Diploma requirements? by Vada

Diploma requirements? by Vada - October 2015 Scholarship Essay

Asking "should we require students to participate in extracurricular activities in order to graduate?" is essentially the same thing as asking "should we force children to play a sport or join a club even though they are socially awkward and/or uncomfortable?". While these clubs and activities to greatly benefit a majority of students there are the select few who do not strive in social situations. Understandable, these clubs are meant to teach leadership skills and social values throughout high school to help children in the future, but these extracurriculars have no bearing on a person's academic capabilities. It is unnecessarily unfair to require a student who is academically capable of graduating high school to join something that would make them horrifically uncomfortable.
Yes, colleges do ask for a list of the things students participated in throughout there time at the school but that doesn't make or break their acceptance and it is in no way the high schools responsibility to see that they have activities to put down on that list. Graduation requirements should be purely academic. Holding back children for not desiring to be involved in school related activities seems almost like a cruel joke.
Now some people may say, "well if the child is severely introverted then would putting them in a social environment not help them form better social skills?". The answer to this questions is: maybe. Absolutely for some kids, throwing them into organizations actually does help stimulate their social growth and they really come out of their shell, but that is never a guarantee. In fact, there could be opposite reactions. The child could have so much social anxiety that they exclude themselves form other people even more so than before.
Forcing a child to do something they are uncomfortable with will never solve anything. So no, extracurriculars should not be a high school graduation requirement. High school is about learning and it needs to stay that way.