Obama's call for mandatory community service

[Gordon B]

The Obama Administration will call on Americans to serve in order to meet the nation’s challenges. President-Elect Obama will expand national service programs like AmeriCorps and Peace Corps and will create a new Classroom Corps to help teachers in underserved schools, as well as a new Health Corps, Clean Energy Corps, and Veterans Corps. Obama will call on citizens of all ages to serve America, by setting a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year and by developing a plan so that all college students who conduct 100 hours of community service receive a universal and fully refundable tax credit ensuring that the first $4,000 of their college education is completely free. Obama will encourage retiring Americans to serve by improving programs available for individuals over age 55, while at the same time promoting youth programs such as Youth Build and Head Start.

Link

[Gordon B]

I'm against the draft whether it is a military draft for 18 year olds or a community service draft for 12 year olds.

[Tom Storer]

Hell, they're already drafted into school. Are you against that?

I voted yes, although I have no idea how it'll work, who'll run it, how it will be organized and paid for, etc.

Also, I'm not sure that having "a goal that all middle school and high school students do 50 hours of community service a year" necessarily implies making it a draft-style, unavoidable obligation. Not sure how school systems could be obliged by the Feds to make demands on students' extracurricular time. More details are needed.

[steve(thelil)]

Originally Posted by Gordon B

I'm against the draft whether it is a military draft for 18 year olds or a community service draft for 12 year olds.

Merely calling it a draft as the basis for your objection is not very persuasive. Are you against "drafting" kids into MANDATORY school attendance*?

Why shouldn't community service not be considered a required educational course? Wouldn't it contribute as much to our society as a learning tool (and hopefully through direct results of the service) as, say, math?







*Yes, they are required to attend school, even if home schooling counts

[Dr Dave]

The draft analogy is false, and in any event, I think the draft idea is a good one. I evaded the draft a long time ago--I starved myself so I was underweight (my dad wasn't rich or connected, and I couldn't afford grad school). By my lights, I did the right thing: I'm convinced to this day that I would have been killed, quickly, in Vietnam. My picture is next to "cannon fodder" in the encyclopedia. Public service wasn't an option then. At least not one I ever knew about. But I'd do it now, if they'd have me. (Easy for me to say, etc.) Say--the Peace Corps is still an option, isn't it? Hmmm....

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

Why shouldn't community service not be considered a required educational course? Wouldn't it contribute as much to our society as a learning tool (and hopefully through direct results of the service) as, say, math?

Great--we can be as good at community service as we are at math

[Vince Kargatis]

I think thelil's analysis is the right kind - I don't see the draft analogy either. On this issue, seems to me either one opposes mandatory curricula, or thinks community service is a poor choice for one (neither applies to opposition to a military draft). Pete C perhaps (jokingly) implies the latter. I don't know how to read Gordon's objection.

My first inclination is that it is a reasonable addition to mandatory curricula, in that students can learn the promises, impacts, and limitations of community service, which strikes me as important civic knowledge. I haven't thought of the practical impacts yet, though.

[tippy]

Do you think kids should have to go to school? Community service is a rich learning experience.

[Brian Olewnick]

Everything that one considers "good" (and I'd agree that community service fits that description) shouldn't be mandatory, imho.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by tippy

Do you think kids should have to go to school? Community service is a rich learning experience.

That you can even ask that question shows how public education has failed its mission--pretty much lost sight of it--and how low our expectations have become for public schools. Here's ol' Tom Jefferson:

"I think by far the most important bill in our whole code, is that for the diffusion of knowledge among the people. No other sure foundation can be devised for the preservation of freedom and happiness... The tax which will be paid for this purpose is not more than the thousandth part of what will be paid to kings, priests and nobles who will rise up among us if we leave the people in ignorance." --Thomas Jefferson to George Wythe, 1786. ME 5:396

I suppose this could fit on a familiar bumpersticker: "If you think education is expensive, try ignorance." But there's more to it. One of the purposes of cumpulsory public education used to be to prepare people to be citizens of the United States. As should be evident, people do not naturally grasp the import of such ideas as the protection of the rights of the minority, nor do they seem to place much value in the Bill of Rights when it is applied to anyone other than themselves.

Maybe now that we have an actual intelligent person about to be President, maybe we'll start to value intelligence again. Hey, we even have a bad role model: Go to school, learn to read and write and think, or you'll end up like Sarah Palin.

Oh, the cruelty.

[shrugs]

jury duty is slavery!!

[Vince Kargatis]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Everything that one considers "good" (and I'd agree that community service fits that description) shouldn't be mandatory, imho.

