's the laws.

In the case of schools, while they have custody of the children their responsibilities in loco parentis entitle them to (to say it as crudely as the OP did) force them to perform community service. As regards the law, it's perfectly legal.

i would think community service better than gym class.
i would think community servicemore neutral politically than making students pledge of allegiance to a hunk of cloth.
i would think community service far more neutral politically than what passes for history at the primary and secondary levels.

there are alot of problems with the panic amongst the far right libertarian set above...
there is no particular distinction between education collective and individuated insofar as indoctrination is concerned.
the hope is that within that indoctrination that the tools would also be taught that would enable students to push beyond it--or at least to see it for what it is.

but think about it: indoctrination--whatever that actually means (no matter i suppose) carried out within the curious, artificial framework of a public school is maybe preferably to that carried out by parents if you are actually concerned with the autonomy of kids----because the authority in schools is much more artificial than is the authority of the parental units---so is much more open to criticism on the part of kids--if you are concerned with raising kids who can think independently about the world--independently meaning on their own, and not as you, liberatarian parent, would like necessarily---that the artificiality of schools would be a benefit.

if you are going to equate a relation to slavery, maybe start with the power parents have over their children. there's no contract, no collective bargaining--parents can be little tyrants with near absolute impunity if they want--they can make arguments that the school system is indoctrination and keep their kids out of them so as to make sure that the political views of their children are closer to unthinking repetitions of their own. it is hard for the fragile, bizarre organic forms that lay behind far right libertarian thinking to survive outside special greenhouses, so it is clearly best to shut your kids up in one of them and make sure that the kid cannot get out.
that way, freedom follows.
all a kid needs to know is:
(a) society is evil
(b) no matter the issue, the 18th century Mystics who founded this Fine System knew everything. what they said is equally true in all situations. nothing really changes.
(c) own many guns.
(d) community service=slavery.

and maybe that the jury system is unconstitutional, that income tax should be resisted, that the united nations wants to enslave america.
well that and that you should hoarde gold and stockpile canned goods and armamanets of all types because helter skelter is a-coming....

I graduated from high school in 1982 from a public school in connecticut.

I had to take art and music as a condition of graduation.

I also had to perform 30 hours of community service sometime during those high school years (how it was kept track of I had no idea0.

I survived.. the art classes were more painful and more useless than the community service was...

I don't think community service is any different than other graduation requirements...

I think you've just proposed the absolute best argument for home schooling I've ever seen.

same as mal did. I had to perform 30 hours of community service for 8th grade graduation, for high school that number was pushed to 75 hours.

During that time it severely cut into the hours that I had available for work so it essense it took money out of my pocket to do the volunteering. But the trade off was for the best since it created a foundation of volunteering for me. My sister who did not have these same requirements, does not share the same values of community volunteering that I do. I believe that if she had to do the same thing she'd be much more active in the community. Both her and her husband were involved in the greek system but I don't see the impact on volunteering from those involved in the greek systems aside from fund raising.

To answer the op, yes. Mandatory community service fits neatly under the umbrella of mandatory primary and secondary education.

No, you are incorrect in my statement there. I am not saying "it takes a village to raise an idiot" I am saying that it takes EVERYONE to be making an honest effort to have a civilized society. If someone falls short of the fundamentals of being a contributing member, then we ALL have failed. What exactly is wrong with trying to have a community where EVERYONE puts forth a little effort? What is wrong with children actually LEARNING a skill (i.e. self worth, and how to help out). We pay the schools to EDUCATE our children. So is not teaching them life lessons and the worth of COMMUNITY EFFORT not an education? Should we just limit all schools to the three "R"s? Well if that is the case, then why the heck do we have a sports program in school? why do we have a drama program?...I KNOW this is an extreme, and it is MEANT as such, so don't go lambasting me and saying I am being rediculous here, but this is my point....
Why not just get rid of EVERYTHING in school that isn't related to Reading, Writing, and Arithmatic? Heck with all that free room we should be able to make every child a rocket scientist!

This is a DIRECT quote from my son and daughter's high school mission statement...for privacy I will NOT post the name of the school.
Read that last highlited phrase.... THE KNOWLEDGE, SKILLS AND VALUES NECESSARY TO BE SUCCESSFUL CONTRIBUTORS TO OUR DEMOCRATIC SOCIETY.

