Seriously? You’ve Got Nothing Better to Teach Your Students?!

family, lessons learned, politics, social justice, Teaching and Education, United States 2 Minutes


My wife let me know about this outrageous behavior.

A preschool teacher in Norco, California was caught on film leading a political chant in which the 4 and 5-year-old students were calling for President Joe Biden to leave office.

The video lasts only about eight seconds. You can hear a teacher asking the students, “Who’s our President.” The students then respond in unison, “Biden!” The teacher then asks the students “What do we want to do with him?” and the students respond twice, “We want him out!”

The video was posted on a school messaging app that is used to communicate with parents, and was removed about three hours after it was first posted. In its place, a school administrator left a message for the families to whom the video was sent:

“We use Brightwheel as a parent communication app to share about your child’s day and activities. Earlier today a video was posted that has since been deleted as it did not share our school and church philosophy of honoring and respecting authority including those in government positions. We are sorry for any misunderstanding this could of (sic) created. With courtesy towards the families of our campus and the children in the classroom I am asking you to please not share with others or post the video on any social media platform.”

Dr. Tyrone Howard, a professor of education at UCLA, said he doesn’t feel what was shown in the video is appropriate behavior by the teacher:

“I’ve always believed the role of teachers is not to indoctrinate students about what to think,. “It’s to help develop critical thinking skills so students can make their own decisions. I know private schools operate under a different set of guidelines and procedures. But I don’t know even in a private domain that those leadership officials would want teachers telling their students what to think about a particular political figure.”

In my opinion, this teacher’s behavior is completely unacceptable. While I am sure the students have no idea of the meaning of what they are chanting, it still does not make it right to teach them to chant such things.

By the way, I think most readers know that I supported Biden during the last election, and that I was not a fan of Trump going all of the way back to when he ran against Hillary Clinton. However, I would have been just as outraged if a teacher pulled such a stunt while Trump was President.

I will admit though, that if I saw a video of a group of preschool children in Russia chanting to get rid of Putin, I’m not sure if I would have a problem.

Does that mean I have a double standard? I don’t know; I hope not.

To me, the differences between the two individuals, Biden and Putin, are clear, and I can justify my reasoning above.

But as always, these are just my opinions. I’d love to hear what your thoughts are…

*image from CNN

Published by Jim Borden

A 60-something guy trying to figure out the world, and his place in it. Happily married for 40-plus years, three wonderful sons. Accounting teacher, fitness enthusiast, blogger, reader.

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86 thoughts on “Seriously? You’ve Got Nothing Better to Teach Your Students?!”

  1. Wow! Yes, very unprofressional of the teacher, no matter who the President is. And that is an interesting question about Putin. I would feel sorry for the teacher for they probably wouldn’t be alive long after Putin found out.

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  2. At least the teacher got it right about who is president. Many of the rabid Fox News crowd would dispute that. It must be tough to support the twice-impeached former president who tried his every trick in the book and then some to openly steal a valid U.S. national election. Maybe they think fantasizing that Trump’s successor is a monster will allow them to forget about Trump’s betrayal of the most fundamental principle of American democracy (elections are decided by the people not the person in power) and they can feel better about themselves for willingly going along with it.

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  3. Hi Jim, it is never appropriate for authority figures to sway the thinking (or behavior) of children. That principle must apply regardless of the individual in question. If it is acceptable to manipulate thinking one way because we believe Putin is on the wrong, then why would it be wrong for Putin/Hitler to indoctrinate children in the classroom? Principles must always be upheld, regardless of our personal views on the circumstances.

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  4. I’m not sure I ever had an administrator tell me not to bring politics into my classroom, but the 5th-grade curriculum for social studies was U.S. History. However, we primarily focused on past history rather than current events. I also was the Student Council Advisor, and we constructed voting booths out of refrigerator boxes. The kids got to vote for Student Council representatives, but they had to register in advance to cast their ballot. I attempted to teach them something about the process.

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    1. I think it’s fine to bring politics into the classroom, particularly about how the process works. It’s when you try to sway the opinion os young minds based on your own personal beliefs that it becomes problematic. Did you have people monitoring those voting booths? 🙂

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      1. A perfect example of this in our area is the logging vs. environmental debate. We don’t have as many lumber mills and sawmills now, but at one time, it was the predominant industry in our area. On the other hand, California is generally a liberal state that is pro-environment. Like most issues, I can see both sides of things, and I felt my role was trying to have the kids understand the opposing viewpoints. By 5th and 6th grade, they already had many of their views established, undoubtedly influenced by their parents. It was an interesting dynamic to hear kids intensely passionate one way or the other. It was like their parents were in the room even though they weren’t.

