Edgar Cruz

Period: 4
10/27/14

Junior Achievement Essay

The U.S government is making an intrusion in our youths lives when they state that we must
provide public service for one year.This intrusion goes against one of Americas constitutional values of
the freedom of choice. There is a difference from volunteering and being forced to work which is what the
government is technically telling us teens to do when we are told we must put aside a certain amount of
time in our stressful lives to help others. Although volunteering for your community is good, why should
we have to provide public service for 365 days of a year during a critical time in our lives when we are
busy with school work, college applications, SATs, extracurricular activities, and for some a job in which
they work in to support their family.What the government is not taking into account is that the amount of
time and physical energy needed to provide a public service for 365 days of the year during a critical time
in our lives with no pay is absurd due to how many of us young Americans are already tied down to other
responsibilities that we have to attend to first such as getting ready for college or working at a job.
According to Dictionary.com the definition of volunteering is stated as a person who voluntarily
offers himself or herself for a service or undertaking(Dictionary).Young Americans are not kindly
offering themselves to help their communities in fact most of the time they are being told by our
government that they must help their community or suffer the consequences. In Montgomery County it is
required for students to volunteer for 75 hours to graduate(MCPS) according to the MCPS website
overview on student service learning hours. The drive for most students in Montgomery County to do
their student service learning hours is not to help their community but ultimately to be able to graduate
from high school their senior year. Now if student service learning hours in Montgomery County were not
mandatory colleges would be able to see which students really volunteer out of their own will to be good
contributors to their community rather than a student who volunteers 75 hours so he or she can
graduate.In my opinion if a student were to volunteer he or she must not think about how his or her
volunteering will benefit him or her instead that student should think about how their kindness helps out
their community.

Edgar Cruz
Period: 4
10/27/14
Once one begins volunteering for a certain organization that person in this case a teenager
might be asked to commit more time towards that activity or organization(Roland)The U.S government
assigns us young americans one year of public service with out giving a single thought as to how studnets
will have to commit mor time to forceful volunteering wich in turn leads to less family time,studying/
schoolwork time and in general just basic scheduling problems that will only cause teens to stress out.
According to medical experts such as Dr. school day for a high school student in this country is between
6.5-7 hours per day(Canapari),yet that is not taking to account the many students that perform extra
curricular activities that arrive at home around 6:30PM dinner time(Canapari).Those students arriving
home at around 6:30 PM must now tack on another average of 3.5 hours of homework given by each
teacher each week for an average of 17.5 hours of homework a week(Bidwell).Now where on Earth is the
average high school teen going to find time to complete one year of public service one they are fully
committed to working endless hour in and out of school while at the same time for some manging a sport
or club with their academics.
With the economy not getting any better soon, many teens are forced to work part time jobs to
supports their families.10 percent of teens that work part time jobs use the money they earn to support
their family be it paying bills, buying groceries or paying rent(News.Com.Au).The government does not
understand that these teens who balance school work and their partime jobs dont have time to volunteer
let alone the enrgy.These teens become so physically overwhelemed with the stresses of their job and
school that some have resorted to drink enrgy drinks to help get through the day(News.Com.AU).Theese
partime working students are not only being physically affected by long hours of work but their grades
too are being negatively affected by the time they spend working to support their family. To add insult to
injury the government insists that those very same young men and women commit their little time,
physical energy and time from school work to provide in my opinion an unnecessary and absurd amount
of public service.What is worse is that in most cases if these young Americans dont comply with offering
a public service or 75 student service earning hours they could risk not graduating their senior year. My

Edgar Cruz
Period: 4
10/27/14
mother herself worked a part time job to support her siblings while also balancing school work to the
point that she only had time for her job and school work nothing else in a point in time in which
highschools did not require pubic service hours to graduate.
America and its founding fathers built this nation with the basis that its citizens including
young Amerians could choose to do what ever they want as long as what they do is llegal within state and
federal laws.Despite our rights and freedoms our government finds the need to almost forcefully make
our young americans provide a public service for one year.This goes against amendment ten in a certain
way as the bill of rights states The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor
prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people..Nowhere in our
constitution does it state that it is mandatory for U.S citizens to volunteer due to the fact that our national
government only has the power to declare war, to collect taxes, to regulate interstate business activities
and other powers that are listed in the articles(U.S Constitution, Bill of Rights etc.). The united States
federal government simply does not have the right to demand one year public service from young
americans yet U.S states such as Maryland do have the right to make this demand to a certain extent.Our
government has declared in the The Declaration of Independence that we as Americans have certain
unalienable rights including the right to pursue our happiness(Archives.com) .Therfore we as young
Americans should be able to pursue what makes us happy even if that means that we cant volunteer due to
the fact that we are busy with other more important matters such as school work,extracurricular
activities,work,etc. In other words these young americans either provide a public service to their
community or in most cases such as the case in the Montgomery County public school system not
graduate their senior year.Now many can argue that the choices are to either provide a public service for
one year or 75 hours or not graduate , yet to many students not graduating highschool is not an
option.The problem becomes apparent that their some students who simply cannot quit their jobs to find
time to volunteer or put aside their school work to volunteer for a ridiculous amount of time during a
period of time in which these young Americnas are preparing themselves to enter college.

Edgar Cruz
Period: 4
10/27/14
Volunteering in no way should be looked down upon yet when volunteering for an
organization, charity etc is based soley on the fact that the volunteers are not realy volunteering but
working without pay on the sole purpose that they were told that they had to work than it becomes a
problem due to the fact that their act of kindness isinflunced by a government that told them to work for
their community not themseleves summoning the will to help their community.The only problem that is
worse than this one itself is that the government some how believes that telling a young American to help
their community without pay is an act of kindness or volunteerism when in reality it is like a parent
demanding that their children do something that they were ordered to do that just so happens to be
helpful or suffer the consequences.