So my school is wrong? we shouldn't have them teach our children skills and values? Heck I EXPECT my children to be taught that from school, where I at home TALK to my children about what they learned.... OMG I know! A parent actually TALKING to their own child?...how UNUSUAL! And durring those conversations I talk to them about MY beliefs, and help them actually form THEIR OWN opinions....not drill MY personal beliefs into their heads. I actually do the most incredible thing in the world... I ACTUALLY EDUCATE MY CHILD! to grow up and form their OWN opinions and choices!

What is so wrong about telling a child they should have some sense of civic duty to the community that they live in? And that they will need to spend "x" number of hours WORKING in that community to help develope personal fortitude?

I figure if you don't like the way the school is teaching your child, DO something about it. sign up and spend time with the PTA or the SAC. Even better, if it bothers you so much, run for school board...and if that isn't enough, move to a city that teaches the same values that you have. I have been a father and dad for 16 years, and my life of doing what I wanted to do was over the moment that son of mine took his first breath. From then on my decisions were, as should EVERY parents be, based on what is best for that child! PERIOD, end of sentence, end of comment....

or home school, unless you'd be comfortable with someone of my values and ethics, especially on the 2nd Amendment, teaching your kids about ethics and values.

The problem us cuh-razy extreme-right libertarian folks have with this idea is n ot the "community service" part, it is the "public schools forcing" part. I had no community service requirement to graduate from middle or high school, and likely would have opposed such a requirement -- listing volunteering protesting such a requirement as, in fact, community service.

Forced community service teaches a valuable lesson which public schools want desperately to force into the mush-brained youth: The State owns you. It is completely contrary to the principles espoused in the consitution and by our founders for the people to be servants/slaves to the state, and not the other way around.

Perhaps if we force our kids to volunteer and serve the state, they won't mind as much when we forcibly take away their civil liberties when they're older. We can force them to give up their hard-earned money and property. We can force them to fight in wars that we wage. We can force them to give up their freedom with but a whimper. Forced community service is wrong and something public schools should not be allowed to preach, er, I mean teach.

so wait: let me get this straight.
if a public school requires community service--like they require a gym class--then the argument behind it is "the state owns you"?

how does that work logically?
what are the steps involved with that argument?
help me out--in my benightedness, i cant see how you get from one point to the other.

When I was in High school and actually being forced to do community service (only 10 hours) I would've said no, absolutely not.

But now that I've grown (and matured) I don't see how anyone can think that community service is a bad thing. I've been forced to do it since (court-ordered) and I've seen just how badly some people have it. I don't think there's anything wrong with requiring students to do it.

And this rhetoric about socialism and "slavery" is fucking ridiculous. We require students to attend school until 16 (in most states), is that slavery too? Don't you think that these policies were enacted because they benefit the greater good at the MINOR cost of "forcing" children to be educated?

Or do you also oppose mandatory education? If you do, then I don't see how you can continue to have a rational discussion, as you clearly aren't.

As questionable as the value of gym class is in a curriculum, it is wholly different than forcing someone to perform community service.

If you send your child to my school, and I force him or her to spend 75 hours reloading spent ammunition, or helping to gut deer, or doing something else you may find terribly offensive, I am violating your freedom to bring up your child as you see fit. I have stepped in as a parental figure representing the state and hijacked your parental responsibility.

Now, the obvious argument to the above is that the children have a choice of how they spend those hours. But, they really don't. Whatever they choose will have to be "approved" by the school they attend. What if the school's administration is ultra-evangelical-neocon and doesn't see protesting the war in Iraq as community service because the Iraq war is just? What if the school's administration is anti-gay and doesn't see volunteering at an AIDS hospice as community service, since those filthy fags got what's coming to them? To deny such things is the school forcing its sociopolitical views on the child and, by proxy, the parent. To accept any and all forms of community service had might as well result in removal of the requirement altogether. Rather than force community service on their students, public schools would be better off instilling a sense of personal responsibility by having them, as punishment for, say, littering, follow around the school's own janitorial staff and helping to pick up what messes they (the students as a whole) make.

Education is something which the parents have control over. As long as private schools and home-schooling are options, there is nothing wrong with that requirement.

