Clinton Debate in Class Is Delicate Affair

Mark Elinson’s history students at Monroe High School spent Thursday afternoon arguing about adultery, lies, and one man’s fall from grace.

The Bill and Monica story? No. The students were reenacting the Salem witch trials of 1692 after having read the classic Arthur Miller play “The Crucible,” in which an adulterous affair between a young woman and a married man ultimately plays a role in his demise.

The parallels to the current Washington controversy did not escape the students.

“In real life, you have Lewinsky and Clinton,” said junior Algernon Clay-Greene, 16. “It’s like everything you see on ‘Jerry Springer.’ It’s just one big love triangle, but probably there’s no love.”

At Monroe and other schools across Southern California, history lessons are being viewed in a new light because of the affair between President Clinton and Monica Lewinsky.

At Monroe’s law and government magnet school, where 80 history and English students reenacted “The Crucible,” teachers have used the scandal to explore arcane issues about the Constitution, political parties and congressional impeachment proceedings.

Elinson used the controversy to introduce his Law and Youth class to the Supreme Court, telling his students that the current crisis began when the court allowed the Paula Jones civil lawsuit to proceed. Elinson also asked his U.S. history students to write essays about the constitutional ramifications of the affair.

“I’m trying to counter the notion that this is all focused on the sexual question and that there are no legal questions,” Elinson said. “It’s not as simple as it might appear on the surface.”

But how far do staff at Monroe and other schools go in talking about the tawdry episode? That is a question instructors are asking themselves.

“I say, ‘You can feel free to pick up the newspaper and read it,’ ” Monroe history teacher Paul Graber said. “I’m not going to Xerox it off and give it to them. I tend to shy away from the more lurid details of the report.”

Los Angeles school officials are convening a special task force to prepare guidelines for teachers, said Robert J. Collins, director of senior high school instruction. Teachers will be encouraged to discuss the legal, constitutional and moral issues involved, but must observe district policies. For one: Parental approval is required for any discussion of sex.

The question of how to develop lesson plans around the presidential indiscretion may actually be easiest for teachers in Los Angeles’ nearly 300 Catholic schools, because their classes are conducted entirely in the context of Catholic teaching and morality, Los Angeles archdiocese Supt. Jerome Porath said.

“We don’t worry whether it offends anyone’s value system,” Porath said. “We have our own value system, and the parents and teachers know this is how we deal with things.”

Starting from the point of view that extramarital sex is morally wrong, teachers could discuss the story both from the religious perspective of forgiveness and the secular context of crime and punishment, he said.

Teachers in other school districts are carving their own delicate paths through the material.

At Thousand Oaks High School, teacher Jerry Morris presents the sexual, political and legal issues.

“These children are no longer children--they are mature enough to handle this,” he said this week, after taking his government class through the process and timeline of an impeachment inquiry and outlining various investigations into Clinton’s administration.

“Tomorrow, we’ll get into the grounds for impeachment, the legal definition of sexual relations [from the Jones civil suit] and the issue of whether oral sex meets that definition,” he said. “We’ll address this in an overview.

“My concern is going to be if they ask specific questions. How far do you go?”

Linda Mehlbrech, coordinator of the social studies curriculum for Long Beach Unified School District, considered issuing guidelines on the topic but dropped the plan after she polled eighth-grade teachers and found a general consensus on how to present the subject.

“I would not get into a sexual conversation with [students],” said Mehlbrech. “But I would talk about it. It’s a good time to start talking about character education, making good value judgments. Why do people make these decisions?”

The situation is complicated for many teachers by uncertainty over just how much their students know in the first place. Many, particularly those in middle school, don’t understand much of what’s going on, sexually or politically. Matters other than the presidency are much more important to many teens.

“They’re just getting back to school and they’re interested in seeing their friends and getting their schedules squared away,” Laguna Beach High School Principal Barbara Callard said.

Some public schools are completely shying away from the controversy.

“There is nothing factual that we can talk about right now, except for the Starr report, and our teachers are choosing not to talk about that,” said Don Martin, principal of Corona Del Mar High School in Orange County.

If any questions arise about the presidential scandal at Thurston Middle School in Laguna Beach, Principal Ron LaMotte said, he will refer children to their parents for answers. So far, school officials across the region report that parents have said little on the matter.

Contributing to this report were staff writers Kate Folmar and Doug Smith.