The LA Times has an article this morning on teachers and student gifts.
Finding the perfect gift to express the holiday spirit is never easy, but students and their parents have been known to bestow on favorite teachers tokens both weird and lavish.
They have included the practical — homemade bread, body lotions and pricey gift certificates; the eclectic — handmade noodles from a father who owns a noodle factory and custom-made CDs recorded at one family’s home; and the plain eccentric — a ceramic urn engraved with the phrase “teacher’s ashes.”
As teachers receive their umpteenth coffee mug imprinted with a red-suited Santa, colored Hanukkah candles and other mementos of the season’s festivities, many say a heartfelt note of thanks is what’s most treasured.
Well, I won’t argue with that last sentiment. When I was in elementary school, I regularly gave my teachers a small Christmas gift. (And like most folks, I can name all of my early teachers, from kindergarten through fifth grade.) As I recall, the practice became much less common in junior high and high school, but some favorite teachers still got small presents. Of course, once I was at university, the practice stopped almost entirely. I never knew anyone at Cal who gave a professor a gift; it was occasionally, if rarely, done for TAs. And though I TAed for seven quarters in graduate school, I only got one or two small gifts. (The biggest was a bag of ground coffee.)
But since coming to Pasadena City College, I’ve found that gifts for teachers are much more common. I’m not entirely sure why it’s so much more widespread a practice at the community college than it was in either my high school or university experience. But I’m in my fourteenth year of teaching here, and if I were to collect all the gifts I’ve ever been given in one place, I’d have quite a pile.
In the last five years, the most common and most appreciated gift is the Starbucks gift card. The amounts on the card range from $5-$20, never more. My students are well aware that I consume caffeine in extraordinary proportions, and I am grateful that some are willing to support my addiction. But before the coming of gift cards, I got a wider variety of gifts. Only a small few were clearly inappropriate.
The rule at the College is that gifts of nominal value may be accepted as long as they are not factored into evaluation. Any gift large enough to be considered a bribe should be rejected. I can think of only one or two that fell into that category. Years ago, I had a student whose father was a jeweler. The son wore what seemed to be a Rolex, and once asked me if I liked it. I told him, offhand, that it was a very fine watch. Not long thereafter, he showed up in my office hours and offered it to me. He was a borderline student who seemed frustrated that an A wasn’t coming easily to him, but he made no explicit connection between the Rolex (which may well have been faux) and his grade. The implication seemed clear enough to me, and I politely told him I couldn’t accept it. He seemed to think that this was a rejection of the brand, not of a sizeable gift, and listed for me other pricey watches he could give instead. I told him “You’re very sweet to offer such a lovely gift, but I am afraid I can’t accept anything of significant value.” He seemed somewhat disappointed, but didn’t try again; he left the class with the B he earned.
The most memorable gifts have been anonymous. In my History 1A course, I spend some time every semester going over the story of the Trojan War and the judgment of Paris. As students of mythology know, Paris is given the golden apple of discord; inscribed with the words “For the Fairest”, it is to be given to one of three goddesses. The students may forget some of the details of the Athenian city-state, but they always remember the myths. And about ten years ago, at the end of one semester, I found a stunningly heavy, gorgeous, solid crystal apple in my box at school. It was elegantly wrapped, and it had been engraved “For Hugo, the Fairest Teacher.” It was obviously more expensive than what I ought normally have accepted, but it was given anonymously. I still have the apple today, and still don’t know who gave it to me.
And yes, when I was younger and single, I was (very occasionally) offered a different kind of gift. It was only blatantly proferred a couple of times; at least once it was heartbreaking. One young woman, a single mother who had missed a substantial amount of class and was in danger of failing the course, came to my office in tears. She offered to go to a motel room with me and do anything I wanted. The offer was brazen, but she made it with trembling lips and teary eyes. I gave her a tissue, told her I would issue her an incomplete that would allow her to make the work up the following semester, and recommended she see a counselor. It was a rather shattering moment for both of us.
I don’t expect gifts from my students. If they’ve appreciated the course, I do enjoy hearing about it from them. A sincere thank-you, given after the grades have been turned in, is always welcome. It does mean something to me to know that I am having an impact, that my work is meaningful. I am so grateful to do what I do — and to be paid to do what I would honestly do for free. That’s my great good fortune, and I need no gift to remind me of how blessed I am. But the cards and the notes are always welcome.