You and I both know that this would never happen in a PUBLIC school, unless the school district had a $10-20 million extra that they didn't know what to do with. The lawsuits would happen before you could say "omgwtfbbq."

I think you'd be surprised, especially in the suburbs. There have to be people loudly objecting before anything like that would get on the local news, much less nationally recognized or result in lawsuits. In the vast majority of public schools events like dances are still forcibly heterosexual-only. My example simply takes it to the next logical step.

I'm going to take that assertion at face value--I have no evidence against it despite how inaccurate it sounds to me and how many anecdotes I have against it. I suspect you have only anecdotal evidence for it, either, though.

Even so: your objection to community service requirements in public schools is based entirely on worst-case what-ifs. In order for your little "my school requires them to skin animals" analogy to work, you'd have to be actively opposed to the notion of community service. I don't THINK that's what you're saying, I just don't think you thought that analogy through particularly well.

I also note that we're STILL talking in the abstract. Can ANYONE say ANYTHING about how schools are actually handling this? Because otherwise, I'll start a thread about whether public schools should be allowed to force our children to recite Dr. Seuss while standing on footstools and wearing textbooks as hats.

As I said before, I am not necessarily opposed to "community service" in general, I am opposed to public schools requiring it and thereby deciding what qualifies as "community service." If my child attends the Karl Marx Public School because that is the only school within 50 miles and they force a 75 hour community service requirement on my child, chances are they will not accept anything that I consider community service. So, the values I attempt to teach my child will not be recognized, and will in fact be undermined by that school.

It is certainly an extreme example, but one which better illustrates how conflicts of ideology can occur, and that the parent not the school should hold the trump card when it comes to how their child is raised.

For the record, I am fundamentally opposed to forcing our children to recite Dr. Seuss while standing on footstools and wearing textbooks as hats because many of his characters are clearly homosexual and it would destroy the fabric of this great nation to expose our children to filthy homosexuals like Sam who want to shove their "green eggs" and "ham" in all of our Christ-loving faces.

where exactly is this karl marx public school?
i am thinking about moving...

Oh, My God. What The Fuck. Bar-B-Que?

I think I've eaten there....

It's not just an extreme example, it's a silly one, it's completely contrived. It indicates that you have no grasp on the realities of public education in this day and age. (Also, the fact that you have to reach that far up your ass to come up with support for your point actually doesn't exactly help you.)

Find me ONE case where a public school student has been forced by their school to do community service that they oppose on moral grounds because there were no morally acceptable alternatives. I'll bet a $100 donation to TFP that you can't do it. I require that the student not be "morally opposed" on the grounds that they don't wanna do it--in other words, that the student shows a willingness to participate in community service activities in general, and not that they're playing the "morally opposed" card to get out of something.

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.

Again if you read what I had posted, in it's entirety, you would hopefully be capable of understanding the text.

To start with, you say "As questionable as the value of gym class is in a curriculum, it is wholly different than forcing someone to perform community service." How do you explain that it is ANY different than community service? They BOTH offer the student an oportunity to work with others in a team environment, and teach them real world values.


And as I had said, if I didn't like the way my child was treated or taught in your school, I would try to change it, or simply move to a better location.

For starters on that quote: each COUNTY decides what is acceptable community service, but also state law PREVENTS those counties from NOT accepting community service for students who participate in ANY religious event that they volunteer at. (this information, though I cannot confirm by text, I know is true because this was asked of our school board at the beginning of last years meeting when the question was posed to them.)

And for second on this quote, and to be specific "since those filthy fags got what's coming to them?" as you put it. I expect one of 3 things. A) If you were meaning this in contenxt, then say so. B) If it is a quote by you directly, I expect an apology for violating the rules of this board against insulting people, for I take this as a great insult against my uncle who is gay, and a VERY health person who contributes GREATLY to his community. or 3) I at minimum expect the Mods to suggest you consider your words more carefully.

Then I guess no one teaches them. That sounds like a brilliant plan. "It's the parent's responsibility! Oh, but we're not going to require parents to do it. Most of them won't do it. Most of them don't even do it themselves. What was I talking about?"

