The athletes have their sports teams. The drama kids have theatre. There’s a club for for each field of scientific study. Keeping with the trend, those with an affinity toward community service and academics have a club all their own: National Honor Society.
What is National Honor Society?
The name itself conjures flashbacks to primary and middle school education, where the “honor roll” was often used to recognize students with exceptional academic performance. National Honor Society, however, carries much more baggage. The admission is tougher, the expectations are higher, and the club itself is more exclusive—one could even use the term “elitist”. There is even a formal list of by-laws that governs the processes for the admission and banishment of members, as well as proposals to amend the club charter. Although the charter may initially seem hard to digest, it is primarily a summary of the larger universal charter set forth by the National Association of Secondary School Principals, which all local chapters must follow.
Requirements for admission include a 3.65 unweighted grade-point average, past community leadership or service, and good character. All those requirements might turn away the masses—or even render them ineligible for admission—but a surprisingly high amount of students express interest in NHS each year. It would seem that something beyond the club itself lures students to join the ranks.
Why do they join?
The part of me that believes that people are essentially good will speak first, lest the dear reader accuse me of an unbalanced viewpoint. Assuming the club’s members to be truly honorable, they would join first-and-foremost out of a desire to serve their school and community. Tutoring classmates, helping local organizations, and coordinating school functions all sound like activities worthy of recognition to me. The skeptic in me, however, asserts that this desire is certainly not the sole reason for joining NHS, and quite often it is not even the primary objective. Anyone can volunteer, but there are special perks for joining a society dedicated to that end.
Everyone likes to receive praise. National Honor Society is a great place for the academically elite, because it inexplicitly labels them as such. Let us not forget, “honor” is in its name. Among IB and accelerated-class students, membership of NHS is commonplace. Although most students in those classes are eligible, those that pursue membership can wear the title proudly. This reason is entirely speculative, but I do believe that pride is a motivating factor for many students to join.
Climbing further up the ladder, parental pressure is surely a reason to join. For some, it may be the deciding factor. I am deeply sorry for those unfortunate people who joined NHS because their parents forced them to. My best guess is that the parents attribute their membership in similar organizations to their own success—or a lack of membership to their own shortcomings—and want to set their child on the right track. I think the cause is noble, but goes against my personal belief that people should forge their own path. It’s not fair to make a natural musician practice politics, and I think the same applies here.
But the granddaddy of all reasons is for college applications. For whatever reason, many high schoolers have their hearts set on specific upper-tier colleges that demand something unique. Ironically enough, many students try to set themselves apart by going to the exact same place: National Honor Society. I have asked several people why they are in NHS, and college is consistently cited as their reason. As much as I try, I can’t see anything honorable about that.
What’s wrong with that?
Simply put, volunteering for recognition perverts the spirit of community service. By presuming these voluntary tasks to be mandatory in order to enter college, the acts of altruism become deeds of selfishness. We already have enough openly-selfish people in the world, but at least we can avoid them. Hiding under the veil of the good samaritan only muddies the waters and gives a bad name to those people—both in and out of NHS—who volunteer for the right reasons.
As a result of the service requirements imposed by the NHS charter, the official currencies of meritocratic society have been developed: hours and points. All achievement is earned in hours, which can then be cashed in for points. Points are used to guarantee continued membership to the club. Should a member fall short of point requirements, suspension will surely follow. Once suspended from NHS, one can not be allowed re-entry in accordance with the national charter. Quite obviously, those looking to keep their seat have a lot banking on the acquisition of points.
These requirements are counter-productive toward the goals of NHS (as a society, not necessarily as individuals). Instead of fostering an environment where students are encouraged to serve in areas for which they are passionate, and for an amount of time with which they feel comfortable, the constant need to earn service points causes students to volunteer wherever they can because they need to, not because they want to.
We already have a system for getting people to do things that they don’t want to. It’s called capitalism. Although all altruistic behaviors may be rooted in some self-serving premise, National Honor Society lies somewhere between the purity of old-fashioned community service and the current competitive spirit of self-serving volunteering present among many teenages. It’s not something that is entirely good, nor is it something that’s entirely bad. If NHS was presented in that light, I would have little to complain about, but in reality honor society is unfairly viewed by many as the pinnacle of teenage achievement.
