"I Was Accused Of Pushing A 'Woke' Agenda": Teachers Share Politically-Related Incidents They Experienced This Year That Made Them Question Their Job
As 2024 comes to an end, many are still reeling from the chaos of this year's politics.
We asked teachers to share how this election year affected their classrooms, and folks, their responses were wild and deeply concerning. Here's what they had to say:
1."I've seen a lot more aggressive bigotry. My students are in sixth grade, and I've always loved how open-minded and compassionate they are. Unfortunately, it feels like they're parroting their parents more now. I see a lot of hate toward our immigrant, LGBTQ+, and POC students."
"Kids actively telling other kids to 'go back to their own country.' I had a girl tell her previous best friend, 'When they build the wall, I'll never see you again; Dad says that's a good thing.' It's so sad. Parents are filling their children with hate over politics."
—Anonymous
2."For me, the biggest issue has become that the word 'empathy' is now political. Asking a student to empathize with a character (or another classmate) is considered something from the left. It's crazy."
—Anonymous
3."I had a point in my room where I had to ban all political attire and conversation due to the heavy Republican influence being too distracting and causing dispiritedness in my room."
"I had a student wearing an 'I'm voting for the convicted felon' shirt and MAGA hats, and even had students telling other students that they were 'going to hell' if they didn't vote for their candidate. I understand supporting a candidate, but all of that together was just too much."
—Anonymous
4."I was accused of pushing a 'woke' agenda because I had a rainbow-colored Hawaiian lei hanging off my desk."
"It was Hawaiian dress-up day, and it was given to me by the office so I could participate. A student took a picture of it and posted it on social media as a joke, using just enough information to identify me and my school. I had to be pulled off the website and issued a new work phone number. I'm leaving teaching at the end of this year."
—Anonymous
5."My boyfriend is a middle school teacher, and he said the day after the election, a student was crying in his class because he was afraid of his mother being deported."
"He has an Oscar the Grouch plush that he puts on his desk if he is in a bad mood, and multiple kids asked why he was upset, to which he replied, 'I can't tell you, but it's due to recent events.' Some kids were smart enough to realize it was about the election and were complaining loudly that they couldn't believe the 'orange man' won. A lot of teachers were wearing black, and it was a very somber mood. One of his teacher's friends was wearing sunglasses to hide that she was crying."
—Mari
6."I teach English as a second language in Philly. Most of my K–eighth-grade students are immigrants; many arrived in the US in the last four years. My older students and alumni in high school have been very stressed out, even since before the election."
"Going to school every day, getting good grades, and learning English quickly have always been a big priority for them for the sake of helping their families in the future. But now, many of them are terrified and overwhelmed by this new fear that they carry with them every day, regardless of their immigration status. They have so many questions and are so worried, but they still come to school each day and work their asses off as everyone expects them to. I adore them and their families, but this is such a heavy burden for children to be forced to carry every day."
—Anonymous
7."I work in a red state. Parents campaigned against our 'woke' SEL (Social Emotional Learning) curriculum. We stopped calling it SEL and sent the exact same curriculum to the parents for approval. Not a single parent had an issue with the content as soon as it wasn't called SEL anymore. We didn't change a single thing in the curriculum."
—Anonymous
8."I teach juniors and seniors in a private high school. They barely talk about politics. The kids who were able to vote said it was depressing that their options were Biden, then Harris, and Trump. They are all so burnt out with the political culture that they don't even engage. I try to encourage them to focus on local politics and get involved in their communities."
9."We can't offer AP psychology right now because we can't get a textbook approved under my state's new book bans."
"All psychology textbooks talk about physical development, and all of that has been deemed 'obscene.' We can't offer AP without a textbook, so no AP psychology until we can get the book through the appeals process."
—Anonymous
10."Every year we get legislators that make new laws for the classroom who haven’t ever stepped foot in a classroom or spoken to an educator. Most of these laws are virtue signaling and are unenforceable, but we as educators have to try and find and make it work."
"For example, my state has a law that requires every classroom to say the Pledge of Allegiance at the beginning of the day. The pledge can't be part of a school-wide announcement and must be led by a student volunteer. I work in a self-contained unit in a high school with students who have disabilities (who are unable to use the restroom and in diapers). Tell me how I'm supposed to get a student volunteer to say the pledge every day when most of my students are nonverbal. There are no exceptions to this law, so we just break the law every day, which is not what I want to do."
—Anonymous
11."I work at a high school, and we have a lot more bullying based on race and gender. We have male students yelling at female students, 'My body, my choice,' and we have other students telling our non-white kids, 'You’re about to be deported, so I don’t know why you are here.' We address these things as much as we can, but it’s become so pervasive that it’s hard to combat every time kids say that."
"We've had kids recording students that come into the bathroom and question if they 'belong' in that bathroom. These kids have severe consequences for recording in the bathroom, but their parents feel their behavior is justified. Not that this matters, but the four times this has happened this year, the students being questioned were using the bathroom that matched their gender assigned at birth. Mostly, it's been girls who are more what we used to call tomboys, but it's happened to boys, too. We've had parents openly questioning the gender of girls on our sports teams because they look 'too masculine.' None of our student-athletes are transgender."
—Anonymous
12."I'm a high school social worker. I have parents pulling kids out of school because they have fears of being deported."
"Some of these families have mixed citizenship status; some are refugees, some are undocumented, and some are here on a visa or other temporary status. Most of the time, these kids are being put to work instead of being in school, and I can't even argue at this point that schools will be safe for kids when our governor has openly supported ICE coming into schools."
—Anonymous
13."I teach history in a suburban New Jersey private school. I had to totally shut down any discussion of the election, other than to encourage my students to actually vote when they turn 18 because I simply could not remain calm, objective, and dispassionate. The day after the election, I had a student offer me what looked like a $100 bill, but it had Trump's face on the front and 'F--K BIDEN' on the back."
"I was so shocked that I just walked away when I should have confiscated it and reported her to the office. My biggest disappointment was that these kids so often just parrot back whatever their parents say at home with no ability to, or interest in, critically analyzing what's coming out of their mouths."
—Anonymous
14."This year, five schools closed in my school district due to the lack of funding from the state government and inflation. Schools in other districts around the area have closed as well. The state government is holding back on funding for public schools because they want to push more for vouchers of school choice."
—Anonymous
And finally...
15."Six-year-olds crying because they are scared that they will be 'kicked out of their home and sent to live in a bad place because Trump hates brown people.'"
"They don't understand documentation or differentiate between ethnicity. It's not just children of Mexican or Central American descent. It's also children born here that are anything but white. This was said by a child of Indian descent. They just see hatred of people who have dark skin and are terrified. It's heartbreaking."
—Anonymous
Let us know your thoughts in the comments below.
Responses have been edited for length/clarity.