You're acting like this is a personal thing, which is silly. If you teach your kids about civic duty, then they just get a double lesson and there's no harm in that. If you don't teach them, you're lax in your duties, and someone else has to step in and do your job for you. If parents don't teach their kids responsibility, and the community doesn't either, guess what? They become a problem for society, so we HAVE to deal with them, and that usually means jail. So there's your solution. Great job.

Simply not teaching civic responsibility is stupid.

I was exaggerating, of course. The point still stands: most kids aren't going to learn about social responsibility on their own, at least until they are much older. As someone who took the third route, only to find bush, it would have been better had my HS had a program that asked me how I wanted to serve my community. I would have had choices, cleaning up a park or highway, helping the elderly, feeding the hungry, or even helping the homeless to get into job training, all of which build character, but I would need to do it on my own to figure out that sometimes other people need help. It's about being a good person, really, and it's about that nudge from the school into an experience that very few would have if they weren't nudged. Aside from that, it's great to suddenly have gaggles of volunteers in a community. Imagine a program like this leading to reduced pollution in parks or a smaller homeless population. That's mutually beneficial to the community and the individual. The community is improved, and the individual learns about respect, duty, honor, and such. When I hear people throwing the word 'slavery' around, I roll my eyes (like this! :rolleyes:).

Slavery is getting up at dawn and working until dusk for no money and without freedom. Mandatory civic duty isn't slavery, and (borrowing from the Godwin arguments of so many) to suggest this is anything like slavery is disrespectful to slaves. Do you want to disrespect slaves?

My argument is only that it is not the schools place to provide that nudge. The school is there to teach how to add, subtract, multiply and divide, how to construct a sentence, where our borders end and the other guy’s begins, and so on.


Doesn’t that smack of forced labor?

And again…I bring up the Boy Scouts. Sounds, to me, like exactly what they do.

Certainly, that’s one form of slavery. I would define slavery a little more broadly. Perhaps slavery can also mean forcing the citizenry to do that which they would otherwise be disinclined to do, mutual benefit or no.

By that logic, the neither is mandatory military service. Somehow, I don’t get the impression that this is something that you would be in support of.

Oh, please…:rolleyes:

To comment on one thing BOR noted....I was in Girl Scouts for over 12 years, we did a LOT of community service and I loved every single minute of

I have no problem with schools sending kids out to do community service as a part of their education.

It would be a win-win-win situation for all concerned.

The kids could learn what a community should be and that EVERYONE needs to help, plus for those going to college it looks great on their applications and may make a difference when the admissions office looks at their grades or test scores.

The community benefits because the kids are off the streets somewhat and I have a feeling juvenile crime would go down. Plus, it allows the community to get to know the kids.

Finally, it helps the schools when they need funding and have to go to the community to ask for more money. The community actually sees the good the students are doing and maybe more apt to help the schools out.

It's not a "liberal" policy, it's a policy that allows us to further insure that we pass this country down to a generation that knows what community pride and true social interaction is.

The kids that don't want to participate will find ways not to participate.

We better do something to change our course, this greed infested society we live in is destroying us spiritually, physically, mentally and I don't see too many people in this country trying to truly better it. Instead I see complainers, whiners and people who want to tear the good that is left down for their own personal greed and powertrips. Hopefully, getting students socially active would change that a little.

As for "parents should teach their kids"....... these are the same people supporting an economy where both parents have to work, where families grow further indebt because the wage gaps are unsustainable, and they don't want change because they fear they will lose their little slice of the pie. They fail to recognize that by having kids put more into the community, maybe just maybe as the kids mature they won't be greedy fucks but instead willing to help rebuild the country and it's socioeconomic infrastructure so that this country is a better place to live in.

So people who have been trained to deal with kids and teens, who have had possibly decades of experience with them, shouldn't help them learn about and prepare for the world where an individual is a part of a society? That seems kinda silly. Schools do everything from babysitting to punishment, things you'd think a parent would do. Schools aren't just about learning maths.
PE is forced labor. I don't see many people calling it slavery.
What is the ratio of Boy Scouts to total students?
Schools are there to teach children how to be adults not just thorough memorizing the Pythagorean theorem or the difference between a cell membrane and a cell wall, but how operating in the world works. I wish they had tax classes when I was in HS. I wish they had office politics classes when I was in HS.

