by Lesley Roper

Created on: March 20, 2007   Last Updated: February 24, 2010

When my children were in grammar school we were faced with the same dilemma year after year, "What do we buy the teacher for Christmas?". This quandary would lead to hours of pacing the malls looking for that perfect teacher gift.

I spent a lot of time assisting in my children's classes and was usually there on the occasions when the teacher opened her gifts from her students. I always found this quite amusing as I was sure that the teacher practiced her fake smile and enthusiastic "Oh, it's beautiful, thank you so much", the previous evening. I used to admire the teachers, as I'm sure it wasn't always an easy task putting on a smile and coming up with the appropriate comments to say about the "lovely" gifts. The gifts ranged in value and in order that the children felt equally proud of their gifts the teacher was careful to make a fuss over every gift.

I continued year after year buying gifts for the teachers and would have continued doing the same thing if not for this once incident. This particular day stands out clearly in my mind. It was right after the class Christmas party and the teacher had finished opening her gifts. As she and I walked side-by-side down the corridor she told me that she enjoyed all the little gifts that she received from her students. When I replied, "Oh, that's great", she laughed and whispered something to me that left me staring at her in complete disbelief!

She told me that she used all the gifts that she got from the children for her stocking stuffers for her large family. She loved the idea that it saved her time and money. Now it's not as though I was totally shocked by this, knowing that the teachers would not possibly be able to use all the gifts that they received from the children. It was just the way in which the teacher divulged this information to me, with a smirk on her face, feeling quite proud of this little secret that she had. I felt disgusted, and decided right then and there that the following year I would have to come up with a new approach to the gift giving for the teachers.

Now having said this, it did not make things any easier when it came time again to think of a gift for the teachers. I did not tell my children about my conversation with their teacher so therefore they naturally wanted to buy a gift as we always had in previous years. I told my children that I thought we should do something different from what we had always done before. We came up with a compromise, which seemed to make everyone happy. We would buy something for the classroom that everyone could enjoy like puzzles, pictures, games or whatever my children chose. We would label the gift - To: Mrs. Smith and the whole class! We usually included treats for the class as well and it seemed to be very well received by everyone.

There are many teachers who are genuine and truly appreciate all the gifts given to them by the children. There are also a select few who don't see beyond the gift itself but the fact that that particular child wants to make their teacher happy and wants to feel proud of the gift that they have given. After all it's not really about the teacher; it's about all children feeling good about themselves and having self-esteem.

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