I don’t know if this is common practice, but last year, my youngest daughter did, indeed, receive a gift from her teachers (all of the kids got the same gift): a paperback copy of Olive, The Other Reindeer. It’s still one of her favorite books.
She did not give her teachers gifts this year, as money is very tight this year, but last year, her teachers each got a $5.00 Blockbuster gift card, an envelope of microwave popcorn, and two envelopes of hot cocoa mix.
Too bad about the car, Glee…great story, though!
I just read an article in The New Yorker about the gift giving to teachers–from very wealthy students–and how crazy it can get. It does sound suspiciously like bribery to me (if memory serves, these were private school kids-how do flunk someone whose father just donated the wherewithal for the new gym? things like that).
I have mixed feelings about all this. It’s one thing to get “homegrown” gifts–cookies, and craft projects from younger kids. It’s another to get expensive, ostentatious gifts from kids who maybe aren’t doing so well in the class. That is a gray, shaky area.
I have alot of respect for teachers: it would be hard for me to believe that teachers would be swayed by the monetary value of a gift. Then again, they are people too!
I think a ban is too much, but a guideline is needed. In our district, we do class gifts–and if you can’t contribute, so be it. We usually buy something that will benefit not just the current class, but future ones as well. Examples are a new CD player or boom box, games and puzzles for rainy day activities–things like that.
This is at the elementary level. In middle school and high school–if my kids want to get an individual teacher something, it’s b/c they have a good relationship with that teacher–I see no reason not to foster that.
In Diane Richie’s jaw-dropping support demands from her estranged husband Lionel, one item was for $200,000 each Christmas to buy presents for their children, friends, staff and their children’s teachers. (Of course I’m guessing the teacher gets a Far Side mug while the hunky pool boy gets a Jaguar, but still- this is a woman who recently slashed and cut her monthly support demands to $300,000 per month providing she gets to keep the $40 million house.)
Love your name, btw, Eleanor- probably my favorite song.
I’m a high school senior, and for the first time in my high school career, I love going to school every and learning from these people. It’s amazing. I respect them, and they respect me, and I learn so much. This is also the first year I’ve bothered getting teachers gifts. These guys are wonderful and deserve something. I tried to get each teacher something that I knew they would enjoy (for example, one of my teachers got a Shakespearean Insults calendar- if you knew the guy, you would understand how perfect it is for him) and it didn’t even cross my mind that it might influence their grading.
As a university student, I tend not to give gifts to professors. The ones I’m most likely to want to give gifts to are the ones I’m closest to, and that’s bad juju. My department is fairly small, and I’ve got these same professors for multiple courses. The exception would be the Hillel advisor, but I may have him for a future American history course, so that’s right out.
My issue stems from the fact that, no matter how close a relationship I have with them, they are professors and I am a student. The equalizer here is that we all have kids roughly the same age, so there is some personal connection, but the need to maintain a professional relationship is paramount in my mind.
Robin
Out of curiosity, is the change in environment or in you? Have you changed schools or did you just get really good luck with your teachers this year? (Congratulations on the new enjoyment aspect either way.)
Another teacher weighing in.
I work at a rather expensive private school. I teach a LOT of Asian students, and there is long tradition in many asian cultures that values teachers above many other professions.
So, we have rich asian parents wishing to show their children’s teachers appreciation. It is quite a spectacle, let me tell you. Last year, someone gave a $600 Louis Vuitton purse to the guidance counselor.
I myself, in my first year there last year, received many hundreds of dollars worth of merchandise, including a gift certificate that bought our Christmas main course at the Honeybaked store. This year, I did not make out nearly so well in comparison, although I received some gift cards to a few stores, three ties, and some food, including some homemade butter cookies. I’d chalk this up to the economy, but the fact that some of my colleagues had to make several trips to their cars suggests it had more to do with the fact that I had assigned a term paper that was due just before break (gotta move that back to November next year…)
Most of the teachers I work with, while obviously taken aback by the level of wealth and the generosity, do not let these gifts affect their assessment of the student’s grade, and the parents are comfortable with this.
If you’re in a situation where most people wouldn’t give their teacher a gift unless they expected something in return, I think gift-giving can lead to problems. If, however, you are in a situation where the gift is understood by all to be simply an appreciation of doing the job at all, you don’t have so many problems.
So should we ban gift-giving? Would you be surprised if I said: HELL, NO! 
Same school, but I just got really lucky with the teachers I got this year. That really makes all the difference.
Are you saying some of the teachers do let these gifts affect their assessment of the student’s grade?
Are the parents comfortable with that?
From your post above: don’t you now ‘expect’ a valuable gift’?
Hasn’t this misplaced generosity changed you?
I have discussed the issue openly with my colleagues, and most of the ones I have talked to are careful not to let their grading be swayed by gifts. As for my colleagues whose opinion I have not heard, I can say nothing about their practices.
What the parents are comfortable with is the idea that the gift is a thank you from them for the service of teaching their child, not for the high grades they have received or expect to receive.
My best seventh grade student gave me two crispy homemade butter cookies. They were delicious, and neither her grade nor my high opinion of her as an exemplary student and human being will suffer in the slightest for the small monetary value of the gift. Happy?
What exactly about giving a teacher a holiday gift constitutes “misplaced generosity”? We just mailed a card and some extra cash to the person who drops off our newspaper. My interaction with this person runs so deep I do not even know their gender, but i give a gift in thanks for getting up before the crack each day, and proivding me with the day’s paper.
Late medical problems in my family this year prevented us from getting a gift for our mail carrier. Should I expect worse service for this? Shall I have expectbetter service not having provided a gift?
Teaching is not easy, as you well know. At my previous job as a field trip activity coordinator at a museum, I was mildly responsible for thousands of school-age visitors per day. At my current job, I am responsible for only a hundred, but that responsibility is much heavier, which explains why I come home far more tired now than I did then. I don’t currently have children, but when I do, their teachers will receive gifts from me commensurate with the value I place on the service provided, i.e., if money’s tight and the postal worker and paper deliverer have to go without so the teacher who helps rear my children can go with, that’s how the chips shall fall. Working in an environment where the majority of the parents value education in this way? It certainly has changed me, for the better, IMO.
Reflecting on last year, and my newness to the job then, I felt I had perhaps not challenged my students as much as I would like to have. This year I resolved to change that, and have been more rigorous. Does my comparative lack of holiday gifts reflect on me more as a challenging taskmaster and less as a buddy? Good. Or does it reflect that in a tight economy, parents valued the contributions of the history or science teachers more than mine? Not good. I may never know. I’m not going to get vindictive over it.
I teach at a community college and tend to get lots of Asians as well, simply because they are a large part of the population here. They are the ones most likely to give gifts, and it’s fine with me if they do.