BTW, it would only be forced if the person in question is under 18, of course. While I don't agree with it, children don't enjoy the same freedoms as adults. So long as the parent signs off on the work, shit yes the kids better do it or they won't graduate.
If our military wasn't a pawn, I might be inclined to agree. That not being the case, I see them as very different.
Okay, but you have to back me up on Godwins, then.

Well put, Pan!

There have been comparisons to taking gym that I think are good but about the requirement to read books from a reading list.

As part of the school curriculum students are taught to read.
We (society) accept this.
Students at all levels of public school are required to read specific books in class, for homework, over the summer. Each school may have a different list or required books.
Do we (society) accept this? We do.

But wait, aren't there moral and other messages that are major parts of these books?
Studetns are required to read these books.

Is there a differene between this and community service?
I don't see a difference.

Our schools don't teach our kids the basics by sticking only to the basics.
- Basic math gets wrapped in word problems that give context.
- Students are required to write on certain topics. Sometimes even take prescribed a position on an argument in writing an essay.
- Students are required to read specified books.

Requiring community service of some sort would be more open then any of the above becuase assumably (fake word?) students would be able to choose how to carry out their community service (within accepted boundries whatever they be).

The idea that serving society is good and/or should take priority over one's right to his or her time is a political/philosophical view. Political/philosophical views absolutely should not be forced on students.

I'm not convinced that civilization will to crumble just because schools aren't allowed to loan out students as free labor to pick up garbage or wipe peoples' butts at a convalescent home.

The former is the choice of the parents. The latter is academic education, not forced volunteerism ordered by bureaucrats with a political agenda.

I'm not convinced that kids need to learn this stuff. I have a few reservations about teaching my kids that they are effectively owned by their neighbors and local politicians.

You could use that argument to defend a military draft. They learn a skill, serve their country, etc.

What he said.

I was required to do community service at a public high school, and that was more than a decade ago...

It wasn't really a big deal - virtually any activity could be approved as long as you were actually doing the work. I imagine that's how it is most places.

I volunteered 10 hours for Tom Davis' 1996 congressional campaign. Other people did stuff at their churches or for other candidates, or for the parks, or for a nursing home or hospital, or taught little kids to read... Some of them even worked at our school beautifying the grounds...

Really, what's the big deal?

well if you're cool with the myriad other forms of political indoctrination that any schooling--home public or private--necessarily involves--you know teaching stuff like civics or the rudiments of retro-nationalism and why it is pretty like an old car or whatever--then i really dont understand where any possible objection could come in with regards to some form or another of community service.
i dont get it.

none of the arguments that equate it with conscription or slavery make the slightest bit of sense. none of the scenarios that seem of a piece with this absurd general characterization make any sense either (no. 63).

what is strange to me is that the claims for home-schooling involve not a rejection of political indoctrination, but a desire to control it. this does not bode well for the ability of your kid(s) to be able to think for themselves. there are many reasons why homeschooling can be a very good thing indeed, but it seems to me that wanting your kid to be a copy of yourself politically aint one of them.

the problem is not so much that there are ideologies: the problem is that these ideologies are treated like natural phenomena out there in the world and in teaching kids in ways that follow from this position, you will probably not give them the tools required to think their way either through them, around them or potentially beyond them----your own least of all.

you'd think that if all this blather about "freedom" and "liberty" meant anything, you'd at least want your kid to have them----and allowing your kid intellectual freedom is a precondition for all other types.

and a measure of intellectual freedom is that at the end of the day your child may disagree with you, and quite profoundly----and you have to accept that. abusing the structurally authoritarian parent-child relationship in order to "protect" your child from political positions you dont like is just that--an abuse of power. you HAVE TO expose your child to a wide range of political options and you HAVE TO present information to your child in ways that enable the kid to learn to form judgments. you dont want to load shit up with your own politics--you'll create either servility (in the name of freedom of course) or incoherent revolt (what would that be?)--and will have no=-one but yourself to blame either way, because you are educating your child in the image of your own limitations.

if you go this route, you are imposing a miniature totalitarian education on your child. no doubt a quirk of that totalitarian education will be the fetishism of the word "freedom" and the word "liberty"---which would make of it a very typically american type of farce. in your desire to protect you kid from political positions you dislike, you'd end up recapitulating the main characteristics of the political order you reject, for whatever reason. if you aren't even self-aware enough to see that, i would really urge you NOT to homeschool your kid.

like i said, there are lots of reasons why homeschooling can be a great thing--but wanting to shelter your kid from political positions you do not agree with IS NOT one of them.

