A difference

I ate lunch with 5th years two weeks ago at elementary school. I sat with some particularly genki students. They wanted to communicate with me. They pooled their knowledge together to form the questions in English. Using sentence structures I'd taught them they asked questions like, "What's your favorite food?; What's your favorite movie?" Then, these eleven year olds asked me, "What's your favorite? Obama or Clinton?" (Ignore the bad grammar, they have English once a month.) I find it incredible that elementary school students in Japan even know those names, let alone their relevance. Try finding that same awareness in young American children.