And yet despite questionable motives, those who volunteer to please Mom or Dad or the Dean of Admissions still get to take home the glory. National Honor Society is another notch on the belt—one more entry on the college application. If I were a college representative looking at a prospective student, I wouldn’t be sure what to think of the NHS member. I can’t say with certainty what percentage of members attend for selfish reasons, but I fear that they are in the majority. With all the bad apples, does NHS membership communicate with certainty anything except for a high GPA? In addition, how does an NHS member stand out of the crowd when there are dozens of students from his own school with the same credentials?
What’s the point?
I said it before: anyone can volunteer. Volunteering doesn’t require a high GPA, nor does it require you to be a leader in your community. It doesn’t require you to help for so-many hours or at any specific place. Best of all, your volunteering can have meaning beyond a college application. You can volunteer where you want to, when you want to, because you want to. In the end, wouldn’t you feel better about yourself after helping out on behalf of somebody other than yourself?
What’s more, self-enrichment doesn’t have to be in the form of volunteering. I see no shame in having a part-time job instead of—or in addition to—unpaid volunteer work. I consider participation in a garage band, or working on a website, or petitioning for a cause in which you believe to be just as rewarding in the long-run. Teenage years should be a time of self-discovery. Who needs a club to tell them how their time should be spent?
National Honor Society may be all about serving the community, but it seems to me that many of its constituents are in it to serve themselves. The club is not in a state of disrepair, but is held together by unraveling threads. Only time will tell if the virtues of its charter are strong enough to withstand continued exploitation, or if the principle of honor will succumb to a growing culture of selfishness.
A Personal Note
In the interest of full disclosure, I do not consider myself to be an active volunteer in my community. I have turned down all invitations to NJHS and NHS, although I did attend one informational NHS meeting but ultimately decided not to apply, since I felt my credentials were inadequate. My goal is not to belittle the community service which fellow Skyline students have completed, which is admirable in principle, but instead to question the motives for joining the group. It is my belief that a good deed performed for bad reason only promotes a false sense of piety.
Comments
Excellent. The truth is out. I finally have someone else’s opinion to forward to my parents.
Very well stated, Alex. You basically outlined most of my reasons for declining the NHS and NJHS invitations over the past few years.
However, I would also argue that the basic premise of NHS is still a good one. While a good many of my classmates were NHS members (and probably included it on their college apps), I can’t claim to know whether their motives were selfish or not. Depending on the nature of their work in NHS, though, what matters most is that that work gets done. And who knows, a lot NHS members might learn a little something along the way that they might not have elsewhere - lessons they could carry with them for life.
I agree that people should volunteer for the right reasons, but at some point in time, there’s a job that’s got to get done no matter the reasons for doing it.
My kid brother brings up a good point: ‘It makes sense, but most teenagers wouldn’t volunteer anyway without something in it for them. They might not be doing it for the college apps, but their friends might be in it… Without the incentive that NHS provides, a lot of them might not volunteer at all.’
Also, couldn’t the same arguments be applied against IB CAS hours?
And on a final note - you may want to know that the share menu is broken. It just links back to the PT front page.
Try thinking of NJHS in this light: I play the cello as a hobby, but also participate in a youth symphony. An hour of practice is part my daily routine. Oftentimes, I practice consistently to improve my skills so as to advance in the hierarchy of chairs in my symphony. Someday, I believe that I will be able to play the cello for the love of the music itself. The primary reason I would drop cello is out of boredom, due to a lack of that competitive orchestral experience. And if I cut my musical growth from the start, however selfish it may seem, I would never learn to love the music.
Vu: I’ll totally acknowledge that it’s good to have people volunteer even if for less-than-ideal reasons. It benefits the community, and it might benefit the student. My complaints about that are touched upon in the paragraph about capitalism. In essence, volunteering for reason of college applications (or similar) is more akin to making a transaction than a sacrifice. Again, it might seem nitpicky on my part, but I think the reason people do things is an important factor in judging the value of an action.
I feel the exact same way about CAS hours. (I’m not an IB Diploma candidate, by the way.) But if the IBO feels its students will universally benefit from their 150 hour adventures, that’s their standard to set. I’ve always felt IB is a little too holistic in comparison with the looser requirements of AP.
The Share button is something I didn’t make myself. That means it should work well (teehee). Which browser are you using?
Anonymous: I guess I think a bit differently than you. Hobbies, to me, shouldn’t be an acquired taste. If I found the cello boring (I probably would) then I would personally stop playing. You have your sight set a bit further than that, I guess. I do understand the point you are making, though. For that reason, I’m not calling for an out-right abolishment of NHS. I just want to bring about some self-reflection.
