Teacher Appreciation Week

I am a teacher. And, I mean like a real teacher. Not a teacher like I stay home with my children, so I teach them stuff at home. I have a master’s degree in Linguistics with emphasis on TESOL. (TESOL means Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages.) I teach grownups who want to learn to speak and use English. I used be a teacher at a community college with a tenure job now I am at home with my beautiful children. Nevertheless, I am still a teacher. I don’t know anything about how it is to be an elementary school teacher. What a day of a Transitional Kindergarten teacher is like with 24 wild 5-year-olds running around in the classroom for four hours five days a week. I don’t know what kind of a workload a 7^th grade teacher has or how much planning a high school teacher must to do to teach a lesson in history. My guess is that all the teachers work very hard and prepare a good amount and spend a lot of energy during the day with the kids that they have in their classroom. I know I did. I was not dealing with kids, but I dealt with adults who sometimes acted like kids. I think that is worse. I have spent countless hours on lesson planning, test making, listening during office hours, grading stacks and stacks of essays, and making sure that everything I need to cover is being accomplished. I know that being a teacher is a lot of hard work.

The idea of teacher appreciation is wonderful. I grew up in Finland. We didn’t have assigned day for a teacher appreciation, but we would bring flowers to our teacher at the end of the school year. Or, we may have remembered our teacher at Christmas. That was a proper way to show your teacher that she or he was appreciated by us and our parents. Last year, we were in New Jersey. In Olivia’s preschool, the parents organized a lunch for the teachers to show them we appreciated them. The parents made the meal and served it and helped in the classrooms while the teachers lunched. I thought that was a nice tradition. Each class also organized a little gift for the teacher. I thought that was appropriate as well.

What I have been hearing this year in anticipation and during the teacher appreciation WEEK bothers me a great deal. A friend of mine told me that in her child’s preschool they were given a list of items for each day of the week to bring for the teacher and the assistant teacher. Monday – teacher’s favorite flower. Tuesday – teacher’s favorite dessert. Wednesday – teacher’s favorite location for a gift card. Thursday – teacher’s favorite color. Friday – teacher’s favorite candy. Another friend mentioned that they also got a similar list. I spoke with another mom who was overwhelmed by the teacher appreciation week because she was the one who had volunteered to take care of it all for her daughter’s first grade class not realizing that the PTA was going to send out a list of things that each class must do for the teacher during the week. This list also was demanding and presumptuous. 

These lists bother me. What happened to a genuine desire to remember your teacher with what you thought was a nice way to remember her or him. The idea that someone (teacher, PTA, room parent) is telling me that I have to buy a bouquet of yellow and white tulips for Monday and $50 gift card to Nordstrom to bring in on Thursday doesn’t sit well with my stubborn Finnish personality. I think that a homemade card from the child and a bouquet of flowers is a nice way to say “I appreciate you.” Or, how about actually saying it on a November Friday during pick up – “Ms. McCarthy. I think you are doing a great job. We are so happy you are Olivia’s teacher.” 

I understand where the lists are coming from. I have gotten my own share of Santa’s head coffee mugs or key chain from Chicago or odd tin of cookies, but I have also received beautiful Korean dolls or Chinese jewelry from my students which I still keep as my favorite memories of my days of being a community college instructor. I cherish the few special items I have received, and I have gotten rid of the Santa mug and key chain. Mostly, it was the thought that counted for me. I have a lot of friends who are elementary level teachers. My guess is that everyone in that group of friends would not send a list of favorite things home with the kids and assume they would be getting a $50 gift card to Nordstrom. (I am sure they would love to get 20 of these cards, but they would never say it.) So, I understand why these lists have been created, but I don’t understand the expectation that everyone will follow the list. It should be a guide not a demand. I haven’t heard about these teacher appreciation week lists anywhere else. There is a lot of money around where we live, but it is not in everyone’s pocket. To assume that every family can pitch in as much as the next person is not feasible.

I don’t like these lists. In my opinion, they make the teachers look greedy and take away from the idea of wanting to remember and appreciate your teacher authentically.

 I love the idea of appreciating your teacher, but it should be done so that it is genuine. And, my guess is that most teachers would agree with me.