Welcome to the Citizen Artist Blog!

The Citizen Artist is a new 6-credit service-learning course offered by the Department of Theatre and Film at Bowling Green State University (BGSU) designed and taught by faculty member Kate Collins. Our community partner for this course is Libbey High School, a diverse urban high school in the south side of Toledo in the Toledo Public School District. The development of this new service-learning course at BGSU reflects our commitment to giving students (both in high school and college) an intensive opportunity to explore the significant ways in which art can enrich civic life in America.

For this new Spring 2008 project, eight BGSU undergraduate and graduate students will partner with 32 11th grade American Government and Economics students from Libbey High School and together they will use theatre as a means to explore the concept of citizenship - in particular, the rights and responsibilities that come with it. Together we will work to become informed on public issues, partake in civil discourse through research, discussions, and interviews with friends, family and community members and with all of this, we seek to create a compelling theatrical performance encompassing all that we’ve learned in the hopes of promoting further public dialogue with the surrounding community.

During the first week of February the Libbey students identified bullying and school violence as the particular issue they would like to tackle this semester. Frustrated with the perpetuation of bullying within and beyond the walls of America’s schools, some Americans feel that society is not recognizing the seriousness of the problem. Some want to see harsher punishment and are suggesting that this is a grave problem that should be treated along the same lines as a hate crime. Others point out that like a hate crime, bullying is a very insidious offense often difficult to define or prove. This is further complicated by those who deny its impact, often suggesting that bullying is (an unfortunate) part of growing up that kids simply need to go through as part of adolescence. No matter how you see it, it seems clear that bullying and violence in schools is a pressing public issue and this semester BGSU and Libbey students will work together to explore the complexity of this issue. We will use theatre as a means to exercise our role as citizens by sharing what we’ve learned and promoting further dialogue in our community.

This blog is meant to document our ongoing work over course of this spring semester at Libbey High School. You can expect week-to-week updates to track our progress. We hope you’ll check in now and then over the coming weeks to see how it’s going! We have a culminating performance scheduled for April 16th.

Funding for this project has been provided by The Learn and Serve America, Great Cities Great Service grant led by Otterbein College, Ohio Campus Compact, and University of Cincinnati. We are also grateful for the support of the Department of Theatre and Film and the Office of Service-Learning at Bowling Green State University.

Wednesday, February 13, 2008

The first two weeks at Libbey

Wednesday, February 6

Last Wednesday was our very first day with all of the BGSU and Libbey High School students together. The BG students presented 4 short performances that they created on controversial public issues we currently face in the United States. Based on these the Libbey students had a chance to vote on which one they would like to explore over the course of the semester. The choices were centered around 4 questions:

1. Should voting be mandatory in the United States?

2. What is the relationship between uniforms in public schools and the freedom of expression guaranteed by the First Amendment?

3. Should bullying be a hate crime?

4. Should there be stronger monitoring of tactics used by the military to recruit in high schools?


Ultimately, the vote was close but the final choice was: Should bullying be treated as a hate crime? We were thrilled to finally have our topic and recognize that it may grow in scope as we go along but this gives a place to start.






Friday, February 8
Today only a few BGSU students traveled with Kate to Libbey to work with the American Government class. We did a get-to-know-you exercise with the American government class. We all drew a picture of something from our hometown, whereever we associate "home," and then broke into small groups to share our story. We then regathered back into a large group and shared either our own story or another person's story. By the end of the day, the BGSU and Libbey students were warming up to one another quite nicely!



Monday, February 11 and Wednesday, February 13


This week we focused mainly on getting to know you activities and getting the dialogue rolling. Our BGSU student team includes: Taurence, Janell, Kristen, Lauren, Mark, Carrie, Heather and Elizabeth. A lot of times we also have a grad student named Vanessa who joins us as she is observing our work for her master's thesis. We head up to Libbey High School (about a 23 mile drive) at 8:30am each Monday and Wednesday. Everyone, BGSU and Libbey students alike, are still in the process of waking up when we arrived so each class we start out with some fun warm ups. Monday we did some get-to-know-you exercises with the Economics class. Everyone had to draw a picture of something important to them from their hometown, whereever they associate "home," and then we introduced our picture and why it was important to us in a small group format. Then we gathered into a large group once again and either shared our own stories or someone else's story. Wednesday we worked on mastering the warm-up Czechoslovakia and then we led into a great values continuum exercise where everyone involved had lots to say. The Economics class seems to be opening up to us! We are getting warmed up now - lots more to come.




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