Lessons learned in giving gifts for Teachers’ Day

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September 10, 2015

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Lessons learned in giving gifts for Teachers’ Day

By Zhang Ningning | September 10, 2015, Thursday |

Print Edition

WHILE many city teachers can expect gifts from pupils’ parents on Teachers’ Day today, both parties admit the tradition creates awkward situations.

Seen as a way of expressing students’ gratitude to teachers, parents say that they have to judge it just right to give something of the appropriate value.

And teachers say if they receive an expensive gift it puts them in an embarrassing situation.

“As Teachers’ Day approached, parents on our WeChat group were discussing what to send teachers,” a mother, surnamed Gao told Shanghai Daily.

“What to give them is the most difficult part. Too cheap or too expensive — both feel weird,” Gao added.

She said the consensus was that flowers, chocolates and skin care products were best.

However, Gao added that she’s heard reports of teachers “placing orders”.

“It didn’t happen to me, but one of my friends mentioned that her kid’s teacher hinted about presents,” she added.

But teachers say gifts can bring them headaches too as accepting expensive presents can later leave them open to charges of favoritism.

A junior high school teacher, surnamed Wang, told Shanghai Daily that while she receives biscuits and hand-made gifts every year, prepaid gift cards are also not unusual.

“Food or small gifts are fine, but those cards are different, I usually give the student who sent it some small gift later, hiding the card inside, as you don’t want to reject a kid’s gift in front of them,” Wang said.

Wang said her school had no specific rules about what gifts are acceptable or not, but that the headteacher often reminded staff on the issue.

“Teachers should have an idea about where to draw the line,” she said.

A survey of 15,000 school students and 3,000 parents published this week by the Institute of Sociology at the Shanghai Academy of Social Sciences found that 7 percent of parents said they’d given presents to teachers.

But some observers said that the real figure was probably much higher.

Education

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Lessons learned in giving gifts for Teachers’ Day

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