appreciate

The author, reading Uri Shulevitz’s The Treasure to a group of kindergarteners when he worked as a middle school principal.

“I’m not a teacher, but an awakener.” Robert Frost

With Teacher Appreciation Week approaching, Alexandra Ballard recently identified “The 27 Best Gifts for Teachers”. It’s a clever list, rooted in her experience as a teacher and thoughtful consideration of items that efficiently and with style enhance a classroom. The article sparked some reminiscing about my own experience encountering those outpourings (or dribbles) of love and gratitude from families, but it also got me thinking about what the practice tells us — not just about life in schools but about how community is constructed. A gift is, for both its giver and its receiver, first and foremost an act of generosity, a tangible demonstration of care, concern, or gratitude, but beyond this the meaning and impact for givers (families) diverges rather sharply from the meaning for receivers (educators).

In the schools where I worked, most families were, indeed, pretty independently generous — the piles of gifts on teachers’ desks and at administrators’ doors on the day before winter break were always impressive! Over the years, I received everything from a tub of homemade bath scrub and every possible iteration of holiday baking to truly exorbitant gift cards and bottles of ridiculously nice liquor. I didn’t pay for coffee for about five years, thanks to the steady flow of Starbucks cards onto my desk.

My favorite gift, though, arrived in the hands of a very shy 6th grader when I was a middle school principal. When this kid (who had said maybe five words to me since she first walked into the school) uttered my name in the hallway, I turned around to see her holding a pomegranate. She handed it to me, despite the laptop and coffee mug I was already juggling, saying flatly and quickly, “Thisisforyou.” By the time I could balance the fruit on my laptop and look up to say thank you, she was already half-way down the hall. Later that day, her mother explained that the student planned to leave it in my office so she didn’t have to talk to me. My eyes welled as I realized that the run-by-fruiting that started my day was an incredible act of courage and evidence that I’d made her feel safe enough to make momentary eye contact and drop a pomegranate in my hands.

My second favorite came from the parents of a 7th grader who left a gift bag under my desk. No wrapping paper, no tissue — just a small kit to make a couple of gin & tonics with a note saying Thank you. “These people,” I thought, “they get it.” My third? A framed pencil sketch (the kind you’d get from a sidewalk portraitist in a touristy district) of Madonna from a 12th grader, which immediately confirmed for me that integrating Madonna into the curriculum was a good idea.

Families in each of my schools put in considerable effort for teacher appreciation events. At one, families coordinated a holiday dessert bazaar for faculty and staff. For a few days, families would drop off platters of baked goods, and on the big day we’d be invited to fill a box with cookies to our hearts’ content. On the way out, they’d give us a gift — one year a blanket, another year a cheese board. “Isn’t it wonderful?” a colleague said to me during my first dessert bazaar, but all I could think was, “This is it?” A parent handed me a box and, with an overly-broad smile, said “Help yourself! And merr…happy holidays!” I was mostly vegan at that time, and only a few platters were labeled. When I asked about what might be dairy- and egg-free, the parent’s smile contracted and, almost teary, she said, “I’m so sorry. I don’t know.” The next year, there were labels (but only one plate void of eggs and dairy).

At another school, families coordinated an annual catered lunch for the faculty & staff — but it couldn’t just be lunch. Each year, we were, um, “treated” to a themed event. One year it was all about Paris, and while waiting in line for food, I got to hear all about one parent’s recent trip to Paris with her family. The trip lasted three days beyond the school’s break, “but we couldn’t go all that way for just a week.” Besides, she assured me, perhaps sensing my concern about missed schooldays, she reached out to all of her students’ teachers to arrange specialized assignments and to schedule time for extra help when they returned. “I’m just so glad the girls were immersed in French for a couple of weeks” (even though they both were learning Spanish).

A couple of years later, the luncheon was inspired by classic Hollywood (well, as “classic Hollywood” as Party City can give). Because nothing says teacher appreciation like classic Hollywood. Before getting in line for food, we were encouraged to pose with props for photos, given treats to take back to our hovels, er, classrooms, and coerced into picking a mystery bag. “Some of them have very special prizes,” one of our hosts explained to me. Because of the photo booth, the mystery bags, the crammed lunch line, and the constant doting of volunteers, there wasn’t much time to actually eat. For those of us who needed 20 minutes of quiet to recharge before the next class or meeting, it was an onslaught of extraversion. When I sat down with a handful of colleagues, we compared the prizes we’d won. I was pretty happy about my $25 Starbucks card, especially compared to one colleague’s $10 Starbucks card. But we were both stunned by the $250 Amazon card that another pulled out of her bag.

