I jog around the lake frequently and often see kids with long nets removing trash from the water. I always thank them for helping to keep the lake clean.
The kids doing this certainly deserve our thanks.
However I question this push for “service learning”. My son has a “service learning requirement” (an oxymoron) at his school. It is said to be essential for college application.
Why are kids being conditioned to provide free labor for the state?
Why is the work almost always menial (garbage collection)?
Why does the work typically involve some eco-component?
Why at the same time is paid employment at useful work so regulated and discouraged, such that a small business man would never want to employ teen workers?
Or am I just being an old coot, and should get along with the program?
I jog around the lake frequently and often see kids with long nets removing trash from the water. I always thank them for helping to keep the lake clean.
^^^
It would be great if we could give them permission to hang out by the lake and bonk the litterers over the head with their nets.
I have been astounded my whole life by littering. I just cannot understand how a person can drop stuff on the ground and not care what it befouls or who his inconvenienced or what animals could be harmed by it.
I used to thinkg to myself, “One of these days, I am probably going to get socked” as I would put on my innocent face and say, “Excuse me. You dropped something.” I have not been in such a situation in a long time because I am now living the country.
Another gripe of mine is people who unload their groceries and then just leave the cart in a parking space, especially when 5 steps would take them to the cart corral. I mentally give them a pass when I see that it’s an old person, who may have walking problems. But I have just as frequently seen young people do the same.