A friend of mine recently blogged about the family cookbook she made–you know, where you upload images to a website and they print and bind the book for you? She put a whole bunch of favorite family recipes in with photos of the food and of her family members with the food. It’s a nice cookbook, the sort of thing you’d give as gifts to your family members, and she is a pretty good cook.
She also says she’s going to give them to her kids’ teachers for end-of-year gifts. They cost about $20 to produce. I’m thinking this is too personal a gift–I mean, no matter how much you like the kid do you really want their family cookbook for the next 10 years or so?
I used to work in a classroom and the gifts were not usually that large or personal, unless they were thank-you notes from the kids–which obviously were best. And I was working in a very wealthy community, but I don’t think they were that expensive either (though I was but a lowly TA, so things for the actual teacher probably cost more than that). I think I would have been quite uncomfortable with such a gift.
So, if you’re a teacher and one of your students’ parents hands you this, how would you feel? Happy or kind of uncomfortable? Or just grateful they didn’t scream at you about how you didn’t give li’l Snowflake Susie an A?
I would be grateful for any sort of gift. There probably wouldn’t be that many recipes in it that I would actually make, but I would still try at least one or two that seem easy to make and relatively healthy. Who knows, maybe I’d get a new staple dish out of it.
I would thank them politely, and then probably use it to prop up a wobbly table or something. And I would think it was weird as hell. But they’d never know I thought that.
Her favorite gifts from students (not that they are necessary) are thank you notes, pictures of the kid, something that the child had a hand in making and gift cards.
As someone who’s helped her tote stuff home at Christmas break, I would say that the cookbook is a bit strange, but not the strangest gift I’ve helped her carry out to the car.
My wife’s a teacher’s aide, and has seen piles of “stuff” given to teachers, and many don’t need more “stuff”. Our standard gift has been movie gift certificates, something they can enjoy but don’t have to find a place for.
Let’s assume that the teacher has 15 students in the class. Even if this isn’t a trendy idea that a majority of parents do, that’s a couple of cookbooks a year. Frankly, that’s a lot of wasted paper and space.
I think that even a small gift card would be far more welcome. I know that many teachers spent their own money on classroom supplies.
Yeah, gift cards and small things are more what I was thinking would be good. I just wondered if maybe I was weird for thinking that’s kind of over-the-top. Oh well, I’m sure the teachers are used to her. (She’s a teacher herself, though at home now. But she’s an art teacher and loves projects!)
I agree. I appreciate the sentiment of offering the teacher a gift, and we all like to feel appreciated, but I just don’t need any more crap in my life. Some sort of consumable, like a box of chocolates, a bottle of wine or some sort of special toiletries, tends to go down better with me. Things I don’t have to either find a space for in my already sadly overstuffed home, or feel bad about when I sell them at a car boot sale. Specifically this gift I would find weirdly personal and wouldn’t appreciate that much. Yeah, it’s homemade, but not really: not like they baked me a cake or drew me a card. It’s personal to them, not to me. I wouldn’t find it appropriate.
Of course, working in a place where 60% of my students are below the official poverty line, I don’t get so many gifts these days…
I know I am supposed to like thank you notes and homemade gifts, and I do, but my absolute favorite gifts–the ones I can still remember–are the ones that showed the student , or parent noticed ME. Learning is student centered. It has to be. I spend all of my time in my kids’ heads, showing them how they think and suggesting ways they can refine that process. Those gifts that showed they noticed me as a person inside all that–even if it’s just “She drinks tea all day, I’ll get her some tea”–really make me feel good.
As far as the cookbook goes, it would seem a little weird and self-absorbed–like the child who made me a mini-scrap book of her journal entries about Walden. It took a lot of work, and it was nice, but I’ve never read the entries.
My least favorite thing is the scholarship donation in my name. I mean, their kids are the ones that apply for/win the scholarships! I am not interested in paying for them to go to college–I do my part towards getting them there already. It just seems really circular.
I am not a teacher, but I’ve heard, again and again, that teachers get inundated with stuff for Christmas, end of year, etc.
I try to either give a consumable (a gift card to the local Panera Bread, for example) or of the kinds of classroom supplies that I know the teacher often ends up paying for out of her own pocket (this would depend on grade; for 4th, which is where my daughter is now, it would be lined notebook paper, pencils, colored pencils, glue, etc.
I also always try to get my daughter to write a note to each teacher saying what she thought was special about the teacher, what she appreciated, stuff like that. I think they like that stuff way more than yet another coffee cup with an apple on it or something, or something they’ll never use, like a cookbook.
When I do give food, it’s meant for immediate (or close to) consumption: home-made hot chocolate mix for Christmas, raisin and pear tea bread, etc.
A cookbook may not be the strangest thing she’s ever received, but it certainly does strike me as odd!
I think this could be a great gift for a teacher, with a little tweaking. Instead of a cookbook, have each child in the class contribute a picture and a note to the teacher, put them all together in one book, along with pictures of class activities, field trips, etc. One book to remember one year! All you need is one parent to cordinate and do all the work.
Actually, we sort of did this for a band/orchestra teacher when our daughter was in junior high. We went to all the performances, got pictures of all the kids (with their instruments) and pics of the performances. We also got group pics of the kids and teacher around the various trophies. We put these pics in a photo album, and gave it to the teacher when Lisa graduated from middle school. He was either thrilled or a pretty good actor. He said that most parents didn’t even bother to show up, much less take pictures.
Nope, she’s got a zillion relatives. She has also offered to print additional copies for anyone who wants to pay for them, since she’s doing another order. She really is a great person and I like her just fine, but she may have gotten a little overexcited about this project.
I’d like it, if it was just one kid. It’d be something different, anyway - when Teachers’ Day rolls around I get buried under a small avalanche of hand lotion and body wash.
(She’s a teacher herself, though at home now. But she’s an art teacher and loves projects!)