The Season of ‘Mugging’ : Presents: At the holidays, teachers are swamped with gifts from students. Whether it’s another coffee mug or a dead Christmas tree, they say it’s the thought that counts.
In the nearly two decades that Cheryl Abrams has been teaching elementary school, she has received hundreds of mugs, plaques, rulers, key chains and T-shirts--many of them inscribed “1 Teacher.” And those were the good gifts.
During the holidays, students and parents present teachers with small tokens of appreciation. How many mugs or rulers can one teacher use? Do you go for the personal touch, and find out their favorite brand of perfume? Or stick with a more generic stationery set?
Teachers these days get gifts at least twice a year--at Christmas and the end of the term--from about 80% to 90% of their class. That’s a lot of mugs.
With school budget cuts getting deeper, many of about 100 San Fernando Valley teachers surveyed said they really appreciate items they can use in the classroom, such as children’s books, markers or rubber stamps.
“These are things I end up purchasing myself,” said Ede Kotal, a 12-year teaching veteran.
As Abrams, who taught in Inglewood, Reseda and now Agoura, found herself buying more classroom supplies, she posted a “wish list” last year on her classroom door. “Dear Santa,” she wrote. “I’ve been good, I’ve taught the children all year, I’ve graded papers . . . here are some things I would like you to bring this year.” Her list included hamster food (for a class pet), books, class cooking utensils, games and stickers. Some of her wishes were fulfilled.
Last Valentine’s Day, Abrams received a bag with “little things I could use in class” such as stickers, glue, a reading book and markers. “It was really, really thoughtful,” she said.
At this year’s open house, her principal suggested that parents ask the teachers what kind of gifts they would like. One parent did, and Abrams suggested film and developing for pictures she takes in the classroom. Within a few days the parent gave her a $100 check that she used to buy school supplies, including a camera and film. “It’s amazing how fast that $100 went,” she said with a sigh.
“Once someone made a donation in my name to a food bank,” added Abrams. “That was real nice.”
David Rosen of Sepulveda, whose fifth-grader always helps pick out her teachers’ gifts and signs the card, said: “We don’t feel obligated at all to give a gift. When we give a gift, it’s a warm appreciation of what they are doing.”
“One year, Nicole did not have a good experience with a teacher and did not give her a gift,” Rosen said.
“I really do appreciate getting gifts,” said Mary Beatty, a fourth-grade teacher at Gledhill Street Elementary in Sepulveda, who has been teaching 38 years. “I feel it shows appreciation for the effort I put into my teaching. What I get doesn’t matter. One girl wrapped up two of her used toys from last year. I still have them, and smile every time I look at my poor dingy purple squirrel.”
“I love to open anything,” echoed Karen Hansen of Agoura. “I am most touched by things that show some thought about me as a person went into buying the gift,” such as wooden or crystal apples for her collection. She also was delighted with a musical schoolhouse and “a joke written down to give me a laugh.”
“My students can’t afford much, but they mean well,” said a third-grade teacher at a San Fernando school. “They give a lot of homemade things, like pot holders and baked goods.” A department store gift certificate is always a treat, said several teachers.
“My favorite gifts are things I can use, like a nice candy dish or a pretty vase,” a Northridge nursery schoolteacher said. “I don’t like it when the parents all get together and buy one big gift.” She said she can always sense who is in charge of buying that gift because they are always bustling around, acting like it is a chore.
“I think the kids learn more from giving individually,” Hansen said.
In her 20-year career, Sandy Brookshaw, a Las Virgenes first-grade teacher, has received caviar, opera tickets, an uncooked fresh goose, a sack of oysters and a Lladro porcelain figurine.
Other interesting gifts received by Valley teachers include a three-flavor selection of Neiman-Marcus brand after-dinner toothpaste, a picture made from butterfly wings, a computer program, baby powder, four pairs of used gloves, a stuffed baby toy, a bedspread, a quilted wall hanging and a carved jade dog.
Sometimes, gift-giving can get out of hand. One year, a Valley mother of two admired the expensive-looking watch on the wrist of the headmaster of a private Westside school and learned it had been a Christmas gift from the parent of a student. “Are we supposed to give you presents like watches?” she asked him. “Some parents do,” he replied.
“I think that’s shocking,” said the mother, who thinks home-baked brownies make nice gifts. “It didn’t seem appropriate. When I told him I thought there should be a limit on gifts, he said some of the teachers might get upset. One year, he told me, every teacher got a Cuisinart” from the same parent.
“A gift should be a token from the child to the teacher,” a North Hollywood mother said. “Anything more than that is appalling.”
In a West Valley fifth-grade class last week, parents talked about chipping in to buy the class a globe as a holiday gift because the school doesn’t have money to buy one. Several mothers said they would buy the globe anyway if it was needed, but teachers work hard and deserve personal gifts as well.
