Parent Voice: The Gifts Teachers Really Appreciate

During the school year, my daughter spends more waking hours with her teacher than with me. This is the woman who helped her learn how to read, who hugged her calm the day she fell down the stairs, who wrapped up her lost tooth lovingly in tissue paper and sent it home with a note. So when Teacher Appreciation Week comes, I'd really like to spoil my daughter's teacher.

But how? I've seen her desk. It's as cluttered with tsotchkes as a desk can be. She has a tea mug with her face on it. She has a doorstop in the shape of a frog. She has a key ring that's a big apple. I suspect that former students gifted her with each of these objects, and I suspect that at home she has shelves and tables and closets just full of things she keeps out of guilt.

So if I celebrated Teacher Appreciation Week by giving her an object, I'd be doing the exact opposite of what I wanted to do. I'd be handing her an obligation and a bother instead of a treat.

Hoping to avoid that, I polled the teachers that I know to ask them what, if anything, they appreciated.