If You're 'Appy and You Know It PARIS - Recently my daughter's teacher asked if I would talk about America to her second-grade class, in a French public school. The teacher does an hour of English each week, and I'd be the guest speaker. I readily agreed. Easy peasy! I've been on TV. I can tell 7-year-olds about my own country. But the day before the talk, it suddenly doesn't seem so simple. How do I sum up a country in an hour? What if the children ask questions that go beyond my Wikipedia-level knowledge of American history? My daughter is anxious, too. Speaking English is the Holy Grail in France, so she's proud to present me as an expert. But I sometimes act too "American" for her taste - by talking to strangers, or showing enthusiasm. Like a Soviet censor, she demands to vet my whole talk for potential humiliations. I suggest we focus on pop culture, which I actually know something about. "I'll tell them "Star Wars" is American," I venture. "They'll never believe you," she says. I briefly consider canceling, but my daughter vetoes this idea - apparently my absence would be even more embarrassing than my presence. She gives me a pep talk about how, in the end, it will all be fine. I'm pretty sure she's quoting from "High School Musical," which she's watched about a thousand times. There's a risk that whatever I say about America might actually stick with these kids. When I was in elementary school, a man showed my class a slide show about his trip to India. One slide showed glasses of clean water for sale; apparently the water was so valuable, no one washed the glasses between customers. He also said that a sari made any woman beautiful. Those images were still in my mind when I decided to travel to India a dozen years later. I bought a sari there, which ended up looking better as pillowcases than it did on me. I arrive for the talk with a stack of American images: Mickey Mouse, pancakes, the Statue of Liberty (with its French connection), Martin Luther King Jr., and Neil Armstrong on the Moon. I chose them because they were iconic and kid-friendly. But once I saw them all together, I realized that they conveyed the same message as "High School Musical": Yes you can. That we're an optimistic people is hardly surprising. But I was surprised by how pervasive this sentiment was. Even the steaming stack of pancakes seemed heroic. Optimism isn't a terrible message to convey to French children. Happiness researchers hypothesize that French schools aren't just another manifestation of France's famous pessimism problem; they help create this problem. Schools here are known for being "severe but fair" (though they're not always either). There's a lot of emphasis on good behavior; less on kids" expressing themselves. You can scoff at hope for being naïve. But when I show the pictures to the class, I see that there's something intrinsically appealing about it. The kids are excited to recognize Spiderman (they know him as "speederman," and had thought he was French). There's practically applause when I hold up a picture of a giant cheeseburger. Admittedly, they're stumped by Martin Luther King Jr. "Nelson Mandela!" someone calls out. "Obama!" another says. When I finally show them the real Obama, they cheer with relief. I tell them an American story that goes from slavery through civil rights to the first black president. Obviously, this soaring narrative doesn't tell the whole story. I don't mention gun violence, widening inequality, the Iraq war or Congress. But it doesn't feel like propaganda either. Behind all our recent troubles, optimism remains an authentic part of us. When I distribute a map of America, the kids are relieved to finally put some pieces together. Aha, New York and California are both in the United States! Aha, America and the United States refer to the same place!