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Quan Tieu
Mrs. Morris
English IV
April 13, 2016
Community Service: A Debate of Need or Not
Million of high school students are performing some kind of community service for
the society everyday. They help the elderly, others tutor kids by simply telling stories or
playing games with them in the library. These students, making their time available to serve
the community, are also getting something back as well. Service learning helps them to have
a strong connection between school and community, while transforming them into a different
person since they have learnt to connect the knowledge in classes with the real situations in
the community they serve. However, there are students who did not get any benefit from this
program. Therefore, people started to deliberate between the need of community service.
However, I think that community service is necessary in any circumstance.
Volunteer is a person who voluntarily offers himself or herself for a service or
undertaking (Volunteer). Community service is a voluntary work, intended to be for the
common good, usually done apart of an organize scheme (Community service). Although
service learning works under a volunteer-based system, it is slightly dissimilar since it
incorporates both community service and education system. It is also called a strong schoolbased community service (Skelton). Service learning was designed to help students to involve
in authentic and meaningful services in their community.
Service learning has a long historical development. From the 1800s, volunteerism has
characterized the works of organization such as religion-based the Salvation Army, the
American Red Cross and the Community Chest. In the early 1920s, William Kilpatrick
supported educators to bring education out of schools into community. At the beginning of a

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new decade, President Bush signed the National and Community Act of 1990. An act that
encourages citizens, in any age, participant in community service. It also enhances to develop
community service program. Volunteerism not only has a strong development in United
States but also throughout the world such as the settlements houses started in mid-19 century
in England or the Global Volunteers that gives people opportunity to serve in other countries.
Martin Luther King also speak to support volunteerism: Everyone can be great because
everyone can serve.
First, service learning has a great effect on our spiritual health. It is well evidenced
through many researches from 1980s. "Researchers in the 1980s found that students in
service programs developed more favorable attitudes toward adults, had fewer discipline
problems and felt more valuable to the community" (Skelton). By doing this, community
service has helped students to bring out their confidence and has a greater sense of self.
Community service also benefits in academic achievement. Students will be able to link the
knowledge in classroom with real world and vice versa. Research proved that students would
be motivated in their study and unlikely to drop out of school. Because they tend to improved
writing skill or math capability. Especially when these students volunteer in tutoring kid.
Service learning hour is a requirement for graduation of high school students. By
having more and more hours done, students would get higher chance to get into colleges.
Involving in a volunteer job can also help us to discover our hidden talent that we may not
know before (Quinn). Students have the right to choose their favorite service program, so as
they work for it, they may discover whether they are good at it. Students with service learning
experience will also be valued as having better problems solving abilities and social skills.
Second, service learning also helps students to develop their physical health.
Researchers have proved that people that less active will eventually become more interesting
in working after joining volunteer work. "Performing volunteer work could increase physical

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activity among people who arent otherwise very active, says lead study author Rodlescia
Sneed, a doctoral candidate in social and health psychology at Carnegie Mellon University. It
may also reduce stress" (Watson). It did not just help young people but also the elderly.
According to the Psychology and Aging, adults over 50 years of age who volunteered on a
regular basis would suffer less from high blood pressure than other non-volunteered. It is
important because high blood pressure causes strokes, heart diseases and early death. The
significant of daily basis volunteer is that it helps to reduce the amount of depression among
elderly. "Studies have shown that volunteering helps people who donate their time feel more
socially connected, thus warding off loneliness and depression" (Watson).
Today, there are a lot of well-known nonprofit organization such as Corporation for
National and Community Service was established in 1993, which has several programs such
as Senior Corps, AmeriCorps and the Social Innovation Fund. Their goals were to build a
stronger community network with their program and help volunteers to serve for local needs
easily. Estifina Chavez was one of the most persuasive examples. Growing up as the oldest
child in her family, she has never been able to have someone that could help her with her
homework or play with her. Later, she has an opportunity to do so with community service at
the YMCA Child Care. She wanted to help kid who has the same situation like her.
Surprisingly she did very well on her job, she learnt a lot of thing after this project and it
made a large impact in her life. Chaves says that: Community service became not only
something I had to do but something I enjoyed doing. It helped me understand that I dont
have to do things just to get something back like in my case was money for college but
because I enjoy helping others any way possible (Chaves). Community service also spread
in colleges, mostly through service projects that were held by students. For them, a
meaningful school life is not just about classes, exams and projects. It is also about helping
others.

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Despite the abundant benefits of community service, it still has its harmful side. First,
there are a lot of other challenges that community service has to face. In order to organize
high quality organization of community service, it would take a lot of effort of educators,
schools or government to do it. And if they do not take this seriously, the projects will results
badly, which easily lead to the failure of several projects. The necessary type of community
cooperation may take years to develop, but if schools do not make the effort, service learning
projects are certainly doomed (Skelton). Beside that, many students use this kind of service
to cheat. According to Eby, they may use service learning to avoid writing requirements or
other course requirements. Students sometimes use service-learning to make themselves feel
good or to strengthen their resumes" (Eby). The bad thing is they did not enjoy what they do,
so they will not be able to have new experience, which is the most important goal of this
project.
Second, there is an existence of relationship issues in service learning projects. As student
come and go, the relationships that were built in service places are mostly short term. It could
do harm to individuals, particularly child and young adults. Because what may be a casual
relationship for a student may be very significant relationship for a child or young adult in the
program (Eby). And breaking the relationship at the end of the service-learning assignment
can be traumatic and can add to the fragmentation already typical of poor communities.
Finally, it is really easy to have the misunderstanding of required and voluntary. As
Eby states that although service learning has great potential to help people to work in order to
transform the community, it could do harm if it was done poorly. However, if done poorly
service-learning can teach inadequate conceptions of need and service, it can divert resources
of service agencies and can do real harm in communities" (Eby). According to Skelton, many
students agree that they would not want to do service learning if it was not a requirement for
graduation. Many students feel like they were being forced to do service learning, which will

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affect their attitude toward service learning. Some even claimed that involuntary service
learning violent the 13th amendment. This has caused many school districts to rethink the
requirement.
In conclusion, service learning is important for students, especially for students in
high school. It helps people that do volunteer as daily basis to develop in their spiritual and
physical health. It also helps old people to reduce the chances of having strokes and heart
attack. Although it may force students to do service learning and some students may use it to
cheat in their resume. It is still consider as necessary under any circumstances.

Work Cited
Chavez, Estefina. "Community Service Essay." Midland. N.p., 2011. Web. 18 Jan.
2016.

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Community Service." Dictionary. 10th ed. N.p.: HarperCollins, n.d. Collins
English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged. Dictionary. Web. 11 Jan. 2016.
Eby, John. "Why Service Learning Is Bad." Villanova. N.p., n.d. Web. 13 Jan.
2016.
Quinn, Kate. "Volunteer Is an Education." Sunday News [Lancaster, Pa.] 21 Mar.
2004: 8. Elibrary. Web. 11 Jan. 2016.
"Service Learning." Dictionary. N.p.: n.p., n.d. Dictionary. Web. 11 Jan. 2016.
Skelton, Elizabeth. Service Learning Requirements in the High School. N.p.:
School K-12, n.d. Digital Commons. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.
Watson, Stephanie, ed. "Volunteer May Be Good for Body and Mind." health
Harvard. Harvard University, n.d. Web. 13 Jan. 2016.