What you Wear!!

After a week away, I am back to writing. I'd love to see comments in response to these questions. Thanks!! AP

The ABC News Blog, Political Radar, is running a story titled, "Obama Pushback on the Drudge Photo Flap." After the Drudge Report ran a photo showing Senator Obama in traditional Somali garb, the Senator explained, "Everybody knows that whether it's me or Senator Clinton, or Bill Clinton, that when you travel to other countries they ask you to try on traditional garb that you have been given as a gift..." The Obama camp has blamed the release of this photo on the Clinton campaign.

Read the Article!!

Discussion Starters for Young Children

Ask your students to identify as many different kinds of clothing as they can. Do any of your students, or their family members, wear special clothes when they go to religious services? Do any of your students' grandparents or parents wear special kinds of clothes?

In what ways do people's clothing change in different temperatures? Why does clothing change when the temperature changes? Do students think it would be OK to laugh at somebody wearing shorts and a t-shirt when it is freezing outside? Why/why not? Would it be OK to wonder why they were not dressed warmer? Why/why not?

Have your students ever worn a type of clothes that they did not want to wear but their parents told them they had to wear it? Why did their parents want them to wear this kind of clothes? Why didn't they want to wear this clothes? Are they glad that they ended up wearing the clothes? Why/why not?

Ask your students if they can think of anybody who is different than them? What makes people different? Can your students think of anybody who is exactly like them? Why/why not?

Discussion Starters for Older Students

Ask your students to define the word "culture." In what ways does clothes contribute to culture? What does the word "other" mean? Is it OK for the leaders of the United States to celebrate cultures that may not be common in the United States? Why/why not?

Assuming that the Clinton campaign did send this picture of Senator Obama to the Drudge Report, why might they have done so? What can we learn about the Clinton campaign from this incident? Challenge your students to develop an argument supporting the Clinton campaign's actions. Students could also develop the opposite argument.

Ask your students to imagine that they were advisers to Senator Obama. How would they have advised him to respond to the publication of this picture? Challenge students to develop arguments against responding at all?

In what ways do students think that technology influences life in the United States today? Do students think that it's possible for technology to have a greater influence on life in the United States? If so, how? Do students think that technology will ever have a lighter influence? What would have to happen for this to occur? In what ways do these last questions relate to the current event presented here?