Fremont fifth-graders portray famous black Americans

Kids today are used to pushing buttons. Whether it's text messaging, video games or social networking, it's part of their culture.

But 260 fifth-grade students at Fremont Intermediate School near Mundelein got their buttons pushed instead.

As part of Black History Month, the students portrayed famous black Americans during a living wax museum at the school last Wednesday. After pressing a button on the wax figure, the figure talked about the person they were depicting. The event was open to family members and fourth-grade students.

Fifth-grade teacher Denise Mazzocchi says the students researched a person they don't know very well to portray someone they would not have known before doing this activity. The focus was more on figures from the past than the present.

The students wrote a short speech and dressed the part of their character. Athletes, scientists, musicians and cowboys were popular choices, which ranged from Louis Armstrong to Bill Pickett.

Mazzocchi said that dressing up for the presentations definitely made the event a lot of fun. You could almost feel the energy as you walked through the hallways, she said.

"Many of them are portraying someone who has not been living for over a couple of hundred years," she said. "So the dressing is important for them so they can actually get themselves into character and they speak in first person."