Our Mission
The National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) elevates a school’s commitment to the values of scholarship, service, leadership, character, and citizenship. These five pillars have been associated with membership in the organization since its inception in 1929. The five pillars are:
Scholarship: A commitment to learning and growing on an educational path. It means making the most of the educational opportunities provided and seeking out learning, not only in school or similar settings, but also personally. Everyday Scholarship doesn’t require a minimum GPA—but it does require effort. More importantly, it stems from a desire to contribute to this world in a positive way by building on one’s own knowledge, skills, and talent through different experiences.
Service: Seeking out and engaging in meaningful service, not simply doing acts of service to fulfill a school, district, or program requirement, or to collect hours. As Honor Society students, many young teens and young adults at local chapters are required to meet minimum service participation requirements for service.
Although hours are important, service is seeing a need and fulfilling it voluntarily. Sometimes it’s driven by a passion for a specific cause or people in need. Other times, it’s driven by personal or family need, like taking care of siblings or other family members, or maybe even working part-time to help with family finances.
Leadership: Building on service, service and leadership oftentimes look very similar. Leadership is carrying oneself with dignity and taking ownership and responsibility for one’s own actions and participation. Being a public speaker, playing quarterback, or having an official title is not required for leadership. Leadership means being an agent—someone who takes action and responsibility—of your own pathway.
Character: Valuing diverse cultures and building relationships that reflect love of self but also concern for others. There are endless attributes to good character: perseverance, respect, integrity, honesty, sacrifice—the list goes on. Good and noble character is a high calling. Oftentimes we don’t “see” character unless there is a public display of self-sacrifice, or more often, a very public mistake. Character is not about praiseworthy or blameworthy behavior but the personal commitment to ethical and compassionate decision making that affects oneself and others.
Citizenship: Accepting one’s place and role in the community and seeking to understand the concerns and strengths of that community. Community includes but is not limited to neighborhoods, tribes, and local and regional districts. For young people in particular, citizenship is an opportunity to be educated about and to demonstrate care for the issues that impact those who are citizens in their shared community. We also believe that “global citizenship” is something that binds all of us together—adults, young people, and people from different nations across borders and boundaries.
https://www.njhs.us/about/