Yes, and this is simply the former of my two options above. Opposition to public education is a long-established libertarian position. But given the existence of public education, Brian, do you have any opinions on included curricula? Or do you abstain from any position since the idea is so "bad" in the first place?

[steve(thelil)]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Everything that one considers "good" (and I'd agree that community service fits that description) shouldn't be mandatory, imho.

I agree totally with this (and with the corallary that everything that's bad shouldn't be prohibited).

But most of us accept that some things that are good should be mandatory, such as a minimum of education and -dare I say - paying some kind of taxes - should be mandatory: why not this?

It would seem to me that the exact same justifications for mandatory education apply to mandatory community service: It helps the individual contribute to the society as a whole, and helps educate the individual in ways that might really help the individual.

That said, I think it really would have to be done carefully and correctly. There should be a HUGE amount of choice and not a large burden on any kid. If mandatory community service doesn't teach the vast majority of participants that contributing to society is rewarding to them, subjectively, it will not have served a principal purpose.


And while Pete's line about math is funny, I'm sure he isn't really suggesting that the populous as a whole would be better at math if kids weren't mandated to take some math in school.

[Uli]

I voted yes, but i am vehemently against a military draft.

Originally Posted by Vince Kargatis

I I haven't thought of the practical impacts yet, though.

Wouldn't changeing your theories for practical matters be completely against your nature?

[tippy]

reading, writing, math and community service as part of compulsory education

use community in service of providing better education to students. Community service could be (students) tutoring students (contemporaries as well as younger). The failure of schools is not only a failure of the schools but the communities the schools are in. It seems to me that education going downhill coincides with there being fewer adults around in the afternoons – yes, mothers going to work. Also explains performance in communities where everyone has always had to work. This also would explain You might say that while at a certain income bracket, the increased financial support can be used for kids to receive a better education – the bottom line result can be measured by a declining middle class.

What would be totally awesome is if a community organized at a level where you have someone inside or outside the school making sure that each student is where he should be (formerly, the assignment of a parent but where parents don’t have time or to make up for those who don’t care or can’t). One teacher cannot do this with 30 students in a class. If the students who really need extra help got it outside of school, they wouldn’t downgrade the classroom to where you feel the need to separate the “gifted” from the non-gifted. Right there is the moment where you accept lower standards for the majority of the group. Students learn better from their peers too.

Yes, the declining standards function to obscure the statistical truth so that adult citizens can, I guess, sleep at night? But we complain about the reality. The reality is that more adults have to be involved. I think if it bothers you enough to complain, that should be the impetus for you to act in that regard by donating your time or other assistance. Your service could be working with your own kids. Which is certainly not an accusation but a reminder for those who might not be helping their kids with their homework or making sure that they are doing it on a day by day basis.. You instill in them not only the value of what they are learning but also the practiceof discipline.

[Gary Sisco]

No, but I would for 18 y.o.s (or post high school, in other words).

[Tom Storer]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Everything that one considers "good" (and I'd agree that community service fits that description) shouldn't be mandatory, imho.

Could you be more specific about who "one" is and what "good" means?

Also: presumably you don't think that things "one" considers to be "bad" should be mandatory either. Are you simply against anything being mandatory?

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by Tom Storer

Could you be more specific about who "one" is and what "good" means?

Also: presumably you don't think that things "one" considers to be "bad" should be mandatory either. Are you simply against anything being mandatory?

As little as possible. "One" is you or me and we may disagree about things, hence my preference for dealing with such things voluntarily rather than either of us imposing our vision of the "good" on the other. In this situation, those who consider community service a good (and I'm one of them) and insert it into a mandatory system better be prepared for the day--and it will come--when political forces they consider the "bad" come to power and begin imposing their ideas of the "good" onto the same system. It flows both ways.

While in Olewnick's ideal world, education would also be a voluntary system, that's not even worth thinking about so I can only hope that the curricula adhere to the most objective standards possible (ie, not teaching myth as fact). Community service, as defined by an Obama administration, strikes me as likely to be considered mistakenly value-oriented by those who view "liberals" with suspicion and will engender enormous friction from people who think their children are being brainwashed. So when Bobby Jindal is elected, given the existence of a curriculum, he'll doubtlessly attempt to warp it toward more (ostensibly) Christian concerns. It'll be tough to argue with, once one accepts the general premise.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

.

While in Olewnick's ideal world....

As imho this libertarian model where the state is the enemy and free markets arrange everything for the benefit of everybody is one of the oldest myths in the history books, I would like a short glimpse into Sankt Olewnick's ideal world. A pre-historic paradise?

