Persuasive Essay: The Effect Of Community Service In High School

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No matter who you are, it is safe to assume that everyone would agree helping their community is an important thing. Society does not run without people who are willing to help one another and put other people before themselves. However, a big factor of volunteer work is that it should be, in fact, voluntary. The idea of this school adopting a policy that would require all students to complete 100 hours of community service before graduation sounds like a good idea at first glance, but careful thought reveals that this may not be the best way to get high school students involved in their community. Forcing students to complete community service hours is not a good idea because it can negatively impact their health, it creates a pattern of episodic …show more content…

Teenagers are faced with all kinds of stress, from losing sleep to enormous work loads. Studies have shown that "caregiving" that is required, not to be confused with volunteer work, could have a correlation with negative health effects. When students are forced to do community service, it can cause them stress because of the hectic schedules that many students are forced to keep. Some students may just have no desire to participate in the activities. Regardless of the reasoning, forcing teenager to complete service hours could cause them stress, and might have a negative impact on their health. While some students might have schedules that allot them the free time and energy to complete the service hours and maintain good health, it is likely that the vast majority of them do not. It is important for teenagers to stay healthy throughout their young adult years as they face many big changes and responsibilities, and it is possible that required community service could be detrimental to their …show more content…

In fact, it is very likely that students will resent the community service time that they are made to complete in order to graduate, and will not be as inclined to continue volunteering as they enter their college and adult years. While some students might see it as a great opportunity to help their community, the others who do not may have a real possibility of being ruined to the idea of serving the people around them. When talking about helping the community and the people around them, it is important that young adults see volunteer work not as just another homework assignment that they complete, but as a chance to make a difference in the world around them. Volunteer work is called volunteer work for a reason, and making students complete it as a graduation requirement might cause them to miss the whole point of community

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