Translation: kids should be able to grow up selfish. I wonder why we invade other countries for oil...
or it is a political stand against doing work? Are you really going to sit there and defend laziness with anarchy? I don't mean any disrespect, but I've not heard of anything like that since the kids in HS who I bought my weed from.I would hope you're not fighting for a kid's right to be lazy.
Civilization will see the benefits of requiring kids to learn about language, arts, maths, sciences, and civics. If you skip one of those, the kids are going to be deficient in some way. Part of being a part of a collection of more than one person is realizing that on many levels our fates are intertwined with the people around us. If you live as an island, no one will benefit from you and you won't benefit from anyone else. That's called stagnation.
Besides a 'political agenda' by 'bureaucrats' are there any other strawmen you want to shoot by us here?
If you saw someone who had been hit in a hit and run, would you pull over and help them? If you answer no, you're a bad person (unethical, immoral, possibly a coward) and someday when someone helps you selflessly, I hope you figure out the whole selflessness thing. If you answer yes, then why not teach your kids the same values?
Name me a volunteer program for kids that involves the risk of IEDs. None? Apples, meet oranges.

Agreed. I had to do community service as part of a few classes in high school, and some classes in college. One thing I've learned from doing community service is that it teaches very, very valuable lessons students do not learn in the classroom.

Where else are students going to have the opportunity to see just how individual actions affect the greater good? For instance, one of my favorite community service projects is a biannual beach cleanup. Via the beach cleanup, students learn just what impact littering has on the environment, and it makes them less likely to litter in the future. Similarly, when a student is working with people less fortunate than they are, they see what kind of choices individuals make, and how it impacted the life of that individual--whether that be drugs, alcohol, dropping out, or getting pregnant too young. When high school get the opportunity to act as mentors via community service, they gain a sense of worth from helping those younger than they are, and teaching those younger than they are. Golden opportunities for learning are handed to us via community service, and the benefit obviously goes both ways.

I was very active in my high school's Key Club organization (part of Kiwanis), and I have to say, I know very few students in high school who would turn down a free field trip, especially one to the beach, even if it is to pick up litter. We did community service all over the place, and had a lot of fun doing it. Do I think it should be required? Certainly. I think it's a lot more useful to teach a child how to help someone else than to teach them to ignore suffering. Educators have an obligation to teach students to be critical thinkers about their world and surroundings, and getting them out of the classroom and helping others helps to see problems in their world in action, and work towards solving them.

As for the argument that parents should be teaching their kids this stuff, I don't disagree, but I think you'll find that the sad truth is that most parents are too busy to teach their children about civic duty and helping others, or too lazy. Schools are not only educational institutions that teach reading, writing, and arithmetic, but they also have to teach students how to become contributing, well-socialized members of society, because if they didn't, no one else would, and then the parents would bitch about how their kids aren't being taught this stuff in school.

It's a stand against schools forcing political values on peoples' children. If my future children decide of their own free will that they want to do community service, I won't forbid or discourage them as long as it doesn't interfere with their responsibilities (homework, household chores, etc.). However; I absolutely will not force them to do community service or allow others to do so unless it's a judge punishing them for a crime they've committed.

A child can be educated without being loaned out as a servant to his or her neighbors. And any civilization that can't survive without subjecting its people to involuntary servitude doesn't deserve to survive, in my opinion.

How is it a strawman? A number of people in this thread have defended mandatory community service for political/philosophical reasons (civic duty, making the world a better place, etc.). It seems pretty obvious to me what the motivations are for such a policy.

Yes, I would help. But what you don't seem to understand is that there's a difference between choosing to help and being forced to help.

It's not a "volunteer program" if people are being forced to participate (which would be the case in both a military draft and mandatory community service). And there are plenty of non-combat jobs in our military.

Anyway; the argument is not about whether or not mandatory service is dangerous. It's about whether or not the government should be allowed to commandeer our lives just because someone thinks it will be good for us.

it's hard to take you seriously when you end it on a fictitious hyperbole.