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      2. that would have been interesting to observe. and I agree that one of the key role of an educator is to expose students to the various sides of an issue, and then let them start forming their own opinion…

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  5. Political indoctrination is being advanced in many western education establishments particularly via history and social history curricula. It’s crept up on us covertly over many years since the Blair era here in the UK, so I have no surprise that an overt show of bias one way or the other suddenly pops up. Do I agree with it? No, the teacher should be suspended and parents consulted on the outcome.

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      1. I went to Junior School during the 1950s, when reading, writing and arithmetic formed the base of early education. Physical education and nature studies played a part too. Then at secondary school education involved only the usual classic subjects, maths, physics, chemistry, history, geography, English language, English literature, French and Latin. Not a hint of politics inside any of those subjects and teachers were real specialists. I wonder what are the core subjects now and why is a child or student so different today in their needs?

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  7. I agree. This is unacceptable especially being that these are impressionable minds. There is nothing wrong in educating children on politics but 4-5 years is a bit too young in my opinion, especially when it is this extreme. Even as a Uni student, I don’t appreciate a class setting where students are not allowed to disagree with the teacher(respectfully of course) , it allows for critical thinking and it prevents systemic bias.

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  9. Seems to me like some people take their politics way too seriously for their own good. I’ll bet that teacher is in a lot of trouble now, and perhaps looking for a new job. Politics can be a very touchy and dangerous ground to venture onto, and in my view it’s more trouble than it’s worth, most of the time.

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    1. that’s why I rarely bring it up, but this just seemed too outrageous to pass up. I don’t know what the fate of the teacher will be, but I would have no problem if she was fired. She can work as an activist instead…

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  10. I so agree with you, this is totally unacceptable and unprofessional behavior on the teacher’s part. I’d say the difference between the two presidents is that our president is not purposely killing innocent people.

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  12. That video is as bad an advert for the school as the spelling in their apology. It is totally wrong for kids to be indoctrinated in such a manner and I hope the teacher has been fired, as they are clearly unsuited to the job.

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  13. I’m not a Biden fan, and still I think that is inappropriate. Respect for the office if nothing else. I also didn’t like when they did it to President Trump. Sigh. Where has civility and patriotism gone?

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  16. Despicable and unprofessional behaviour by a so-called educator. Having said that, i have a feeling that there is a lot of brainwashing tactics by teachers in many classrooms in America. This is in part, how you get generation after generation to side with backward policies and party lines.

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  18. Schools should not be involved in political activism. They’re job should be to build a bedrock of understanding which students can build on to form their own political opinions. So I agree with you that this is disturbing and wrong, even though I believe that Joe Biden is the worst President in my lifetime and that his election was an absolute disaster for our country and the world. I know what you mean about the anti-Putin chants. That probably does make you a hypocrite, but maybe that’s ok. I don’t know what my response would be either.

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    1. at least we agree this is wrong, and not the role of an educator. a teacher can expose a student to the various sides of an issue, and then let the students form their own opinion.

      with regard to Putin, it’s like if you knew in advance how terrible Hitler would be, would it have been ok to start anti-Hitler chants as a teacher. It goes against my belief that teachers should not indoctrinate students, but maybe it could be couched in terms of understanding right from wrong…

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      1. I mean it makes sense if it’s your kids and you may want to teach them about politics but if you’re a teacher you need to keep your political opinions to yourself.

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  22. I could say much here but I won’t except to say I agree with Robbie, Brad and Jacquie to name a few…But I do hope that teacher is now job searching as there was no mention of that in the apology…

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  23. As a teacher I would never impose my beliefs or opinions on children. My job (although I hate that word) is to open minds. I feel sad when students tell me that the president is a bad man, etc. They are voicing their parents. Yet… Putin? If a child asked me, I would probably say that I think he is a bad man and explain why. Evil is not a double standard.

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  25. I remember when my Mom was definitely not a fan of George W. Bush and a big fan of Jon Stewart. So I repeated a clever but insulting Bush bashing quote by Stewart and was shocked when she didn’t laugh. She told me he was President of the United States and he deserved some respect.

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      1. That is the same position I took with my Mom who in fairness was not criticizing me as much as defending her right not to laugh at things I report. I like to think she struggled to keep a poker face on so much of what I had to say. Either that or I have to face being less funny than I imagine.😎

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  27. And that is exactly why I am thankful I don’t go to school these days. I would have been kicked out way too many times if a teacher came close to saying anything like that. Leave kids alone. Let them be kids. They don’t need to know all the adult stuff. I began to study politics when I was probably around 16. Everything that came earlier was other people’s opinions. I saw that as only that. However, back in the day, even if I was indoctrinated, I could not do anything about it. I could not vote, I could not spout hate on social media, I could not start protests, etc. Things were different. Now, you have three-year-olds yelling into the camera what they think about this person or that. Anything for publicity – their parents think. And then the kid grows up and does not have a single brain self to think for themselves objectively.

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