Community servise to pass?

Off-topic
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Alright here we go. I live in a not so good places this is important in this fantastical journey I am going to take you on with me. In my high school we have to do 7hours of community service to pass. I have no problem with doing community service at all. The reasoning/idea behind it how ever is different. My teacher said it is to teach us values and not be so self centered. Well in my head this is the parents job even the teacher said it was. So do you agree with schools(public) trying to teach kids morals/values because the parents will not. School is to teach you things like math, science and reading not personal values and concepts. So what do all of you think.

DISCUSS.

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School is to teach you about life and get you ready for the real world.
Thats what I’ve always been told.

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I think its fine as long as they dont push it too far… :smiley:

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My position on this is complex. I’m in IB, and for those not familiar with the curriculum, you have to do 150 hours of service your Junior/Senior year, and take a class called Theory of Knowledge, which is essentially a college psychology class.

I think the best way I can state my view on the matter is that it is not necessarily the school’s job to “teach you morality”, because that would imply that there is a morality that is instrinsically correct, and that the government supports that. Can’t have that with 1st amendment.

Instead of teaching morality, I think schools should help students discover their own morality. The discussions in TOK are not led by the teacher. The teacher presents an issue, and pretty much sits there and make sure we don’t kill each other. There should be more focus on education, personal development, and real-world issues in schools. Being taught how to pass a standardized science test won’t help you file a tax return. That’s another subject, though.

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The fact that this is even being questioned is a bit unsettling. The willingness to learn that all of us have, even if it’s the tiniest spark, doesn’t involve just plugging in formulas and memorizing vocabulary. Now that’s not to say schools should teach morality, but they should prod the student further outside of their own mind - open-mindedness is, in my opinion, the most important thing I have taken away from my 11 years thus far of school. And my senior year (I’m in the same classes Alex is in) will only increase that by leaps and bounds.

The will to be flexible about one’s ideas and beliefs, while simultaneously being knowledgeable enough to defend them without resorting to logical fallacies, is the most important thing any student should take away from their education.

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That tiny spark was throw out many years ago by many in my school.

The fact that this is even being questioned is a bit unsettling.

The fact my school is teaching kids what their parent should have is unsettling when they could be teaching something like science, math and reading? The teacher basically said it is because of our location meaning most parent here teach their children nothing or very bad things. Why should the school pick up the slack? (Keep in mind my school passes kids just because they don’t want to deal with them and let many take the education of other students away. These kids will not do the community service the good kids will, but they obviously don’t need too in most cases. So why bother taking up/class school time for no reason?) Honestly I don’t consider many I go with human they are more of a sub-human with very primitive thoughts(People of all colors). If it keeps up they will die off eventually I say the faster they kill themselves the better so why stop them (also most will end up in prison which takes lots of tax money to just keep one prisoner there and when they get off they will more than likely be on welfare which is tax money yet again basically just leaching of society to get my in a Cadillac while hard working people take the bus)… I have such a warm heart.

open-mindedness is, in my opinion, the most important thing I have taken away from my 11 years thus far of school.

That may be true, but I still don’t see why the school should teach that. If people don’t want to learn anything from school they will not. I am guessing you live in a decent area this has something to do with it in fact a very large part(I am guessing your parents tell you to be open minded more or less). I live in area with a lot of black people. Statistically this means a worse neighborhood, more crime and all that good stuff. I recognize this is not the only problem there is much much more half the white people here are just the same or much worse. In fact I hate them to and hopefully they die without spawning more to in fact the earth.(this goes for everybody of every color race size and shape I spread my hate for all equally) So yes the fact there are many black people is relevant. I am not racist simply stating facts. There are only very very very few black kids in the honors classes think it is racism or coincidence or maybe a reason to it hmm…? The African Americans even notify the issue themselves on their behavior example: They call normal functioning people that are also African American “acting like a white boy” or “uncle tom”. They (the bad acting kids) admit to it themselves yet complain when it is brought into a conversation about it resorting to the race card. Even the old dean of discipline(black) said to me he didn’t know what was wrong with most of the black kids/adults in the area.

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Michael, I completely understand what you mean. The bit about it being “unsettling” wasn’t really directed at you, but at the setting you live in. It really is very, very sad that what you’re describing portrays a large percentage of the American communities that our students are growing up in. I’m in a fairly decent neighborhood, or rather my school is since I live 20 minutes away from it, it’s a little run down and is largely comprised of Blacks and Mexicans but compared to a lot of areas of the country it’s pretty good.

My own viewpoint is that you should just not worry about the other kids’ education and service hours and concentrate on keeping your own mind open and your willingness to learn at a high level. Just because you’re surrounded by people like that doesn’t mean you have to be one of them. :slight_smile:

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I get what you mean more now. I will definitely not become one of the kids who turns out a failure or hates school well maybe hate, but that will not stop me from doing my best for a better future.

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When parents are so busy with work that they can’t get involved in PTA or find out exactly what their kids are learning, it evolves into a situation where the school is left to deal with students who often truly lack a well-rounded foundation.

Many parents simply don’t care. Many parents are too lazy and feel that they are too small to make any change. And the parents who do care, they aren’t loud or active enough to make a change-- very few do.

