Assignment task: How can I answer to this:
1. Why do kids like to help others (Volunteering)?
2. Do you or anyone you know volunteer to help others? If so, what do you (or they) do and why?
3. Who do you think received more joy and happiness from Justin's work - the kids or Justin? Why?
4. If you had the time and money to help others, who would you like to help and why?
5. These two articles (Problems with mandatory volunteering by Jeonghoon Lee) and ("Justin Lebo") are arguing two different sides of an issue. The issue is mandatory volunteer hours for students. Which article do you agree with more? Why? Three reasons?
Transcript: Problems with mandatory volunteering
OK, this is the two articles that are part of reading two, they are both about the same topic, which is mandatory, mandatory volunteering in high schools. A lot of schools, high schools require kids to volunteer in the community. So mandatory means to be required. They must do this to graduate from high school. So this is this first article is talking about those who are in favor or support mandatory volunteering. And the second article is from a student who was very much against this idea. So you want to look to see why some support this and why some are against this. So this says that many of the students grumble with indignation. It means they're just against this. They're they are refusing their resistance. They don't want to do this. OK, so they have many of them don't want to do this, however it's required. So, again, resistance just means they are pushing back. No, don't make me do this. And so I was just talking about some of these volunteering activities that they do and. Here we see the student, John Maloney, has already completed his required hours and so it's a little bit about what this experience was like. So he played games, he worked, he went helped a volunteer with senior citizens, with elderly people, so he played games with them and hung out with him and hung out with them and helped them. And he had a good experience. He says volunteering is better than just sitting around. And I like, OK, I'm sorry about the animal part. He also volunteered at the animal shelter to help animals who have been sick or abandoned. So he says it's just better than sitting around that he like animals and he didn't want to see them put to sleep. Or many shelters have to kill animals if they don't have space for very many. OK, I'm going to just talk a little bit more about I think it's pretty easy for you to understand, and then here he says in paragraph nine, he says, it's ridiculous that people are opposing the record. He didn't Amy Rao said this and that. It's ridiculous that some people are opposing these requirements. So. She is not understanding why somebody would be against helping in the community. So let's take a look at the opposing argument to see why, because these people here, John, had a good experience. His sister Melissa has had a good experience. And people here in this article support mandatory volunteering. So let's look at the second page about people who are against it. OK, so this is a student and the student is listing the problems with mandatory volunteering, the student clearly does not like this idea. So but they start off by saying that I am already a volunteer. So this person is not against helping and volunteering. This student is against mandatory volunteering. So they go on to talk about how kids are already overwhelmed by school work. So, so much studying, so much homework. Why are we making them have more things to do? And so here it says, in addition, students who are told they must volunteer may become resentful and did not want to volunteer in the future. So resentful means you have this anger about something that someone did to you that caused negative feeling or effect. So they're arguing that some of these kids will hate this program so much they will never volunteer for the rest of their lives. They will just hate this. It will have this negative experience and even say negative experience here. OK, let's scroll down a little. So the other problem is that many students have busy after school schedules, so they have family at work and maybe they're athlete, maybe they're on a sports team. Many of them have to work and to help their families so they don't have time to do a mandatory volunteering. So, again, it says here nothing should be required of a student after school except homework. So this person, again, is arguing that kids, these students have too much to do already. Let's not add more to their list of things they need to do every day. Finally, the term mandatory volunteering is an oxymoron. This is a really good point. So mandatory means required. You must do it. Volunteer means to give freely of your time from your heart. So it's an oxymoron. That means one word is the opposite of the other that they don't that you're kind of counseling.
One word. So is it can you truly volunteer and give your time and your effort, if it's required, if it's mandatory, it kind of cancels the other out when you make it required, it's no longer volunteering. Right. So I think this is a good point. So it kind of is an oxymoron. Meaning, again, they're there opposite words that they can kind of go together for all these reasons. I am totally opposed, opposed means against. I disagree with it. I am against it. So the student is opposed to our schools implementing a mandatory volunteering program. OK, so it says it should be a personal choice, not mandatory. So again, think about what you think. How who has a stronger argument? Which article was more convincing to you? That's called argument.
Transcript: Justin Lebo
OK, this is the Justin Libo article, I think it's actually pretty easy, so I don't have a lot to add to it. I just want to go over some vocabulary words here. The first is looking at this paragraph one. It says, what a wreck a wreck means, just like a disaster or a terrible, terrible bicycle or terrible car or any kind of vehicle. It was like looking at a few big bones in the dust and trying to figure out what kind of dinosaur they had once belonged to. So he's just saying it just looks like it's something that's super old, completely wrecked, dead and gone like a like in a like a dinosaur. And then so just in you know, he starts to learn to restore bicycles and he gives them to children who don't have a bicycle. So it becomes his it becomes his way of helping other people to find old junky bicycles. And they actually use the phrase here; they use Junker, which just means it's very old, not usable. And he fixes and repairs these bicycles for kids who can't afford or don't have bicycle's.
The other one here, I want to go over the word thrilled. It says he found I hope I'm saying this correctly, Coolabah chan. And he said the boys would be thrilled to get to bicycle. So thrilled in this example means really excited. Really happy. Really excited.
On the second page of the reading, again, I think it's a pretty easy story. I want to go over this here. Here's a proposal, one of our vocabulary words. He went to his parents with a proposal. You may have heard the word proposal like for marriage. When someone asks their their partner or their significant other if they want to get married, we call that a proposal to ask someone to marry you. In this example, he has a proposal for his parents. So it's like an idea he tells them about and ask them if they would help with this. So it's more like a like a special deal that he's asking. So he's asking his parents.
It says his father and I would donate a dollar for every Justin, every dollar Justin donated, so he asked us if it could be like the old days if we match every dollar he put into buying old bikes. So his proposal was to ask them kind of like a business deal, like every dollar I save. Will you give me a matching dollar to help buy these bikes?
And then the next word here is Manege, you probably hear the word Manege, you think of manager or management of a company like someone who organizes everything, but this is a different manager says. But by the beginning of August, he had managed to make only 10 bich so means of his result what he was able to accomplish.
OK, jumping down to paragraph 18, we're looking at admiring and the voting says in her admiring article about a boy who was devoting his summer to help kids who didn't even know, she said Justin needed bikes and money as she printed his home phone number. So admiring just means if she's really saying how she thinks, he's just doing a great job. She's saying many good things about him. And he's a boy who was devoting his summer meaning he is giving his whole time of summer vacation to work on the bike. So she printed his name and number and then everybody knew about him wanting to repair these bikes.
So, yeah, so then everybody heard about and wanted to help, so he got more bikes delivered to the boys and they're so excited about this, it says once again their joy or their happiness inspired Justin, which means, again, it makes him have more ideas and more passionate about what he's doing. So he talks about how wheels or bikes mean freedom. They have freedom to go places and go where they want to go.
And then finally, the end here, just again, just talks about what a great kid Justin is. He's done all this work to help these kids and he just keeps donating and giving away these bikes and working on them and giving them away to kids who need bikes. So this last paragraph says once I hope once I overheard a kid who got one of my bikes say a bike is like a book, it opens up a whole new world. So Justin heard this boy say this and meaning that now that this child has a bike, he can get past his street or his neighborhood, he can go out and explore the world. And then Justin says, that's how I feel to it made me happy to know that kid felt that way. That's why I do it. So this kid's very inspiring. He makes us feel good. He makes us want to do good just by being this amazing kid who helps other kids.