I agree with Alex for the most part; the mandatory CAS hours are somewhat hollow. Although I would still be completing well over 50 hours in both creative and active due to sports and the plateau times, I would probably not have ventured into any sort of service hours, had they not been mandatory. The argument to that, as Tiffany brought up, is that the volunteering still gets done- the community still benefits. However, what if a student decides not to volunteer in the future, on a basis that they were comfortable with and enjoyed, because the experience was ruined for them in high school due to deadlines and demands? In the end, it goes back to whether or not you believe that the ends justify the means. If Obama went on to be the greatest president ever, even so far as to accomplish world peace, but we later found out that he had actually lost the vote by a considerable margin, and his team had hacked into the system, what would people believe?
Everybody knew it, but finally somebody has put it into a well-formulated writing.
This aught to be sent directly to NHS offices.
Alex I see where you’re coming from and I agree. It’s disappointing that a lot of high school students only do certain activities because they want to be a more competitive college applicant, but you also have to consider how busy the lives of those students are. When considering what activities to do in such limited free time, high school students will choose the things that bring the most benefits because it just makes logical sense to do so. Unfortunately this means that a lot of high school students end up doing certain activities for the wrong reasons. But I ask you this: does true altruism exist? Does anyone ever do anything out of pure generousity and concern? Or is their ALWAYS an ulterior motive?
My first thoughts about CAS hours, were similar to yours. I didn’t want to be forced to participate in an activity just because it was a CAS requirement. But once I started doing my community service and art hours, I found that I really loved it! Perhaps what CAS, NHS, etc. are trying to do is to open students’ eyes to the great opportunities to get involved in their community. Now, even if I wasn’t doing IB D and NHS, I would still be involved in some of the same activities because I found that I loved the feeling that community service gives me.
In response to your first paragraph, I would say do what you want to. If you like biology, join Bio Club. If you like football, try out for the team. Do community service if you feel like giving back. Why does anybody need NHS telling them to do more, when—as you said—everyone is so busy with other things?
I briefly mentioned my thoughts on the motivation behind altruistic behaviors, but I’ll elaborate here. Pretty much, I think all behavior has some seed of selfishness at its core. It’s insurmountable. Nonetheless, there are degrees of selfishness and less is better.
In regard to the second paragraph, I think forcing students to step out of their box is the intent, but I’m not a big fan of the method. I just think it is too cut and dry. It would be more interesting to have looser requirements and ask the students to “try something new” and write something about their experience. The idea would have to be refined a bit, but the point should be to emphasize the experience over the hours. Fulfilling hours is a chore.
This was published awhile ago, but I feel like commenting in any case. Lately I do feel these activities are somewhat hollow. After feeling under pressure junior year, returning to NHS, Key Club and SYB senior year seem like a chore at times. I’d look around the room and start wondering which people really care about these activities and which don’t.
There are some who are very genuine about community service and enjoy it. But I guess it’s up to the leadership/advisors to decide who is worth admitting and who isn’t, for the right or wrong reasons. At least I think NHS and Key Club can be useful in the sense that: if you want to try community service, there are different kinds of things to try - environmental, working with kids, etc.
On behalf of the CAS hours, I think they are one of the better parts of the IB D requirements. As fearsome as 150 hours sounds, over the span of 2 years, it is not as much as it seems. And instead of the crazy amount of academics we focus on - it’s different. I really did enjoy some (admittedly not all) of my CAS hours.
Noone said a job, garage band, petitioning or working on websites is unequal to NHS or any other club/society. Maybe you’re just convinced of that mentality. Maybe you should simply readjust your mindset and think of it as a club for a load of students who think NHS will lead them to what they want & is part of the road to success, but are rather misled. Students who misuse their time on half-hearted enrichment, smart enough to get in but not smart enough to stay out. Then you can’t call it elitist, just a GPA-selective group with questionable motivation.
Well I think some people diminish the value of other activities, seeing them as less noble than community service. Perhaps that mentality is, at some level of consciousness, my own—I don’t know. Self-introspection doesn’t always yield perfect answers.
I tried to be careful in the article not to condemn the masses or the club as a concept. Like you, I have attended or witnessed meetings of these groups and questioned who is genuine. That’s the basis for this article. I think it’s a thought that a lot of people have had.
But don’t let that deter you from using every available resource to find something that captivates you—NHS and Key Club included.