Study guide.

• Author: Ehrenreich, Barbara
• Position: Humor - Starr report on Clinton sex life - Flip Side - Brief Article - Column

On September 15, The New York Times ran a story under the headline: TEACHERS SCRAP LESSON PLANS TO GRAPPLE WITH STARR REPORT. "Imploring their classes to cast aside any nervous snickers, teachers at middle schools, high schools, and even in the older grades of some elementary schools . . . wove the scandal into their lesson plans," the story said. "Some saw it as a golden opportunity to think about larger issues like morality or impeachment that might otherwise have put them to sleep."

Concerned that many teachers might find themselves out of their depth with the Starr Report, but mindful of the shortage of funds for more conventional texts, leading educators approached this columnist to design an appropriate Study Guide for All K-12 Teaching Personnel. If your school is lucky enough to possess working audio-visual equipment, you will want to use the President's videotaped grand jury testimony as a visual aid. Otherwise, those plastic anatomical models from tenth grade hygiene class will do.

To begin with, it is important to realize that many of the activities recounted in the Starr Report and the grand jury testimony could conceivably set a bad example for impressionable young people, especially in the elementary grades.

Take the famous cigar episode. Many students will be aware of the President's relentless campaign against teen smoking, and may be deeply disillusioned by his offer of a tobacco product to a twenty-one-year-old intern. They will want to know how that cigar came to be in the White House anyway, since Hillary declared the entire compound a no-smoking zone in 1992. Here is a chance to discuss that perpetual junior high bugaboo--peer pressure. Has the President been spending too much time with the representatives of tobacco-growing states? Ask the students what they would do if offered a tobacco product by a powerful person--a school principal, say, or a football coach. Accept it graciously, but insert it in some orifice other than your mouth? Smoke it, but without inhaling?

The teacher should also be aware that there is material in the Starr Report that could be disturbing if confronted head on. Consider the incident in which the President simultaneously ate pizza, received oral sex from Ms. Lewinsky, and discussed welfare reform with a Congressman over the phone. Try to steer the discussion away from welfare reform, since the fact that millions of desperately poor women are being tossed into the job market--often without...