When service becomes a statistic

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Photo: SSL hours have transformed from meaningful service into superficial statistics, according to a recent Instagram survey.

SSL hours have transformed from meaningful service into superficial statistics, according to a recent Instagram survey. Photo courtesy of Madeline Elazar.

When I watched the video about service learning during our innovation period, it was hard not to laugh in disbelief: how could someone get more than 1000 SSL hours? 

Seriously, though, in a climate where studying, sports, and honors societies are taking up more and more of students’ free time, how does one manage to hit that many hours? There is only one answer: these reports cannot be absolutely accurate. And even if they are, it leaves me wondering how someone has time to do anything else.  

Don’t get me wrong. I am a big believer in the benefits of volunteering. (And before you ask, I have 250+ SSL hours myself.) In moderation and in collaboration with other parts of a student’s life, volunteering provides powerful social and personal lessons. In excess, however, too many hours can lead to a resurging social and academic phenomenon: “stat-padding.” In essence, “stat-padding” is adding accomplishments to one’s resume that have required little to no effort. Everyone does some kind of “stat-padding” in their academic careers – I’ve been known to do it myself, such as when I translate my SCO stories into Spanish for a higher story count. The problem is when it gets excessive. 

I’m not the only one who thinks this phenomenon is everywhere at Blair. After conducting an informal Instagram survey that elicited almost 400 responses, I have some non-padded statistics: 81% of students say that “stat-padding” is prevalent at Blair. If someone “stat-pads” so much as to say they have 1000+ SSL hours, they have essentially reduced their public service to a number. No matter how many impressive entries a person might have on their resume, a true job or college evaluator will want to know about the person, not the numbers. 

I have noticed that this is not just an issue at Blair, but also across the county. Walt Whitman High School’s student newspaper has discussed the hypocrisy of SSL hours in a separate article headlined “Involuntary volunteering: SSL shouldn’t be required.” The opinion column details how the 75-hour SSL requirement and the constant urging of administrators lead to more dysfunction. The Sentinel, a local newspaper, has also published a news article about the monotony of the system, quoting several students. And of course, on the DC Urban Moms Public Forum, parents have expressed their distress and dismay with the current system, though to be fair, they are distressed and dismayed about a lot of things.

Clearly, this issue is prevalent across the county, and it’s reducing students to numbers rather than faces or dreams. Too many students and parents are worried about how many SSL hours they need to get into college, instead of thinking about the purpose of their volunteering. As a school and as a county, we must work to combat this issue and re-humanize our students. In the end, the purpose of SSL hours should never be to highlight only the “high-flying” students with impressive numbers and scores – it should be to uplift the entire student body behind a goal of equality and recognition of every unique student.