Forty-nine big kids wearing construction-paper nametags that hung from yarn around their necks stepped off of two yellow school buses parked outside of Hamilton Disston School last Friday.
The students, with picture books and bags of snacks and drinks in hand, are seniors at Cherokee High School in Marlton, N.J.
They visited the Tacony school as part of their school’s participation in Read Across America, the National Education Association’s 11-year effort to get folks reading to kids around Dr. Seuss’ birthday, March 2.
(Standardized test-taking for both schools delayed the reading celebration until last week.)
Disston principal Susan Smith welcomed the students and thanked them for coming across the bridge to share their expertise and reading with the 900 students at the Tacony school.
"Have fun, OK?" Smith said.
Cherokee students have been visiting their local Marlton schools for years as part of Read Across America, according to Cherokee teacher Rene Leimberg.
She had a contact at Disston who asked her to bring the students over the river to the school.
"It’s good for our kids to see a school like this. They come from an affluent area, and it helps them understand different cultures and the opportunities they have," Leimberg said, adding that some of the students may never have seen a rowhome before.
Getting the seniors in the classroom also gives them an opportunity to think about having a teaching career.
"They might say, ‘I can see myself doing this,’" Leimberg said.
Wearing a Trenton Thunder baseball jersey and a baseball name tag, Mike Peterson sat down with a group of Disston students gathered around him on the floor and asked if they like baseball.
"Does anybody like the Phillies?" he asked.
Hands went up.
The Cherokee senior held up the book he would read to them — Casey at the Bat by Ernest Lawrence Thayer. It was published in 1912.
"He’s a lot like Ryan Howard," Peterson told the children.
The teen held the children’s interest with the dramatic sports tale and laughed when they asked why Casey was drawn with only four fingers.
After Casey struck out and there was no joy left in Mudville, the teen explained that everyone had looked up to Casey as a hero.
He and fellow Cherokee student Kevin Larsen, who would later read Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, handed out paper to the boys and girls and asked them to draw pictures of their heroes.
Xhesida Pajollari and Brianna Williams, 9-year-old third-graders, both drew pictures of their respective mothers. •• You can read Casey at the Bat online at http://books.google.com/books?id=pGsTAAAAYAAJ&pg=PT3&ots=GpTDN7KwPw&ie=ISO-8859-1&output=html