You don't have to allow them to do it. You are always free to home school them, of course. Meanwhile the HS around the corner from my house (Willow Glen HS, San Jose, CA) already has it. None of the parents complained. You can't go to dances or school events if you've not done 10 hours per year. Sure, some of the students probably groan, but they do it and it doesn't kill them.
The volunteer organizations don't own the children, so the 'being loaned out' thing is very inaccurate. 'Subjugation' is downright misleading. No one is being conquered. No one is being forced into a cruel situation.
Are the people in this thread in charge of the program? No? Then strawman it is.
They're not being forced at all. No one said that you have to graduate from high school. No where is it written that it's illegal not to have a diploma. Jeez. They can flunk until they turn 18, and then mow lawns for the rest of their lives.

Or they can stop being babies and do what's asked of them.
Right now the non combat people, National Guard, for example, are being shipped over to Iraq. I'm sure they'd be frustrated that you think that there are going to be ways to join up and not get shipped out in a few months to a very dry, hot place. With a gun.

It's a volunteer program in that they get to choose which program they volunteer for. Many schools don't even have lists to choose from. Kids can go out and find something they might like and do it.
The government can tell out kids what to do in school so long as what they're asking isn't illegal because that's how the law works. If you disagree (and I'm picking up on a small chance you might not agree on this one), go change the law.


I wonder, to those in this thread who are against the school doing this: should people under 18 be allowed to vote? I started a thread a few years back, and like 98% of the people said "no". When I consider the arguments in this thread, suggesting that kids have rights and such, I wonder how that would translate to the right to representation. Kids are taxed every time they buy food or if they're working before the age of 18, but they are not represented in government (which is why it's so easy for kids to get forced into things like this).

Just food for thought.

Okay, here's what we can do. Instead of calling it community service, call it homework. Maybe then we could dispense with all this fantastical "schools can't make you do stuff" nonsense. As far as i can tell, some folks are being pretty arbitrarily picky about what schools can and can't make you do.

I was going to say that it appears that Tell's position is that community service by judge is the only way. I believe that it is the semantics are the problem just like you.

Call it, volunteering at whatever NGO/NPO you care for.

filth wins. Thanks for playing everyone.

yay, we'll just rename it and everything is ok, after all, it worked for the bush admin. why not everything else.

It would be homework though if you think about it. Anyway, filth already won.

well, here's a school that is doing it. We don't hear media congregating around this.

http://www.erps.k12.mi.us/district/v...er_request.htm

Let me also add that my volunteering in high school gave me a leg up against people for jobs. Since I was able to put down that I volunteered in an office at the American Cancer Society, I had more skills and experience than most kids applying for jobs. It also gave me an entry into the office work force. I never worked in retail in my career, (I don't consider the video rental store in the same manner as those that worked in the groceries, malls, and food stores.)

I will try to find other public school systems that have this requirement when I have time.

another school

Awesome article. I also got a lot of extra clout when applying for schools because of my extensive volunteer work. My SAT and GPA wouldn't have been enough to get me through.
If Willow Glen HS has it, the entire San Jose Unified School System may use it. So that might help.

Your position is untenable and unrealistic. I'd explain the whys and hows to you, but at this point it seems like a big waste of time. Besides, i'm still waiting on you to back up your claim that the white man is the most discriminated against person in america. Until you do that, don't expect me to take anything you have to say seriously.

edit: at one of the high schools i went to it was called "service learning".

Yes, it will teach them real world experience, and show them that volunteering is ok. They might even be able to put something on their resume.

You can also give the kids a choice between community service and writing 3 book reports 5 pages long about society in the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.

Since when did helping someone other than yourself become socialist anyway? Talk about renaming things. But I totally missed that somewhere in the transformation of the right-wing "ethos."

Service Learning, that was the keyword I needed to find. I was having a hard time fining anything under Community Service, Volunteering, etc in the Public School environments.

I did find the NCES happened to do a study on the service learning. Below is the summary and here is the link to the full report.

The full study goes over definitions of community service and service learning.

Actually that was something that Singapore American School did as part of their winter break. It was MANDATORY to participate in Interim Semester which was a 3 week period in between semesters. Various activities were give as choices and each student had to pick one. Students on probation or disciplinary actions were not allowed to attend and had to do further classroom studies during that 3 week period. Listed below are some of the activities which ranged from just visits to foreign countries to service work like housebuilding in the Philippines to Lifeguarding in Australia.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...iq/interim.jpg

Not to speak for seretogis... but to speak for seretogis, I GUARANTEE that 'A' is the correct choice here.

