Should high schools require community service?

As the parent of a child with Aspberger's Syndrome. I can tell you public service is one way to make the child feel good about himself. Even if it is a small endeavor, the child who feels valued, despite limitations, can learn to be an overcomer, with the right situation and mentors.
My son works with children who suffers from other disabilities. It has allowed him to accept himself for who God made him to be.
I see no downside to the idea of community service. In fact, it may help those who struggle in an ordinary classroom. My son is so hands-on, and this is how he learns best. Who says there isn't a classroom that can exists outside the classroom?

One caution, probably best to let the student select what area of volunteerism they would like to participate in. My daughter has helped with our local Hbitat for Humanity.My son probably shouldn't be trusted with a powertool just yet.

I work in a district where the students have a mandatory component of community service in the curriculum. At the fifth and sixth grade level, students have the autonomy to choose where and how they want to volunteer. In the past the students were merely required to fulfill a certain amount of hours, and get a signature from someone at the organization. This didn't lead to a lot of accountability on the students, because teachers were often unsure how credible the students hourly logs were. This year we made changes to the program. Students at our school have teams of 2 or 3 teachers. Each team had to come up with their own community service plan. Teams have ranged from having bake sales and car washes to raise money for an organization, to collecting goods, and donating time at shelters and nursing homes. The students this year have had an overwhelmingly positive response to the changes in our community service requirements, and enjoy working as a team with their peers to have an active part in our community.

As teachers we give students a variety of learning experiences. Volunteerism is a learning experience. In a mandatory volunteer program students have to decide where and how they want to serve their communities. Students meet leaders in the community, learn communications skill, and meet other caring adults who contribute their time to the causes they believe in. I have experienced a student who struggled to get to school on time arriving at 5 a.m. to flip pancakes for the Kiwanis Club’s Pancake and Sausage Breakfast.

Why not mandatory volunteering? Schools already take on the extra tasks of teaching kids right from wrong, good study habits, responsibility, tolerance, etc., a lot of the things they should be learning at home, but don't. My own kids learn to help out not just in the home, but in the community as well. They may not like it at first or at all, but they have still learned a valuable lesson. In mahy ways schools are the home away from home, and mandatory volunteerism would be another avenue towards a well-rounded education. It also fits in nicely with the goals of our new president.

I have taught my son the blessings of community service in many areas since he was a small child. We're continually doing something to benefit others less fortunate or helping whereever needed in our community to make it a better place to live.
It would be a blessed world if everyone thought this way instead of always referring back to only themselves and their own. Thinking globally will help us make a better world overall which will include each of us.... think about it!

Two thoughts on this matter.

First, as a teacher in Maryland I was assaulted by a student. Maryland at the time had a community service requirement for students to graduate high school. What was the student's punishment? You guessed it. Community service!(which was able to be counted towards the student's graduation requirement)

What lesson are we trying to send by mandating students perform some act that is considered punishment by our legal system.

Secondly, it seems to me that the community service requirement is not too dissimilar to "involuntary servitude" - work to benefit someone else performed under duress or coercion (i.e. graduation requirement) Last I checked, this is illegal.

If you want volunteerism in the community. Do it yourself. Please don't require the students to do it. Teach them right and trust that they will figure this one out on their own.

The key to encouraging student's and parent's alike is tuning into their interests.
Making them feel needed in a field they know/or want to learn about is a simple starting point.

Language should never be an issue. Cooks can cook. Basket ball/soccer ball players know how take controll of the ball. Gardners can garden, embrace another's skill.

Individuals in general all have an aspect about them that makes them more unique. Community Partnerships & volunteerism enables a healthy neighborhood for all generations.

Encouraging our youth to volunteer is a good good!

When I was in high school (during the early 2000s) community service was a graduation requirement. And while I was a teen who like most teens knew everything, I took great qualms with mandatory volunteering.

I ended up traveling 40 miles away to San Francisco to live and work at a soup kitchen in San Francisco through one of the programs offered.

I begrudgingly went. It ended up changing my life path, I went to college in San Francisco and now, more than 7 years after my initial "forced" experience continue to volunteer there.

I think it is wonderful. For it is what you learn after you know everything that really counts.

Not only is public service valuable, it would be more important to require students to have work experience. Think what they could learn about the value of work if they had to spend a day or two in a people job, in an alone job, in an outside job, in an inside job, in a physical job, in a mental job, in a service job, in a sales job, etc.
They would learn to not only appreciate all work, they would treat other better because they could not only empathize with but would have experience what that person is dealing with that day. They would better understand working as a team, showing up on time, dressing appropriately, dealing with both bosses and peers, etc. As teachers we need to realize that much of what our students need to know cannot be learned in a classroom

I'm not buying the idea that this does can do more harm then good. Every ethical philosophy, whether based in religion or not, stresses stewardship of the earth or helping our fellow man.

I went to a Catholic grade school and a Jesuit university for undergrad. The service we did as a mandatory part of both of those institutions gave me incredibly valuable skills, opened my mind, taught me a lot about the "real world" before I entered it. On a purely pragmatic level, it gave me experiences that made me competitive when it was time to look for a job. There is NO downside to volunteering, especially when given even a small choice for how one volunteers.