It took two black curtains and some chairs for mass communication freshman, Janece Bell and criminal justice freshmen, Kayla Cox to put on the play, but it took time and effort from their service learning at the Arc in Greater New Orleans to gain life experience.

Bell and Cox taught theater skills, dance and music games to mentally-disabled adults from the Arc throughout the fall semester as part of a field-working project for their English T-122 Critical Reading and Writing class.

The Arc is a non-profit organization that provides services to children and adults with intellectual disabilities. It’s committed to help these people to develop their lives.

Bell and Cox spent 15 hours learning about a subculture as participant-observers.

“They (the students) were encouraged not only to observe the site with a keen eye, but also to get involved actively at the site (of their choice),” their English professor Tracey Watts said. 

Bell and Cox chose mentally handicapped adults as a suggestion from the Office of Service Learning, but they stayed with the choice because it represented a different experience.

“The reason why I stuck with it is because I didn’t have much experience with it and I wanted to try something new,” Bell said.According to Cox, they never learned what illness afflicted their students.

“I prefer that because it forces me to not put them into this cavy hall[LU1] of this is who they are, the disease makes them who they are and this is the way to treat them.” Bell said. “It was all about self-discovering and discovering how we wanted truly to treat them individually.”

Bell and Cox prepared weekly plans including the theater lessons they were going to teach the students and combined their lesson plans in a final play.

“We would do a warm up, stretching up their muscles, having good postures so they could breathe well,” Bell said while explaining the exercises they used in each class. “We played a lot of music games and dances like the chicken dance and la Macarena,” Cox said.

“You have a lot of fun,” Eugene Peeler, one of the Arc students said. Peeler participated as a catcher in the play, but baseball wasn’t new for him since he “used to coach his nephew,” he said. According to Jane Wilson, community coordinator outreach of the Arc, Bell and Cox brought to the Arc clients a “unique experience.”

 “They (the Arc consumers) did not have confidence on doing what they would do. At first (they were) reluctant about doing some activities that the students were asking them to do because it may have seem silly to them but then as time went on and they saw the pieces started to come together and saw why this (theater lessons) was necessary,” Wilson said.

 “Towards the end we were able to give them some key words and some encouragement and they did it on their own,” Bell said. “They are a lot more in touch with their creative side”

Bell and Cox not only taught the Arc’s consumers but also gave them the confidence to believe in themselves.

“You’re teaching somebody,” Peeler said while explaining he can teach what he learned as an actor in the play.

The final project consisted of a final essay in which they wrote about their experiences at the site, their own personal growth as a result of these experiences, and the larger contexts and issues related to their site,” said Watts.

“It completely changed my outlook on the subculture itself of mentally handicapped people.” “I have never spent this much time with them and my outlook is one to advocate their civil rights and their equality,” Bell said. “It’s a goal of mine now to change the attitude of others and make sure that they (Arc consumers) are not shoved to the side anymore.”

“At the beginning I didn’t want to go and I was there to get my 15 hours in and then to be done. Now that we are leaving we plan on going back to visit because we fell in love with all of the consumers,” Cox said. Wilson would like to incorporate the Arc consumers as volunteers in the theater department of Loyola.

“We can have adults that are challenged to work side-by-side with others to make it inclusive and have a play.”

Andrea Castillo can be reached at [email protected].