When we talk about what children are taught in school, the focus is usually on the three Rs, or in New Jersey Department of Education terms, the core curriculum content standards - math, language arts, science, social studies, etc.

But school also is about teaching children to be good citizens. That does not mean just learning about how government operates. It also means participating as a member of a community.

Community service has had a somewhat ambivalent role in public education. Efforts to re-
quire it as a high school graduation requirement in New Jersey were abandoned amid legal concerns about liability and practical concerns about how it would be implemented.

But there also was a sort of moral queasiness about the whole idea of making students do good deeds. Shouldn't community service should be an activity students want to do, rather than a chore they are forced to do? More