Having worked with high school students across the nation for almost ten years, the Harry Singer Foundation expected five percent of the responses to our Washington survey to be top notch, five percent to be carelessly handled and five percent to resemble graffiti on the bathroom walls at truck stops. We are happy to report that we got only two percent in the last category. Naturally we discounted those responses. We count among the top notch responses the effort made by a few students to comment on the survey itself on the back of their papers. We were grateful for their generosity. It takes time and effort to come up with intelligent evaluations and resoned criticism is especially welcome. We will use this page to report some student recommendations and to explain the revisions we made to produce the survey that is currently being conducted in classrooms across the country.
The answers to the first three questions were not tabulated. We considered them personal and were only interested in getting students to think seriously. This self-examination was to benefit the student only. Names were not requested. We eliminated these first three questions from the current survey.
(1) List five things you value.
(2) List five things that adults you know personally, value.
We are sharing the response from one student because we found it humorous:
"Controlling me!"
(3) List five things you wished adults valued.
"Youth's ideas - originality -what goes on in their kids' lives - schools -
leisure"
"Teens' opinions - why kids act like they do - teens -environment - friends."
"Maturity - that teenagers understand things better than they think - respect for younger generation - listening to their children - teens."
"religion - fair judgment - family - friends - your inside."
"your school - what you do good, not bad -your things - you -your friends."
(4) What would motivate you (besides money) to do something to help your community?
We made the fourth question more specific and expanded it in the revised survey. View responses to question 4.
(5) What, in your judgment would motivate most people your age (besides money) to do something to help their community?
We eliminated the fifth question because we got the information we suspected i.e. that people generally think more highly of their own motives than they do of their fellows. We do not see that we would get additional insight from keeping this question in the survey. We did, however, consider the information valuable. View responses to question 5.
(6) What, in your opinion, is preventing greater improvement in your community?
We changed the wording but used the information garnered in Spokane to ask the question more specifically in the new survey.
(7) My time is currently filled with: (Please rank the following #1 = the most #7 = the least)
____ school
____ family
____ sleep
____ TV/movies/computer
____ friends
____ sports
____ work
We eliminated the seventh question. The answers were predictable and repetitive.
(8) The following would most likely prevent me from volunteering: (Please rank the following #1 = the most #4 = the least)
___ not feel qualified
___ too little free time
___ believe others better able ___ think tasks insignificant
We incorporated this question in the new survey. Not surprisingly, "too little time" was the number one answer. [Example; "Everyone is working towards a goal. Most who work or are in school do not have enough free time as it is. People do not spend enough time relaxing or being with their families and they will not give up the little time they do have. Last year I was a volunteer basketball coach for the YMCA. I never got to go skiing. I was going to bed at 12:00 and waking up at 6:30. I liked it, there just wasn't enough time for me."]
However the number one answer for 29 students was "tasks insignificant", 24 assigned the #1 spot to "not feel qualified" and the first choice of 15 students was "believe others better able."
(9) What, stops you from volunteering more in you community besides the reasons in #8 above?
We incorporated this question as III B in the new survey. View responses to question 9.
(10) What, in your opinion, might prevent members of the following groups from volunteering in greater numbers: (please do not include "not enough time" in any answers.)
Question 10 was the most maligned question in the pilot survey. One student told us: "What I really disapproved of was asking why people CAN"T do volunteer work. Don't ask 'why would 13-21 age group not be able to?' - ask how and what they could do!" Although we eliminated this particular question from the current survey we continue to ask about disincentives to volunteering because we believe identifying disincentives is the first step to eliminating them.
Several students objected to this question on other grounds. One student was concerned about making conformists out of Americans. Actually, by making complete, accurate and current information readily accessible, the free market eliminates the need for unanimity. Contributors and volunteers can choose which causes to target based on their subjective viewpoints. The marketplace ensures and strengthens diversity and freedom.
Another student failed to answer but wrote the following note: "People don't care about others; they care about themselves. I'm not saying this is true for me at all, but if people cared, don't you think they would make time to help the community?" A student wrote, "No opinion. I feel it's rude to judge."
Our purpose was to show that the various segments of our society hold misconceptions about one another. The obvious miscommunication among us highlights the need for the Another Way proposal to use the classroom setting to quickly, efficiently and cost effectively establish better communication with immediate and enormous benefits to students and their local communities.
We think the information we gathered proves our point and we are grateful to the Spokane students who took the time to give their opinions concerning why various groups don't volunteer in greater numbers and we urge you to take a look.
View responses to question 10.
(11) Put a check mark in front of everything you have done at least two times in your life:
(12) Place a check mark in front of those things that you feel capable of doing. Next, go back and add a star to those things you would like to do, and feel you could do if someone would train you and work with you. Some jobs may have several notations.
We combined these questions in the revised survey. Question 11 was supposed to get students to conclude that they are capable of doing more things than we suspected they realized. With a few exceptions, students were very much aware of their capabilities and in fact over-estimating their abilities may be the greater problem. In huge numbers they chose to do just about everything!!
We want leaders to understand that community service takes on a bad connotation in the minds of young people when judges sentence unruly youth to perform community service. When it is doled out as a punishment, community service becomes something that problem kids do!
On the positive side, a student told us he was an Explorer with the Spokane Police Dept. with a 1,000 volunteer hours!
And finally some students volunteered a few kind words which we appreciated:
"I liked the survey; it made me think."
"Q #12 was kind of long, but the rest really went smoothly."