At a Northridge elementary school, teachers thought about asking parents to contribute money for school supplies rather than buying individual gifts. But the feeling was that “it was presumptuous to tell parents what to do when not every parent gives a gift,” explained one teacher. Sometimes, she added, a parent may buy a very inexpensive gift but would feel embarrassed about contributing only that small amount as a donation.
Home-baked cookies, muffins and brownies or boxes of candy are generally crowd pleasers--with some reservations.
A teacher who worked at a school in an economically deprived neighborhood said the principal warned the staff one year to toss the cookies and cakes brought by students in case they were drug-laced.
“I once had a family that was forever making brownies and sending them to school,” another teacher said. But she sensed hygiene standards in the home were not the highest, so she hesitated about eating the food. “If brownies ever appeared in the faculty lunch room,” she added, “the first question was, ‘Are they from -----?’ ”
“If I know the family well, I enjoy,” said Randi Stern, whose 25-year teaching career has spanned schools from New York to Moorpark, in every economic strata. “If not, I trash it.”
There are, of course, the other gifts. Half-empty bottles of cologne, makeup samples or promotional giveaways, gifts “that have obviously been recycled” and used clothing make “1 Teacher” mugs look good.
“Cheap, gaudy jewelry that I feel required to wear,” a selection of 24 bottles of nail polish, plastic flowers and “really awful home decorator items” are among the gifts that made some teachers cringe.
Then there was the dead cat that Kotal received one year. The teacher, who worked in a low-income area, said one student, a first-grader, constantly brought her gifts throughout the school year. At Christmastime, he found a dead cat and thought she would like it. “It was definitely a gift of love,” she said.
Kotal also has received a catfish wrapped in a newspaper and a dead Christmas tree she was given in June.
“The tree was about 3 feet tall, on a stand, totally brown and slightly bent,” Kotal recalled. “We decorated it and put it on the principal’s desk the last day of school.”
“When people give these gifts, their hearts are always in the right place,” a co-worker explained. “They really mean well.”
It really is the thought that counts, teachers emphasized.
“I don’t feel any gift is tacky,” said Marcia Fisher, who teaches 3- and 4-year-olds at Weekday Preschool in Northridge. “Every gift should be appreciated. Gifts should be part of the child. My favorites are the ones the children pick out. One year a child painted me a rock. I love things like that.
Giving gifts, teachers said, is a way parents and students show appreciation for a year of hard work.
“I really feel it’s an accepted form of sharing, caring and thanks in our society,” said Stern, who now is a teacher-adviser in the L.A. Unified School District education and problem prevention program. “I also love cards with personal notes.” Getting a gift or a card, she added, is “one of the ways teachers are acknowledged. We give gifts to our letter carriers, housekeepers, manicurists, why not our child’s parent-away-from-home?”
“I think it’s valuable for children to learn to give,” added Fisher. “I truly hope there isn’t pressure to spend.”
Students give mostly “because they want to show appreciation” and not because they feel obligated, a Newhall first-grade teacher said. “Many of my students write notes and make gifts because they are so giving,” she added.
“I don’t believe children have ever felt obligated (to give teachers gifts),” Beatty said. “Most children in the lower grades enjoy it, but many boys, as they get older, think it is a sissy thing to do.”
Newhall teacher Cornelia Griswold, who is chalking up her 24th year in front of a blackboard, said she would prefer that students didn’t buy presents, “but since they do, I enjoy seeing how pleased they are to give gifts.” Her children, she noted, did not give gifts when they were school-age.
“Teachers work very hard, and giving a gift is one way to show we appreciate what they are doing,” said Caryn Ograskin of Sepulveda, the mother of two.
Although unwanted gifts may be given away, thrown out, or sold at garage sales, most are kept.
“I hate to throw these things away when people are so obviously sincere,” Abrams said.
Most teachers acknowledge gifts with a hand-written thank-you note or a telephone call, even though “it is time consuming, especially with classes of 32 children,” Kotal said. “I guess I feel it’s the least I can do if they go to the trouble of purchasing a gift.” Thank-you notes are usually sent to the home “because kids love getting mail.”
But maybe, said a Las Virgenes fourth-grade teacher, “a well-thought-out personal letter from a parent telling me that I have done well” is the best gift of all.
If You Run Out of Apples . . .
Gifts that teachers might put on their holiday wish list:
* Notes and letters of appreciation
* Classroom supplies such as stickers, markers, books, arts and crafts supplies, rubber stamps or games
* Baked goods or boxed candy
* Stationery or note pads
* Handmade items from the child
* Plants or flowers
* Gift certificates to department stores
* Personal items, such as jewelry or perfume, if you know the particular teacher’s taste
