Education:

Students from hundreds of schools across the nation are heading to Washington to participate in the inauguration. But thousands of students in Oakland, Calif., and the surrounding communities will get their own close-up view of the celebration. They will ride buses at dawn to the Oracle Arena, an auditorium adjacent to the Oakland Raiders’ home field, to watch the inauguration on a stadium-size screen, said Miguel Dwin, a school board trustee in Emeryville, Calif.
Educators in Chicago, Mr. Obama’s hometown, may be among the most enthusiastic. Like many school districts nationwide, Chicago produced a lengthy guide to help teachers tailor instruction to the inauguration, with suggestions for essay themes, debate topics and letter-writing. the Chicago schools chief whom Mr. Obama’s has nominated to be secretary of education, sent a memorandum introducing the guide to the city.
Not all students, of course, interpret the significance of Mr. Obama’s election in the same way. At Malcolm Elementary School in Laguna Niguel, Calif., Elisa Slee had her first graders write letters to Mr. Obama and essays describing what they would do if they were president’s. Slee said that one girl wrote, “I would put a soccer field in my bedroom.”
Another wrote, “I would immediately eat ice cream.” Students in Washington have front seats on the festivities. Schools in the District of Columbia traditionally close on Inauguration Day.