[rollhead]

The analogy I would prefer to make is the analogy between Gordon and his ideology (and libertarianism, for that matter) and sociopathy. That is more accurate.

They want the benefits of living in a modern, industrial society, but don't want to pay for any of it, or be subject to its rules.

Sounds like psychopathy to me if not sociopathy.

Speaking of which, there is a nice piece in the recent New Yorker about psychopathy, and how psychopaths are drawn to business as a career.

One of the preeminent scholars of psychopathy, Robert Hare points out that "many traits that may be desirable in a corporate context, such as ruthlessness, lack of social conscience, and single-minded devotion to success, would be considered psychopathic outside it," according to the New Yorker article.

While I don't consider Gordon to be a psychopath, he certainly is a proponent for a society and a culture in which psychopaths can thrive.

[Brian Olewnick]

States aren't "enemies", they're just groups of certain people. Exactly like other groups of people. I prefer that people, or groups of people, don't impose their wills on one another through force. Pie in the sky, I understand, that's why I call it "ideal".

[Enforcer]

Despite a Herculean effort on my part, I'm unable to muster any opinion about this at all.

[tippy]

I’m unable to vote positively for something with the word mandatory in it myself; however, I wish everyone would just voluntarily do the right thing. One must compel ignorance to learning perhaps.

[Pete C]

My point was really about the state of education, but I don't think something like "community service" should be compulsory under 18, so I guess I'm with Gary. As far as compulsory service after 18, I'm agnostic at this point, but there's certainly enough precedent in military service. I think joining int'l peacekeeping forces should be an option in any kind of "draft," military or otherwise.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

States aren't "enemies", they're just groups of certain people. Exactly like other groups of people. I prefer that people, or groups of people, don't impose their wills on one another through force. Pie in the sky, I understand, that's why I call it "ideal".

Yeah, but how would education work if not public? and who would organize it.

[Brian Olewnick]

Originally Posted by Uli

Yeah, but how would education work if not public? and who would organize it.

Education is a service provided by some people to other people. The providers could belong to a government or not. Given the entrenched system, getting there from here would be a very lengthy process (decades, at least) even if the will to do so was there which, as near as I can tell, it's not. So you work with what you have and support a plan or not depending on whether or not you think it leads closer to or farther from your goal, even though that itself if often not clear.

[patricia]

Originally Posted by steve(thelil)

Merely calling it a draft as the basis for your objection is not very persuasive. Are you against "drafting" kids into MANDATORY school attendance*?

Why shouldn't community service not be considered a required educational course? Wouldn't it contribute as much to our society as a learning tool (and hopefully through direct results of the service) as, say, math?

50 hours of community service a year works out to less than an hour a week.
Lots of kids already are involved in extra-curricular activities for more hours than that. I know I was, and my girls were as well and still are.
If kids are members of service clubs, girl-scouts, mentoring, reading to seniors etc. they already are familiar with community service. It's not like having hours and hours of blank spaces on their schedules is preferable.
The point is for kids, indeed everybody, look outside themselves and their familiar surroundings and to do something constructive that would help their communities, making them an active member.
Being self-centred and ignorant of the world around them can hardly be termed a virtue, it seems to me.

[Dr Dave]

Originally Posted by Brian Olewnick

Education is a service provided by some people to other people. The providers could belong to a government or not. Given the entrenched system, getting there from here would be a very lengthy process (decades, at least) even if the will to do so was there which, as near as I can tell, it's not. So you work with what you have and support a plan or not depending on whether or not you think it leads closer to or farther from your goal, even though that itself if often not clear.

Education is most assuredly not "a service provided by some people to other people." It is essential to anything as abstract as democracy. Learning to read, write, do arithmetic, and understand that there is such a thing as a common weal is essential to modern civilized life. To suggest otherwise is to plump for uncivilized life. And this is where the Libertarian argument falls apart, unless your ideal civilization is that of, say, the Democratic Republic of Congo. Really, you guys have not thought it through. You think sewer systems and traffic lights and the rule of law occur spontaneously?

You wanna hole up in your cave with your shotgun, be my guest. But not in this country. Go try out your theories on Laurent Kabila, and come back in a year and tell me how it went.

Idiots.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by patricia

50 hours of community service a year works out to less than an hour a month.

See, there's a perfect example of how math education is "dope" in North America.

[Uli]

Originally Posted by patricia

50 hours of community service a year works out to less than an hour a month.
.

inmy math it wouldwork out to be a bit more than 4 hours a month.