Prompt 9: Many junior high and senior high schools around the country now require students to spend a certain number of hours doing volunteer work or community service. Some people believe that this is an excellent idea that promotes good citizenship and cultivates compassion. Others feel that forced volunteerism is not volunteerism at all. How do you feel about this issue? Use specific reasons and examples to support your position.
“How many volunteer hours does your school require you to have before you can graduate from high school?” my friend asks me. “Well you see I need 300 volunteer hours.” I reply. This is one question that I get a lot from my friends from other schools. When they ask this question, it usually gets me thinking about how it is mandatory that we get volunteer hours in order to graduate. I also start to think about how we are basically forced to volunteer our time in order for us to complete our education. I think that is plain wrong since you are not volunteering from the bottom of your heart instead you are volunteering to allow yourself to graduate. Although volunteering is a nice thing to do, I believe that we should not be forced to volunteer for our schools because it is not sincere, it makes it a duty rather than something you would want to do, and it makes you not want to volunteer in the future.
I believe that when you are volunteering for your school you are not being sincere about it. Even though there are some people who are sincere with their volunteering, most of us are not. For example, I know for sure my volunteering was not very sincere. I had volunteered at a local park, but the only reason was because my mother forced me to go and I needed the hours for my future high school. I did not even want to do the volunteering, but in the end I still had fun. But, I still was not sincere with the volunteering because I avoided some of the things I was supposed to do and dreaded having to do something with the children alone.
Being forced to volunteer at our schools makes the act of volunteering a duty rather than something that you would want to do. I simply say this because it is simply true in all of my experiences. In my experiences, every time I think about volunteering, I think about how necessary it is in my life and how it needs to be done. The point of volunteering is for you to take out time from your life and dedicate it to something that you would want to help without getting something in return. This is not what comes to my mind. Instead, I always expect a paper stating I did so many hours on this day when it comes to volunteering and that is not the way volunteering should go.
I also believe that being forced to volunteer would make you not want to volunteer in the future. I believe this because this is how I feel at the moment. Ever since my mother forced me to volunteer and the school has required for us to have a certain number of volunteer hours, I have not wanted to volunteer for anything. I did not want to feel this way, but if you were forced to do something for a certain length of time, one day you are going to realize that you do not want to continue whatever you were doing. This is exactly how I felt about the volunteering thing and I regret having mandatory volunteer hours needed because I cannot enjoy going out to volunteer on my free will.
In conclusion, I believe that the schools should not require volunteer hours. It is being forced to volunteer which makes it not volunteering at all because you are not sincere and you would see it as a duty rather than something fun. It also lowers your chances of wanting to volunteer in the future because you would always remember that you were forced to volunteer just to graduate from high school. Now this is what I think about required volunteer hours. What are your thoughts about this? Am I right or am I wrong?
Good work. ^.^
ReplyDelete