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At international schools, every IB student—and many underclassmen as well—is familiar with community service, and the expectation that everyone should contribute to CS groups for the general betterment of the world. Community service is one component of three components of the IB terms “CAS,” meaning creativity, activity and service. In the course of two years (Grade 11/12), students are often able to work with individuals outside of the immediate AISG community, learning leadership skills and better comprehending the daily realities faced by those less privileged. When many students are introduced to community service, they start complaining, thinking immediately about the amount of work they need to put in to fulfill the requirements. With that being said, is community service necessary after all?
I spoke to a variety of students at AISG, and interestingly enough, not a single one denied that community service was a good idea and necessary for a well-rounded high school experience. Although they expressed the pros and cons of community service, the AISG community doesn’t seem to dread attending meetings or contributing to events and activities. Speaking to coordinators and members of Roots and Shoots Environment and The English Connection, I was able to get some opinions about this topic. Among those, I also spoke to Sophomore Apolline Mac Nab, Senior Belle Feldmayer, and the CAS coordinator Ruth Volz about their opinions related to CS.
Santiago Villar, a senior and one of the coordinators of Roots and Shoots Environment, shared more negatives than positives. The group he’s involved in focuses on promoting a healthy environment through fundraising and activities that involve the AISG community. He mentioned that he feels CS is very forced, and went on to say, “I feel like CS is very limited to a certain extent.” Along with this, he mentioned that his R&S activities are very time consuming. This matches the opinion of other students at the school, as a lot of planning and organization goes into these groups, and the leaders tend to spend a large amount of time preparing for each of these meetings.
Although some students highlight the bad side of community service, there are many advantages that make it a beneficial program as well. From personal experience, being part of the Connect4Cancer group, which promotes cancer awareness, I have found out that you are truly helping out by making a small differences, even though you are working with a fairly large group. Junior Meenu Senthil, who is part of The English Connection, shared the positives of the group. She mentioned that she feels her group is organized and that they learn to interact with the university students. Meenu mentioned that The English Connection, which is based around students at AISG teaching English to local Chinese students, truly benefits the people they are teaching English to. Most of the CS projects at the school directly influence individuals within the AISG community and outside the Guangzhou community.
Some further opinions were also presented about the importance of CS. Senior Belle Feldymayer said “it opens your eyes to what the world needs.” For a while now, Belle has been the leader of the Pep Squad. This action-oriented group not only raises school spirit by supporting athletes of the school teams, but by also performing at events and the quarterly Pep Rally. I also noticed some individuals participate in CS more for the educational purposes. When stating her opinion, Sophomore Apolline Mac Nab said how “CS is good for collage applications.” This may as well be part of the reason she started participating in CS groups earlier than required.
Although community service can at times be a hassle, it is definitely needed. It gives you skills to be a productive member of society, while also giving you the chance to do things that you normally wouldn’t even think of doing. At AISG there is a wide variety of opportunities to not only fulfill your community service requirements, but to also have fun at the same time. Ms. Volz, the CAS coordinator and a French teacher at AISG, did truly highlight the importance of CS by saying, “I think the main reason of CS is to raise awareness about the importance of helping others in our community. Another reason is to give our students the opportunity to manage their own club.” With this being said, if you are interested in participating in CS and you are willing to engage yourself in new experiences, join one of the CS groups offered at AISG shown below:
- Crossroads
- Global Issues Network (GIN)
- Habitat for Humanity
- Hoops for Hope
- Liphy
- Media Crew
- Migrant Link
- Peer Tutoring
- PULSE: Associated Student Body
- Roots & Shoots Environment
- Roots and Shoots Animals
- Roots and Shoots People
- The English Connection (TEC)
- Connect4Cancer
- High School Union
- GSA (Gay Straight Alliance)
- National Honor Society
- National Chinese Honor Society
- StuCo
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