So then, we arrive at the era where schools are now the authority on what is best for its students. I have seen first hand how many, many schools have the attitude of, “Parents know nothing. We need to teach the students how to eat, how to dress, what to learn, what to do and what not to do.” Unfortunately, and quite unsurprisingly, schools do not teach students “how to think on your own.”

If they did teach students how to think on their own, they would find students in an uproar with no way to manage kids with free will who won’t tolerate bullcrap time-wasting busy-work, when they can be developing real skills to further themselves in the real world. The system is simply an outdated cattle-call.

Back on topic… Sadly, schools requiring volunteer work for passing is often the ONLY experience many students will ever have. Volunteer SHOULD be part of the Honors programs, but instead it is forced on all students. It should be an option, let the students think for themselves and decide when, where, and how they want to volunteer, and apply it toward Honors.

Honors programs are a joke… many students cheat just to get the recognition. Anyway, that’s another story in itself.

Bottom line: EDUCATION REFORM

Late night ramblings…

–Jim—

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If kids are e.g. too self centered to do well at school, then school has a problem. It can create problems both for the kids themselves and for others. It may be the parents job to do something about it, but sometimes they don’t. It wouldn’t be fair to any of the students if the school didn’t do what it could to become a place where you can learn something, if you try.

Also I think if the school has an opportunity to help kids do better in life than their parents did, I think it is worth it. Even if that means teaching values morals and values and thereby doing a bit of the parents job. If it means the kid gets an education that means more than the parents right to control how their kid grow up. After all parents, if they try, have a much much bigger impact on a kid than a teacher could ever have.

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You’re not looking at the big picture. It sounds like you live in a poor area. Depending on the details in your area, this means lots of families with hard-working parents that may have multiple jobs to keep food on the table. Not much time for the kids, especially if it’s a single parent. Other families may have unemployed parents who don’t do anything, but also may not be equipped to teach their kids much of anything. Still other families may have parents who are addicts or abusers, who do crime to make money, most of which goes to buy more drugs or alcohol. In many cases these homes are what you would call a toxic environment. For many kids, school is the safest, cleanest place they get to go all week. Is this your fault? No, but they are still members of your community, maybe your close neighbors.

Side note:
Yesterday my sister-in-law brought home a boy (19) who has just entered the services of STEP. He was raised by a drug-addicted mother who provided him with next to nothing, ever. My sister-in-law bought him some new clothes because the only clothes he had were disgusting, stinky dirty. He was amazed to see a suitcase full of new clothes for him to wear to school. “I’ve never had new clothes,” he said.

Now let’s use that guy as an example. He’s developmentally disabled, but let’s ignore that for the moment and consider his upbringing (somewhere in Northern California). Is he really going to get much out of a bunch of math and science classes? On the one hand yes, but on the other hand, if the main thing on his mind is where’s his next meal going to come from, there are other things a school might be able to do for him.

The population at your school probably runs the gamut from whole, healthy families to destitute, parent-less families. Your school probably tries to do a variety of things, within its limited abilities, to best service that group of students.

So what if the school doesn’t pick up the slack? At age 18 or earlier, they spit out a person who might not have the basic skills to get a job. Where are they going to end up? Basically on public assistance of some kind (your tax dollars at work) or in jail (more of your tax dollars at work). If the school can help get them to a place where they can survive on their own, without costing you anything, I think they’re doing the right thing.

But the devil is in the details. What was so bad about doing a few hours of community service again? Part of going to school is to experience different things. Your school is much better-equipped to hook people up with community service programs than your parents (or non-parents) are. You get experience from it. Write a paper about it when it’s all done.

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They did not hook us up at all. they said go volunteer and bring back proof. That was basically it.

A. That is not the schools job what so ever period. Isn’t that why they did bring him home with them? We should not take an education from one to give to another something which is not. I will support public programs for this. It would do plenty good. However school in not that place. If public programs are not able to be brought up do to funds an after school program would also work.

B. I really don’t get the point of that at all if there was one. If your getting at I should treat kids equally/care because they happen to live where I live and that is all that is worthless. They come to school disrupt classes then we cater to their needs because poor woahs them?(kids where I go all have nice clothes because they suck it right out of the government so I willing to bet just about all eat dinner at night then again clothes is more important to some.) What about all the kids who do what they are supposed to once again we reward bad behavior and not good. An example (it is not as big of a deal now) they would give bad kids candy in certain situations. One might be is that he calmed down or use it to get him to calm down now by giving him a treat you successfully trained him to act out when he wants candy because in the end he will get it. There are many things in my school like this and I am the only one who can see they are training them to lash out and be of further disturbance.

C. I get you point about the tax money. As saying school spit them out you make it seem as if it was the school’s fault for them not taking education seriously? They had their shot and blew it (most). As for getting them a job without costing the workingman money where do the schools get paid. Tax money once again now we have a bunch of have of students that can barely pass instead of the ones who wanted to learn getting a good education we just sucked it from them to cater to the careless peoples needs.(they cost more money breaking materials, fights etc…) Fare we reward them again for acting like a delinquent.

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Death to taxes.

–Jim—

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I’m not so sure that would work totally. I would say death to some of their uses.

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P.S. thanks for all the intelligent insightful post it is nice to see from another’s point of view and not just have a ton of people going “that’s gay” “Sucks for you”.