Put Down That Apple Tchotchke!

The holidays are once again upon us and the season’s most important decision is at hand. What do we get our children’s teachers for holiday presents? After all, they are with our children for more waking hours during the day than we are. They warmly greet our children every weekday morning, they teach our darlings just about everything they’ll need to know to be successful in life, and they don’t lose their cool when someone accidentally spills glue on the floor. Teachers are VIPs and they deserve the best.

I was once a teacher myself and I received my share of tchotchkes with apples painted, sewn, and stapled onto them. As a parent, I’ve tried to steer clear of these types of gifts, but I still wonder every holiday season, “What do the teachers REALLY want?” I decided to go straight to the source and ask them.

According to my (not scientific at all) poll of some friends who happen to be teachers, the number one item on their gift wish list is a gift card. Running a close second is a bottle of wine. (These are people after my own heart, I tell you.) They also love receiving handmade cards and handwritten notes, and many of them keep these heartfelt and easy-to-store mementos for years.

What do they not want? Please, no more jewelry, soap, candles, stationery, mugs or apple-themed dust-catchers. While the sentiment and thought is lovely, the teachers either already have plenty of them or they’re allergic to them.

More Ideas

You must check out the Tech Savvy Mama blog, written by Leticia who is a classroom teacher and technology consultant for a large public school system in the DC Metro Area. She has some absolutely fabulous ideas for gifts that teachers want and need.

If I have taught you anything, please don’t give your child’s teacher a mug!
- Leticia, Tech Savvy Mama

Take a look at Edutopia’s 2009 Guide to Holiday Gifts for Teachers, which gives the results of a poll of the Edutopia community of teachers to find out what they wanted. (Their number one gift was also gift certificates!)

Last but definitely not least is an insightful article, Beyond Gift Cards: A Teacher’s Holiday Wish List, written for the Washington Post by Zahra, a teacher at Bryant Woods Montessori School in Columbia, MD.

My Most Memorable Teacher Gift

Right before morning recess on the last day of school before the winter holiday break, a first grader named Stevie walked up to my desk with both hands behind his back and a sly grin on his face. This was my first year as a classroom teacher, and my desk was piled high with gifts from my students and their families. Stevie, however, hadn’t yet given me a gift. How did I know that he hadn’t? Because as he handed me an orange he said, “Here’s your present. I hope you like it.”

I expressed pure delight at receiving that juicy, citrus-y, cold-and-flu-fighting orb of joy, and I placed it at the top of my stack of gifts, right in the place of honor that it deserved. Stevie became very quiet and still. He looked at the orange, he looked at me, and then he looked back at the orange once more. Then he said, “Hey, can I have that orange back now? It’s for my lunch.”

Special thanks goes to Lisa J., Jen E., Jen B., and Lori V. for their input on this article.  If you’d like to see what a dynamic kindergarten environment looks like, head on over to Lisa J.’s class blog. And to see what happens in a jumpin’ prekindergarten class, check out Lori V.’s class blog.