Accidental Blogger

If you do a google search for Holiday gift giving etiquette, several advice columns pop up. Most refer to gift exchange between colleagues, boss – employee, janitorial and other service staff. None of them lays out the ground rules for gifts that students may give to their teachers.

In India as far as I know, there is no custom of students giving any significant gifts to their teachers. The school I attended had strict rules against it. We were permitted to give Christmas and New Year cards, personal art work and sometimes a book to our teachers. At the end of the year some students would bring the coming year’s calendar. Occasionally a bouquet of gladioli, roses or other seasonal flowers would appear in the class room – always from the backyard of someone’s home and never professional floral arrangements. Those offerings remained in the classroom – the flowers in vases and the calendars on the wall. The teachers never took them home. The schools on the other hand, would periodically distribute food and prizes among the student body on special occasions like annual Sports Day or Founder’s Day. When I became a teacher, the same rules applied.

When my kids began attending school in the US, I learned that it was customary, though not required, to present one’s homeroom teacher with a small gift around Christmas time, especially during the elementary school years. I consulted the parents of my children’s friends for guidelines regarding the price tag and  nature of the gifts that were deemed acceptable. It wasn’t terribly difficult but it still made me a little uncomfortable to go shopping for a "teacher’s gift" which usually amounted to a cute trifle. (I later started the practice of loading up on pretty Indian handicraft items during my trips to India to give as Christmas gifts to teachers. They looked much nicer than the items I found in area discount stores).  I felt a bit sorry for the teachers who would have to find a place in their homes every December for a small hill of junk given lovingly by a classroom full of eager-to-please kids and then have to write Thank You notes to each. But all said and done, it was not such a bad thing as a gesture of appreciation. So, when I read the following article in Tuesday’s Houston Chronicle about the escalating level of gift giving in area schools, it made me cringe. As expected, the affluent districts are outdoing each other in the lavishness of the gifts while teachers in inner city schools and other less prosperous districts continue to collect Christmas coffee mugs.

Is Santa being too good to some teachers?
Expensive gifts and ‘wish lists’ raise the question for some schools

Ahh, the familiar parade of holiday gift mugs.

Wendy Sides, a former elementary school teacher, remembers them well. Bow-rapped, often packed with candy, these mugs have long been a staple in holiday giving among the K-to-5 set.

So when Sides, who never drank coffee, began raising kids of her own, she decided the annual teacher gift-giving routine needed an upgrade. Her wish list survey, handed out to her sons’ teachers at River Oaks Elementary each school year, quizzes them on everything from hobbies to favorite restaurants. Parents get copies of the answers and, come holiday time, go to work.

Such surveys — akin to bridal registries — are popping up in many elementary schools, both public and private. Parents in the Fort Bend school district say they’ve used them. And Annette Bieda, kindergarten teacher at Frost Elementary in the Lamar Consolidated School District, said her campus keeps a book of gift-idea surveys on file for parents.

"I really don’t get the mugs anymore," said the former HISD teacher.

But the trend, while an aid to parents, plays a role in what some see as an extravagant turn in the holiday gift tradition. In the area’s more affluent public schools, parents have handed out everything from spa gift certificates to gold rings, teachers say. The change is nice for those who have worked for years in the classroom but has some administrators squirming.

In Katy, a handful of elementary schools now have gift guidelines, including limits on who can collect money for presents and recommendations that contributions be kept to a "reasonable amount." And earlier this month, the Fort Bend school district warned all employees against accepting anything worth more than $50.

"Parents and others have been known to offer some extravagant gifts, but accepting such gifts would violate Texas law," district lawyers wrote in an e-mail sent to all staff members.

Not an inner-city problem

Of the five largest districts in the area, Fort Bend is the only one to enforce restrictions on how much parents spend on Christmas cheer. In Houston ISD, district rules limit gifts for administrative employees and ban all workers from accepting gifts intended as bribes. But principals from many district schools see little point in restricting holiday gifts for teachers.

"We have never put out any (rules) about extravagant gifts," said Carolyn Matthews, principal at HISD’s Elrod Elementary School. "Our children are inner-city students, so that is really not done."

Instead, Matthews said, many kids bring homemade cards, dollar-store trinkets, coffee mugs or "a hug, which is one of the greatest gifts we can get."

Teacher Ellen Stupak-Shaw, now at HISD’s Helms Elementary School, said the differences in rich and poor schools are easy to spot come holiday season. Fellow teachers who left Helms for more affluent schools often call her afterward, in shock, when the gifts start coming in.

"It’s amazing to see how the other half lives," she said.

But Stupak-Shaw says for most teachers, gifts have always been more about intentions of the student than a price tag. Over the years, she’s received everything from scented oils to glass figurines to a pre-wrapped present that one little boy swiped from beneath his family’s Christmas tree.

Rewarding dedication

"I had to track them down over the holidays to give it back," she said. "He just wanted to bring me something."

It is this kind of dedication that parents want to reward through their gifts, Sides said. Since she first drafted her teacher wish list three years ago, the mother of two has passed on several copies to parents with kids in other grades.

"I just don’t think they get paid enough," Sides said. "Helping them with their entertainment is a good way to supplement their income."

By last week, one River Oaks mom had already announced that she was getting a teacher the CD player on her wish list, Sides said. Last Christmas, a bunch of parents in Sides’ older son’s class went in together to buy a $300 Kitchenaid mixer for his teacher. The idea came from a wish list, which includes one section that asks what the teacher would want if money weren’t a factor. That teacher listed the mixer.

"She was jumping up and down she was so excited," Sides said.

Gift registry? Wish list? Kitchenaid mixer? And this statement :"I just don’t think they get paid enough," Sides said. "Helping them with their entertainment is a good way to supplement their income."

What’s going on? I believe the parents are pooling their cash to buy a large gift instead of individual small items. But still. If my students had individually or collectively given me a gold ring, a spa certificate or a mixer, I would have been squirming in embarrassment and not jumping up and down with joy! Also, I wouldn’t have accepted any of them. If parents feel sorry for the "poor" teachers who can’t afford "Christmas entertainment" on the salary they make for educating their kids, I suggest that they petition their legislators to raise teachers’ salaries, allow teachers to unionize and give them the power to bargain collectively for decent pay scales instead of having to depend on the seasonal generosity of well meaning but misguided parents for kitchen appliances.  Keep student-teacher gift giving small and simple.