Using NewsHour Extra Feature Stories

Overview: NewsHour Extra features stories can help students identify and interpret key issues in current events. This activity anticipates one class period, but the follow-up essay might be assigned as homework, or in another period.

Warm Up: Use initiating questions to introduce the topic and find out how much your students know.

Main Activity: Have students read NewsHour Extra's feature story and answer the questions on the reading comprehension handout.

Discussion: Use discussion questions to encourage students to think about how the issues outlined in the story affect their lives and express and debate different opinions.

Follow-up: Students can write an 500-word editorial on the topic expressing their views and send it to NewsHour Extra [extra@newshour.org] for possible publication.

Evaluation: Students are graded on their answers to reading comprehension questions and/or their editorial.

Story: French Government Bans Religious Clothing in Schools: 3/08/04
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/extra/features/jan-june04/scarves_3-08.html

Initiating Questions:

1. What is the separation of church and state? How does it affect schools?

2. Should students be allowed to wear religious clothing in public schools?

3. Does your school ban certain kinds of clothing? Why or why not?

Reading Comprehension Questions: (click here for printout)

1. What law did the French government pass recently? What is the impact?

In a move that has sparked protest across France, the French government last week passed a law banning public school students from wearing Jewish skullcaps, large Christian crosses, Sikh turbans and, most controversially, Muslim head scarves.

2. How did the president of France defend the ban?

The conservative president, Jacques Chirac, is a strong supporter of the law, which he has said is needed to protect the French principal of secularism -- the idea that religion should be excluded from civil affairs or public education.

"To do nothing would be irresponsible. It would be a fault," Chirac told a closed-door Cabinet meeting last month.

3. Why do French officials think that the scarves should be banned?

Officials there fear that the Muslim community's demand that girls be allowed to wear head scarves in schools is the first of many extremist demands -- from separate swimming areas to segregated male and female classrooms. They want to stop what they see as a growing Muslim fundamentalism.

4. What do critics of the law say might happen as a result of its passing?

Critics also fear that this ban will cause Muslim girls to transfer to Muslim schools or drop out of school altogether. They believe it will actually push students closer to radical Islam, the very aim the law is designed to avoid.

5. Where else in the international community was the ban mentioned?

The ban was mentioned last month in an audiotape from Ayman Zawahiri, a top leader in the al-Qaida terrorist network. He called it "another example of the Crusader's malice, which Westerners have against Muslims."

Discussion Questions (more research might be needed):
1. Do you agree with the French government's ban on religious clothing in schools? Why or why not?

2. Compare the French view of secularism with the United States view of the separation of church and state. How are the two viewpoints similar or different? What is the historical context of each?

3. Does your school have rules about what students may or may not wear in school? What is your opinion of these rules? Would you change any? Why or why not?

Send your answers, in essay form, to extra@newshour.org for possible publication!