With the holiday season passed and all those gifts you received from students tucked away, one wonders about the future of gift giving for the next holiday season. Things I never questioned when I was a teacher are now being debated. Should gift giving by students be discouraged, banned, or have limits placed upon it?
It is not hard to understand why the practice is being debated. Many educators have found it disturbing to see the gift-giving tradition, which has existed as long as schools, threatened. The most easy-to-understand criticism has to do with the fact that poorer children feel pressured by being unable to purchase gifts at costs equal to those of their classmates. There is also the concern that favored teachers may receive an armload of gifts while other teachers receive nothing.
Some school boards have placed limits on the amount of gifting. Los Angeles, for example, limits the value of a gift from a single source to $100. A further rule prohibits gifts of material value. Hmm, if a gift of just under $100 is acceptable, I have to wonder what they mean by material value. Material value is apparently undefined by the Board of Education. Some schools across the country have adopted holiday funds to which parents can contribute. The collections in such funds are equally divided among the teachers.
What is the strangest gift you have ever received from a student?
Letting a child select a gift for their teacher at holiday time or the end of the year is a natural way to show their adoration. Choosing the gift is a teaching opportunity to let them select a wonderful children's book for the classroom library. Young kids don't think in $$ limits or even gift cards, and good teachers love the plate of cookies the student decorated or cheaply framed drawing of the class as much as anything. Is it the parents and bureaucrats that are so worried about defining the student/teacher relationship?