Performances Bring Black History to Life

Role-Playing, Music Featured at Event

Dressed in a pint-size blue suit, third-grader Liam Marshall stood frozen in place with his right arm raised and his left resting on a book held by classmate Lauren Lerner.

With a tap of the paper "button" on his lapel, Marshall came to life as President Obama, with Lauren serving as first lady Michelle Obama, in a scene from January's inauguration.

"I'm Barack Obama," Liam intoned before giving a brief history of the president's life. "Now that I'm president, one of my main concerns will be to save the economy," he concluded.

Liam then turned to face Lauren and quickly froze back in position with his right hand raised.

They were part of the living wax museum in which dozens of third-graders at Bradley Hills Elementary School in Bethesda spent last Thursday morning acting out the roles of well-known African Americans. The performances were part of the second annual African American Museum at the school in celebration of Black History Month.

The multimedia event included first-grade classrooms turned into jazz cafes where students performed their own blues songs, a video presentation of second-graders reading poetry and displays of artwork, writing and speech analyses by other grades that lined the halls of the school, which serves kindergarten through fifth grade.

Principal Sandra Reece said faculty and staff members came up with the idea for the event last year.

"We really wanted to find a way to do something with African American history that was more meaningful for the kids, something that actually involved them and allowed teachers to tap into the creative side of thinking," she said.

Such events also provide opportunities to explore other races and cultures at the school, whose student makeup is 82 percent white, about 11 percent Asian and about 2 percent African American, staff members said.

"It is very important not to discount the diversity of our country and our world and base all our teaching around the limited amount of people who go to our school," Reece said. Students researched famous African Americans, including civil rights lawyer and Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall and poet Maya Angelou. They wrote short biographies, put together costumes to represent their characters and rehearsed their performances.

"They actually chose characters that seem to fit their personalities," third-grade teacher Robin Caropreso said.

On the day of the living wax museum, the students positioned themselves in two third-grade classrooms. Students from other grades and parents milled about, pushing the paper buttons on the third-graders' outfits and prompting them to speak.