In each case, volunteers strove to give us something fun and special but ended up reinforcing the inequities that characterize independent schools. I always felt like part of the downstairs staff at Downton Abbey, invited upstairs for the Christmas servants’ ball, and left wondering, Why didn’t they just pool all the funds for this crap and give us cash? More poignantly, though, these earnest and heartfelt efforts revealed that families did not understand the work and lives of educators. I hate to look a gift horse in the mouth, especially because these families were so earnestly engaged in doing nice things, but one special meal, one box of cookies, even one bottle of gin for underpaid and underappreciated professionals who have devoted their career to giving other people’s children a steady path to adulthood, informed citizenship, and career readiness?

Ballard recommends a variety of classroom accessories that teachers would want in their classrooms, and I appreciate both her aesthetic and insight but disagree on principle. See, teachers shouldn’t depend on the pittances of families to stock their classrooms; schools should pay for (and subsequently be responsible for replacing) any and all classroom supplies. After all they’ve done for your kid, giving a teacher something like a set of colorful bowls to brighten up a classroom is like a husband giving his wife a new washer & dryer upon completing her MBA. It’s important to consider the unintended messages that gifts communicate to their recipients. Instead of risking a message like, “Merry Christmas, Downton staff,” what would communicate, “We respect your effort and expertise, and we’re grateful for the ways you’ve impacted my kid”? I’m glad you asked. Here are Here are my top 12 recommendations of gifts for Teacher Appreciation Week:

1. Vote. Whether your kids are in public or private school, elect representatives and school boards who demonstrate respect for the expertise of teachers and trust for them to create student-centered schools.
2. Pressure your local and federal representatives to prioritize education, both in rhetoric and in budgeting. Get your local district to double down on professional development for educators, especially in the first few years of teaching; to triple down on equity in the workplace, in communities’ access to resources, and in salary for educators; and to quadruple down on ensuring equity in access to education and developing programs that focus on building the skills that informed citizens need (not just testing, passing, and failing cogs in the capitalist machine).
3. If you must gift, don’t gift crap. Make it cash. Make a donation in their name to an organization that resonates with the teacher’s values. Make it a gift card to something they’ll actually use, like a local book or grocery store. Make it a big box of Kleenex (seriously, do you know how many teachers get home at the end of the day and just weep?). Do NOT give them food unless you KNOW they and anyone they live with can eat it. If you know they drink, make it booze.
4. Say ‘thank you,’ and mean it. A short, thoughtful note from your student and you is plenty. Don’t write platitudes or inauthentic praise, and don’t tell your kids what to write. Trust: the teacher will know who authored it. If your kid has a tough relationship with the teacher, say ‘thank you very much’ and double whatever else you intend to drop off. Make it a $20 Starbucks card instead of $10. Make it two bottles of bourbon.
5. Stop emailing your kids’ teachers after humane working hours. Yes, they’re up and online, but that’s because they’re prepping for tomorrow, not because they’re holding office hours to absorb your complaints. If you have teachers’ personal numbers, don’t text them unless it’s an emergency. A 10pm text asking for a 7:15am meeting should not be honored; it should be punished.
6. Leave them alone. When you see teachers and administrators in the wild (at the grocery store, at a soccer game, at a restaurant, on social media), say ‘hello,’ and leave them alone. Unless you’re actually friends, respect and maintain those boundaries. Unless it’s legitimate professional networking, do not try to connect with them on social media. Just…don’t. Let them live their life in the physical and virtual worlds.
7. Stop extending vacations. Vacations are designated on the school’s calendar and generally published with plenty of time to book your ticket to the Amalfi coast. Such absences are a pain in the ass for teachers, but they’re directly damaging to your kids’ learning. You did not hire a private tutor to provide bespoke homework plans; you enrolled in a program designed for community-based, in-person learning. You know, a school.
8. Stop bringing your kids to school when they’re sick. If the experience of the pandemic hasn’t demonstrated the fragility of a community’s immune system to you, I don’t know what could get the message through. Kids don’t learn well when they’re sick, but more importantly your confidence (probably without a medical degree) that the kid’s fine risks the health of every person in the building, especially teachers.
9. Stop pretending you’re the only one who knows your kids. Your teachers don’t know them better or worse — just differently from you. Be grateful that teachers have a different perspective to share, that they can help you get a fuller and clearer picture of your kids’ gifts and limitations, of the different facets of their personalities that don’t get invited out at home.
10. Stop assuming that administrators share or will conform to your parenting values and styles. They are juggling the values and experiences of a variety of people, but their job is rooted in a particular mission, which may or may not align with your family philosophy. The responsibility to accommodate isn’t on the shoulders of teachers and administrators; it’s your job to figure that out ahead of time. Oh, and hey, by the way, your kid isn’t always right, the victim, and/or telling you the whole truth.
11. Stop expecting administrators to teach you how to parent. We can teach you how to support your kids’ learning. We can help you navigate the twists and turns of child and adolescent development. We can invite you to support the school community and show you where your contributions would make the biggest impact. But we can’t teach you how to be parents.
12. And if you can’t commit to these, the best way to demonstrate your appreciation of your kids’ educators is to consider homeschooling. I didn’t do two master’s degrees to babysit your children while you’re at yoga.