Tag Archives: gift giving

ten, nine, eight… out the school gate

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As the year draws to an end everyone reaches their tipping point of exhaustion, stress and anger. An innocent remark can be met by a snippy reply, leaving the recipient wondering what they did wrong besides get out of bed that day.

Colleagues who are normally congenial towards each other would quite happily throw anyone’s body under a school bus should they stand between them and their final year end marking and reporting. It is like watching Lord of the Flies play out before your eyes.

Then lo, on the last day we all run around, bitchiness forgotten, as we wish each other well and as soon as the last student has left the grounds and the staff fridge is emptied, we race for the staff car park and head off for six weeks of renewal.

People outside of education always remark on how many holidays teachers get, but they don’t understand the real situation. For one, we are paid as if we work a 30 hour week to stretch our salaries across the down time. How would you like to work all that overtime for nothing? Teachers do. Any activity after 3pm is on our own time – that includes those parent teacher meetings parents all hate. We appear gratis.

Secondly, it is mentally and physically exhausting righting all the wrongs in our young that society appears to expect teachers to do. If a parent can’t bring out the best in their child, how do they expect teachers who see them a couple of hours a week to do so? The media, is their clamour for moral outrage against teachers, rarely stops to consider the raw material that parents send to us. And it is not just one child we are dealing with, a teacher can have a hundred and sixty or more students in their classroom in a day. Individualised attention, sure. How much time did you spend talking with ( not at, but with and that includes listening to them speak) your child today?  You only have two or three; try twenty eight.

Yet, after six weeks, some of which are spend in preparing for the new school year and learning new skills, teachers turn up again, just as committed to their profession and to giving your child the best opportunity they can. We even forgive each the preholiday nastiness (well some of us, some of us have a stick list) and embark upon a whole new set of grievances towards those that annoy (and there are always those that annoy, whatever the profession).

Then the full reality of the dreaded return of the students sinks in, and we set to trying to right the wrongs of the world.

So remember that, when buying gifts for teachers. Less mugs (do you know how many “teacher” mugs a teacher can clock up over 40 years?) more alcohol (stuff that someone would want to drink, and not regifted) and chocolates (expiry date beyond 2011).  It is not going to win any favours for your child, but may just ensure that the teacher makes the effort again next year.

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the times are indeed a changing

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In many ways we don’t notice the changes that sneak into our daily lives through the use of technology, but I was reminded of this on Sunday when I went to buy a small thank you gift for a woman who is coming to our school to present a workshop for teachers later this week.

Previously, one might have purchased stationery for a teacher as a gift, and heavens we teachers have always loved stationery; but now that we have laptops, iPads, iPhones and all the programs that allow us to keep files on the skydrive, addresses in our email and facebook pages and calendars on our phone etc. there is little need for notebooks, pens and post it notes. Now there are even electronic sticky notes for our desktops, so I even baulked at buying Kath Kidson sticker pads, a personal favourite. Technology has wiped that fall back gift line off the line, especially as this particular presenter is speaking on IT!

And changing social attitudes means that chocolates are not always acceptable as everyone is always trying to shed weight and get healthy. Wine, well they may not be a drinker, and there are mixed opinions regarding gifting teachers alcohol as we are suppose to be role models

The last thing a teacher needs is usually another cup or mug, as everyone gives teachers cups and mugs. We’ve probably all done candles to death. So, I was starting to panic, and was going to just go for a bunch of flowers, but that seemed a bit naft and what if she is allergic? (Minerva is allergic to flowers and the last time someone brought flowers into the library I had to lock them in my office. I didn’t get them away fast enough and her lips blew up like a trout mouth and I thought I was going to have to apply an epipen to save her). So scratch flowers.

In the end I settled on bath fizz bombs in the shape of macaroons. Hopefully she will read the label and realise that they are not a food product. If she doesn’t have a bathtub, well. she can throw them into a bucket and soak her feet! Or better still, she can put them away to regift and claim that she has already started her Christmas shopping! Win, win there I say.

making a list, and checking it twice!

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I am going to write something radical, so if you have a weak constitution I suggest that you sit down.

I like giving Christmas presents.

I adore giving Christmas presents.

I would be more than saddened if I could not gift something to my nearest and dearest at Christmas.

In recent times it has become almost a mantra that many people utter as some chorus of superiority. I don’t think it is superior, or makes anyone finer to not give gifts. It is just a life choice, a decision made by an individual, which is their right.

We have never had extra money in the budget to be too extravagant with our gift giving, but we have always managed something. Sometimes more than one something! More times than not, however, Mr FD and I have forgone gifts to each other as the budget wouldn’t stretch that far.

Our children grew up with the pleasure of receiving gifts, but more importantly they grew up with the joy of giving. Without a doubt, we all find more happiness in giving than receiving, and that is a gift in itself.

These days, I am more mindful of wants and needs. I don’t want to give something that is just going to clutter someone’s personal space. Often it is something small that can be used and disappears, like a lovely scented soap. Or consumed, like the small gingerbread cottages we make some years.  Bibliophile that I am, I love to select books for the people I love, and especially the children. Choose a book for a child and you are helping a child become the person they will become. I work very hard to match the gift to the individual, because it brings me joy.

Christmas is what we choose to make it, be it with or without gift giving, be it ever so humble or not. Mine has gifts.