Yeah, I changed my mind. Largely due to the above two quotes. I like the idea of volunteer work for public assistance and public schooling is just one more form of public assistance - it's there whether you pay your share of the costs or not. I'd want the schools to have very little power in rejecting controversial/taboo causes and this subject only increases my support for school vouchers, but yeah, I like this idea now.

Since everyone has been begging for the "reality" of it, my graduation from High School in 2003 required 15 hours of community service.

I spent 8 hours on a ride-along with the local PD (I didn't do anything but sit in the car) and 7 hours prepping, cooking, and serving 20 LBs of pancake mix for a mother's day celebration at a local church camp.

So yea, they're not very picky.

I actually am considering homeschooling my children (I would feel this way regardless of any community service requirements at local schools, though).

I disagree. A little later in your post you say, "They're not being forced at all. No one said that you have to graduate from high school. No where is it written that it's illegal not to have a diploma. Jeez. They can flunk until they turn 18, and then mow lawns for the rest of their lives."

Not everyone is able to homeschool or send their children to a private school. So if these people live in a school district that requires community service to graduate high school they are stuck with two options:

1) Allow the school to force their children into involuntary servitude.

2) Defend their childrens' rights at the cost of them being able to graduate.

That seems like a damned cruel situation to me.

Interesting. You called my argument a strawman before I said anything about the people in this thread. What was your original basis for that statement?

Anyway...it's not a strawman because what I said is true. It's pretty obvious to me that the motivation behind community service requirements are political in nature. The public school employees who would implement such policy are government employees.

Someone who resists a violation of his or her rights isn't being a baby.

National Guard isn't non-combat. I'm talking about a non-combat job, such as a cook or office worker.

It's not a volunteer program if people are forced to volunteer. That's forced labor where the laborers get to pick where they work.

I was also considering this until I found a Montessori school near by. If you're thinking about home-schooling, but you're worried about work and such, it seems an excellent option. It's a fascinating program.
Well, I can tell you it's an easy choice considering that even though I've been searching news articles about this for days, I've yet to see any parent complain. 'Involuntary servitude', in the way you're using the term, can be applied to many facets of not just school but all of childhood. How many children are required by their parents to go to church? How many children are required to do chores by their parents? How many kids are treated poorly by their peers, and have to behave in a way that they don't want to in order to fit in? The school requires kids to do many things: exercise, learn about things they'll never need (I've not used calculus since I graduated from college), listen to teachers whether they're right or wrong, and they can't leave campus without being pursued by a truancy officer. That would make a school prison for children, by your reaction. And yet I don't hear anyone complaining about that at all. No not one bit. As I stated before, children are taxed without government representation. That's the reason the 13 Colonies revolted from the UK. It's a situation that can spark insurrection and rebellion. But if you ask a kid to do a ride along with a police officer, and it's slavery? You're overreacting.
It's not a strawman against us, it's a strawman against the school administrators. You presume there is some 'political agenda' (your words). I see no evidence of that. So rushing to judge their intent is clearly premature, and representing their intent as fact despite no evidence, and having that representation be malicious, is a strawman.
Maybe you'd like to speak to these administrators before you put words in their mouths.
Kids don't have rights like adults. While I disagree with the laws, that's how they are. It's not illegal or unconstitutional for a school to require community service from persons under the age of 18.
Tell you what, sign up for the military right now and try to get a non-combat job.
The volunteer label is a loose one, I'll admit, but the fact that they can pick and choose any service to the community brings a voluntary decision to the mix. They aren't volunteering to work, but they're volunteering to take one option.

I have no problem with it.

But maybe it shouldn't be part of school as such. Perhaps instead, to become a fully fledged citizen of a country and entitled to vote and so on (eg receive welfare) - a young person should be required to do service in one or more areas, I'd envisage them being able to choose from a number of approved organizations.

Of course, there're probably loads of practical issues with this.

However I see no philosophical problem with it.

Why should a state support members who have not demonstrated a commitment of some sort? Membership of any group comes at some price. Nobody is entitled to a free lunch.