ELY — The school library felt a little different last week. Both fourth-grade classes showed off their research on historical figures. Tucked between the shelves, fourth graders stood at attention in costume, ready to become history.
Ms. Faulkner’s and Ms. Omerza’s classes hosted their annual Wax Museum, transforming the school library into an interactive hall of historical figures featuring names such as Malala Yousafzai, Neil Armstrong, Abraham Lincoln, and Jacques Cousteau. Each student claimed their own corner of the room, some at tables, others posted along the walls, a placard in front of them, research booklet at the ready.
Visitors were handed a flyer at the door listing every figure and the student portraying them.
Each station featured two buttons. Press one, and the student launched into a prepared speech delivered from memory, covering the historical figure’s early life, major accomplishments, and, in most cases, death. Press the other, and visitors could ask their own questions, with the student answering in character.
The speeches ran about a minute each, but the impression they left was longer. Watching a nine-year-old in a Brooklyn Dodgers uniform explain Jackie Robinson’s place in American history, or a classmate draped in white cloth describe Alexander the Great’s campaigns, had a way of making the history feel immediate.
The costumes ranged from a blue NASA jumpsuit (Sawyer as Neil Armstrong) to a period dress and pearl necklace (Sydney as Eleanor Roosevelt) to a stovepipe hat (Hugo as Abraham Lincoln). A student playing Benedict Arnold wore a red coat. Another, as Leonardo da Vinci, managed to look appropriately Renaissance about the whole thing.
Every student also had a research booklet on display, the written work behind the performance, visible evidence that the speeches weren’t just memorized but earned.
There was something quietly impressive about the whole affair. The library, usually a place for quiet reading, hummed with conversation as parents and younger siblings moved from station to station, pressing buttons, listening, asking questions.