Why is there a president picture in American schools?

34 comments

1. None of my schools had that.

   Schools are SUPER local and mostly teachers decorate their own classrooms, don’t take any one thing from a show too seriously.

2. Teachers generally choose the decor. Could be a Civics or History teacher.

3. Teachers can put pretty much whatever they want on their classroom walls. I never had anything like that unless it was a government or social studies class or something and it was somehow relevant.

4. Because the president is head of state. It’s both a political position, and a position of social dignity. It’d be more like having a picture of the king in the classroom than like having a picture of the prime minister.

   Not every classroom has one, I don’t think it’s very important. It is good that small children at least know who the president is, I suppose. In a TV show it’s probably just a piece of set design to tell you what year it is.

5. As someone who went through the public school system, I have never seen that.

6. Never seen anything like that before. You might find this in a podunk town or something where the politics all run one way. Otherwise, I think this would get a lot parents angry pretty quickly.

   LOL I just realized The Last of Us might have done that to emphasize the time period the show is set in.

   In reality, we don’t really do this.

7. I’ve never seen a presidents picture in my schools.

8. Don’t know, kinda stupid.

9. Who’s in the picture next to Bush? It could be all of the presidents pictures on that wall.

10. No, it’s not in all American schools. Just some. The only place I would think where it would be more would be social studies classrooms.

11. There isn’t unless an individual teacher has an odd taste in decor. That’s a weird detail to include in-universe unless they’re using it as environmental storytelling to subtly show how long the infection’s been going on.

12. In one of my grades one of my teachers had pictures of every president all around the walls. It was a history teacher, so it was semi relevant to the class work

13. Welcome to “setting the scene 101”: in this case it’s to show the time frame the scene is set in.

14. Why is it that everyone someone sees something on TV they assume it’s 100% a fact that applies to all Americans?

    Classroom decorations are pretty much always up to the teachers themselves. I’ve never seen a classroom with just the picture of the current president. Though in middle school my history teacher did have all of the presidents in order on one wall.

15. I haven’t seen that.

    One of my US history teachers did have pictures of every president, including the current one.

16. I don’t recall having a picture of the president in any of my classes.

    I haven’t seen the show but I agree with others in here mentioning that it’s probably used to set the time period.

17. If it takes place in Texas between 1995 and 2000, he was the governor at the time. A history or government teacher might have pictures of various presidents up. Some schools might have a picture of the current governor.

18. My Mom has a poster with all the Presidents up to Obama on one poster in the general decor in the back of her classroom (not a political statement either way she’s just not bought a new one since 2013ish). She teaches middle school Civics, English, and Spanish.

    But that picture is just a way to set a scene.

19. How can people say we are stupid and ask questions like this and see no problem with it?

    TV isn’t real

20. If an office is under jurisdiction of the federal government, they will usually show the picture of the current president. Particularly the military, they’ll display the complete chain of command up to the current president.

    But generally not in schools.

21. It’s not a usual thing to have a president’s picture up anywhere in the US. If a teacher chose to put one up in the classroom, they’re probably teaching politics at an elementary school level, which includes stuff like who the president is, what congress is, and what the justice system is. Or are it’s a high school history classroom, but the other decorations suggest younger kids, probably between 8 and 12.

    In the show, they probably wanted to show era in a slightly subtler way than throwing a big “Welcome To 2001!” sign on the wall or something.

22. If the person next to Bush is Clinton, that’s pretty standard for History/Civics/Government/Social Studies teachers.

23. The setting is in Texas. George W Bush, who was President at the time, is from Texas and was previously the Governor of Texas. Maybe that has something to do with it???

    Edit: My mistake, he was born in CT.

24. That’s not a thing in real life, that’s just the show adding context. The only place I’ve seen where that is a thing is in Federal Government buildings, which seems appropriate.

25. I think this shot is from “The Last of US” and I assume that it was there to reiterate the time period (2003, when Bush was President). This isn’t typical in most American classrooms.

26. None of my classes had pictures of presidents displayed unless we were studying them.

27. None of my schools had those pictures.

28. That’s just television. Never once, in any school I ever went to (many in several states- Navy brat), was there a photo of the president.

29. I’ve taught in public schools for fifteen years and went to public schools before that. I’ve never seen a portrait of the current president displayed on the wall alone.

    I have seen a display with every president. I’ve also seen (when I was in elementary school) displays of Washington and Lincoln’s portraits without the other presidents. But never the current president.

    I guess, along with others here, that it’s there in the scene to make the time period clear.

30. Because he’s the president of our country. We always had the governors picture too. After an election, they’d make a big deal about taking them down and having to wait for the new photo.

31. The only class I can recall with a picture of a U.S.president on display was my 4th grade class. There was a photo of JFK hanging up. Although it was many years after his death, he held a special place in the heart of my teacher back in the mid 70s.

32. My school in Los Angeles has a pic of whatever president was in office with facts and a bio. It helped the kids be active in politics.

33. I went to public schools in several states, as have my children, and I’ve never seen this. It’s just setting the scene for the show you watched. “Welcome to generalized American classroom. Watch as generalized American students learn about math and George Washington and hamburgers in the early 2000’s”

34. There were when I was a kid. We had the pictures of all of them.