We Must Engage in Local Civics

“I will act with respect, integrity, and care for others.” 

This is the student pledges of Deerfield Academy, one we have gotten familiar with after almost half a year of Peep the Pledge announcements at school meetings. Yet, there’s a distinct barrier—both intentional and unintentional—that separates us boarding school students from the rest of the world. 

Yes, obviously everyone has experienced reading the annual Scroll article on how dreadful our civic bubble is at some point, but the solution isn’t just shaming students to be more aware of the world. For Deerfield to truly fulfill the goals of their motto and student pledge, there needs to be a joint student and institutional push for greater civic participation in the communities that surround our campus. 

Anna: I went to a Baptist school from kindergarten through 8th grade, a fact that everyone who has shared a class with me is well aware. As many problems as that school had, one thing that it did incredibly well was service. Each grade had a special charity project they worked toward: in kindergarten we raised money for the sea turtles. In fifth grade we held fun runs to raise money for service dogs for veterans. Every single year, each class was required to bring in a different element of a “meal on wheels.” Somehow, I was always on Chewy Bar duty. To be completely honest, 

I was lucky to go to a school where most families had the available resources to give back to the community. I would argue that’s even more true at Deerfield, a school with an over $900 million endowment. So why has the only community service experience I’ve had at this school been my freshman fall visit to a local church, helping sort food donations? Why are service hours not a graduation requirement, as they are in many public and private high schools? Why do so many co-curriculars get out of community service without any consequences? All of these questions have remained unanswered. The answer lies in a lack of institutional opportunities, but also a personal failure. I have often justified my failure to act by reassuring myself that I help my community over the summer, I volunteer with my troop. Yet I being away from home shouldn’t give me a get-out-of-jail free card for service.

Billy: This summer, I worked at the Massachusetts Statehouse as an intern under the office of Joint Committee on Mental Health, Substance Use and Recovery. There, I learned about the opioid crisis occurring in our literal backyard. From 2023-2024, The Massachusetts Bureau of Substance Addiction and Services reported 143 emergency room visits in Greenfield for opioid related overdoses, 13 being fatal. In Greenfield, you are 124% more likely to be checked into a hospital for an opioid related overdose than the rest of the state, with the average age being 18-25 years old. 

More than just shocking, it was shameful that I didn’t know this earlier. In the last 4 years, I regularly make trips to Greenfield with my friends to eat out and buy snacks, I’ve walked the streets listening to music, and I never noticed the needles and homelessness besides me. 

Maybe that’s just me, but I’d wager most of the student population here shares in my ignorance. We’ve somehow deluded ourselves that as a student body, we’re models of citizenship engagement and civic excellence while turning a blind eye to our lack of involvement in the communities around us. We as the student body must make an active effort to engage in our direct community, not just expect information and service opportunities to be placed in our laps. 

Nico: If we want Deerfield Students to be civically engaged then we must change our school’s view on service itself. To most Deerfield students community service currently exists as either A: a day off from co-curriculars when you complete a mundane task, or B: an activity to add to your achievements list for college. 

Sadly, both options are prevalent throughout American society, where many students see community service as an activity not done out of empathy but instead to bolster one’s resume. In a society where cut-throat competition is encouraged, it is no wonder students see community service as simply a leg up over one’s peers. Civic engagement can no longer be only a box to be checked, and that will take a reversal of our school culture and America as a whole.

Yoonsa: As a day-student-turned-boarder, my community service experience can be summed up in these two words: mobility and incentive. I could only contribute to my hometown of Amherst, MA’s community through the access to a car a parent willing to shuttle me around when necessary only thirty minutes away. In fourth grade, I spent an embarrassing amount of time prying open my piggy bank—which I believed to be the entirety of my life savings at the time—to collect a whopping sum of around $24 dollars for the World Wildlife Fund, dedicated to protect the endangered animals I dearly loved (and yes, I counted each individual coin). As humans, we have an intrinsic desire to help other people, one we can see in the behavior of younger children. At Deerfield however, we see ourselves as too grown up, too busy or maybe too cynical to bust open our piggy banks for a cause we care about.

There is a second part to our school pledge that I worry many of us overlook: “I will seek to inspire the same values in our community and beyond.” What better place is there to start than here, in our own community? At Deerfield, where ambition and privilege go hand in hand, we do indeed have the resources to travel hours or days spending our service dedicated somewhere else, as the Center for Service and Global Citizenship demonstrates over breaks. The number of students that sign up for these trips is a testament to how much our student body cares, how much our school wants to give us opportunities to care. However, to “buy in” to service does not necessarily mean one must go all out regarding location and distance. To truly become global citizens, as the office’s name so aptly suggests, Deerfield must provide further resources for us to start here, right in our own backyard. If we turn a blind eye on our own community, how will we ever be able to give back to the far-reaching hills and valleys “beyond” our Deerfield Bubble?

We hope that, for these reasons, you will allow us a break from our normal Global Updates and allow us to focus on events happening closer to home.