New York: As older demonstrators across the United States protest the election of Donald Trump, American teachers and school pupils are facing challenges in dealing with an incoming president who built a campaign often branded as sexist, racist and bullying.

Harassment in schools and on university campuses across the country has been widely reported over the past week while in New York City, a part of the country built on tolerance and diversity, school teachers told Fairfax Media the election of Donald Trump had sparked unprecedented discussion and concern from students of all age ranges.

'I hope you will change': a primary school student in New York hopes President-elect Trump will be a better person.

"When Obama was running for president you could feel excitement but this election came into the school in a different way," said Anna Allanbrook, principal of Brooklyn New School, a public elementary school in New York City.

"Things Trump would say were so outrageous that children would somehow hear it and repeat it – almost fascinated that an adult could say something like that and get away with it. They were struck by his language and behaviour, that there was this person in the campaign who would say things that they knew to be inappropriate."