Importance of Charity: Extra Credit for Charity

Introduction

In a weekly magazine from the New York Times by Randy Cohen, he speaks about the right and wrong of teachers offering extra credit for charity work, which shows that teachers are raising an unethical value of charity as a selfish act. The urge of wanting those extra credit points from the students allows them not to see the essence of what charity projects are truly about – the importance of charity. This situation also affects students' way of learning, leading them to prioritize personal gain over genuine altruism.

Undermining the Essence of Charity

When doing charity work or helping people in need, it must be truly genuine. You must understand why you’re doing it and who your doing it for. When being influenced with extra credit or bonus points, it takes away that feeling of being real with yourself. Manipulating students with extra point are not ways to motivate them to help the community, but it makes ways in which they could help only themselves. Encouraging students to participate in social involvement is great, but there must be a “distinction between classroom and outside activities” (Cohen 1), because if that boundary is not visible, students will easily take it for granted. Whereas not having that diving line, the teachers are deliberately setting their students up for failure.

In any case a student is giving extra credit for doing things that are outside school grounds, it discourages them from doing their best work on assignments. The main point of extra credit is to allow students to do extra work related to the academic subjects. This requires that students may not earn extra points for coming to a charity event or events that has “nothing to do with a student’s mastery of a certain topic” (Riskey 2). Students “grade are meant to assess a student’s academic achievement, not stimulate social activism, however worthy” (Cohen 1). Adding needless extra credit points will oppose the original assignment score that will have the wrong interpretation of the student’s whole academic level, which “is a bad policy, not because it sends the wrong message about charity, but it sends the wrong message about math or chemistry or A.P. English” (Chohen1).

Impact of Charity on Academics 

As a result of giving unnecessary extra credit point, it results to students and parents misinterpreting one’s academic strengths. This shows that there must be a limit to how much extra credit a student is getting. Avoidable bonus points that are being given out frequently could result in an unevenness in grade book. When students are given the opportunity to get extra credit with no academic learning, they tend to accept it even if it could mean that a student would pass without gaining any knowledge or not even meeting all the criteria of the specific assignment or chapter. We tend to see students take the easy way out, which would get them nowhere.

Conclusion

For the most part giving out extra credit for charity work draws out an unethical value that demonstrates that students are being influenced by extra points to help a cause rather than allowing them to be sincere with their decisions in giving back to the needy. Although people believe that giving out extra credit for charity creates an opportunity for the students to be able to learn about problems in our society. But in the real world when contributing to a charity organization it has to come from the heart because if not a students will always feel that they need a handout before giving out to people in need which will always build an unethical view of how students see charity work.

Works Cited

1. “Should I Offer Extra Credit in My Classes?” Translated by Erin Riskey, Study.com, Study.com, Oct. 2017, study.com/blog/should-i-offer-extra-credit-in-my-classes.html.
2. Cohen, Randy. “Grading Charity.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 6 Apr. 2003, www.nytimes.com/2003/04/06/magazine/the-way-we-live-now-4-6-03-the-ethicist-grading-charity.html.