The story of the single mother is shattering. I can’t imagine being in your place or hers.
It was incredibly sad. She did end up finishing the class the following semester, but I’ve never forgotten her. And I can only imagine the story that led her to that point.
With all due respect, I don’t think OKOP talk about such things in polite company. The young woman’s position was extremely unfortunate. Please use some discretion and keep the details to yourself. Thank you.
Tom, dear boy, if I had named her, that would have been indiscreet. But as I’ve posted many times, my fondness for “sharing” is decidedly NOKOP. ;-)
I gave Milne an apple last semester. He laughed and ate it during the final.
I would’ve hammered her like a construction worker.
Hugo - I’m glad she made it through the class. I wonder about the story - what got her to your office, ready to give you her body to get a passing grade. I can’t imagine the pressure she must have been feeling to pass the class. I think about some of the women I know and I can imagine their parents using a failing grade as an excuse to pressure them to drop out of school. Remember I live in Utah and we have more than our fair share of very very conservative families who believe education is wasted on women since they will never need jobs - their husbands will take care of them.
Cribs, you are an exploitative opportunist and you haven’t got a shred of compassion. You have a defective conscience. I hope something as bad as what happened to her happens to you.
Hugo said: “Cribs, you are an exploitative opportunist and you haven’t got a shred of compassion. You have a defective conscience. I hope something as bad as what happened to her happens to you.”
That’s an incredibly un-Christian and hypocritical thing to say Hugo. Shame on you.
Which is more exploitative and unconscionable: The guy who is honest about his intentions, the woman who may or may not be telling the truth when she works to manipulate a man into exchanging sex for favors (a practice as old as humanity itself), or a man who parades such tales in front of his audience in order to pull on our heartstrings and to gain admiration, etc.?
Methinks once again that the Emperess has no clothes.
Mr. Bad-at-Reading, it seems you may have confused Hugo with Erika. I know the names sound alike, but…
Although I’m usually one of the bad guys on this forum, I gotta go with Erika on this one. Hugo was right to not compromise his integrity as a teacher and not to take advantage of a desperate woman in tears.
I actually thought Hugo would delete Cribs’ comment.
Oops, you’re correct Xrlq, I goofed re. the identity of the person to whom I was responding. My bad, sincere apologies to Hugo.
As for Hugo not identifying the woman, of course he shouldn’t and has done the right thing. However, that’s so obvious I think it goes without saying (libel and defamation litigation being what it is).
My visceral response was to Erika’s strong condemnation of Cribs vis-a-vis the topic of “exploitation.” I stand by my POV that Cribs was up front and honest re. his intentions (whether or not you agree with them), the woman tried to exploit her power over Hugo vis-a-vis women’s control of sex and use of it as currency, and Hugo’s exploitation of the incident to bolster his image. All of these are types of exploitation, and to me Cribs’ approach was the most honest and upfront of all and thus to me was the least “exploitative,” albeit probably the most unsavory for a feminist audience.
Women use their control of sex to exploit men and get what they want all the time; such practices are as old as humanity itself. We need to recognize this type of power and exploitation, and offer Kudos to men like Hugo who refuse to be manipulated and exploited thusly.
Upon reflection it occurs to me that she probably knew that Hugo would react the way he did, Hugo being Hugo and all. She may have been just trying to communicate how desparate she was. But nothing wrong was done. She got her message across, she got her incomplete, Hugo got to feel like a good guy, and everybody is happy.
I don’t see that sex for favors is necessarily exploitative (at least not on the woman’s part). Its a basic market transaction…she gets the favor, he gets the sex.
Note that this does NOT include the kind of thing that Hugo describes…only a scumbag would take advantage of a crying woman (to say nothing of compromising the integrity of ones grades…surely a firing offense.)
although, Joe, what would make hugo’s situation any different from a more typical ‘market’ prostitution scenario? it seems to me that reducing sex to a market transaction (sex for cash) is just as (if not more) reductive and problematic as would be reducing sex to an academic proposition (sex for grades) or, on a less sure level, reducing sex to a sort of emotional currency (sex for security &c).
Uh, I am near a computer for a brief moment on my vacation… sorry to see that we’ve wandered a bit off topic. I would have deleted Cribs comment had I seen it orginally, but now we have a thread built out of it, so try, try, try to get back on the main topic. This was one anecdote out of several, folks, and shouldn’t get all the attention.