Tired from a long day at school and exhausted from a strenuous sports practice, you collapse on your bed in hopes that you get some semblance of your homework done. After 3 hours, your numb, cramping hand finally etches the final word of that english essay. Your eyes flutter and your mind goes blank as you long for the warm embrace of sleep, when suddenly, a disturbing thought crosses your mind. “…I forgot to record my CAS hours.”

The mark of a good citizen and member of society is giving back to the community. One of the most stressed and popular ways that people do this is by community service. Countless non profit organizations, school programs and clubs, and nationwide movements have called people of all ages and nationalities to do more community service. Many school programs and counties around the nation also have mandatory community service programs in order for their students to graduate or pass a certain class.

The IB Diploma program is no exception to this. CAS (Community, Action, Service) is a component of the IB diploma that requires IB candidates to record and reflect upon their community service hours. Students manage their own profile where they upload how many hours of service they have completed, along with evidence proving that they did the various activities.

Candidates also have to upload a short reflection for each activity they did, making sure that each activity reflects upon one of the core three components of CAS; Community, Action, or Service.

Volunteering at a senior center, playing a sport, tutoring kids after-school, and volunteering at a community event are all popular and legitimate ways to get community service hours.

The general consensus is that community service is good and should be done whenever given the chance, but is it right to force students to do community service in order to get their high school diploma or to pass certain classes that list a certain number of community service hours as a requirement for the class?

The motivation for making community service mandatory is pretty obvious. Community service benefits the community, builds character, and gives a overall positive effect. Community service also offers a lot of personal reflection opportunities. The main goal is to have students do community service because they want to, and that while doing community service students learn essential skills and learn a little bit more about themselves in terms of what they can do and what they like doing. This will come in handy when students go to college or seek a job, as they wil have a broad range of expieriences to help them decide.

However, certain classes in Annandale such as pre-IB government require students to do mandatory community service. This is a problem. Students are no longer volunteering and being good citizens, they are performing duties out of self interest. They are doing community service for a grade.

Even some extra-curricular organizations in Annnandale high school require community service in a specific area. It is no problem that extracurricular clubs and organizations require their members to do community service because it is completely voluntary to join them, but some of these organizations do not accept all types of community service. Some clubs like Key Club are reluctant to accept community service activities that are not approved by them, and thus limiting the student’s choice of what she or he can do for community service.

Since community service should be done about something that the student really cares about, it makes logical sense not to constrain the variety of topics that the student can choose, and that the student should engage in multiple kinds of service to see what he or she likes best. Community service can be more than just giving back to the community, it can be a chance to hone, learn, and practice life skills, and gain essential experience needed to succeed in life. It is not uncommon for a student to find what he or she wants to do in life simply by experiencing it though a community service activity,

The term mandatory community service is nothing short of an oxymoron. Forcing students to become service oriented is risky, because then community service becomes labeled as an assignment. Only voluntary service can let students see the true value of community service, and why it is so emphasized in high school.