A follow up from my older asklemmy post, saying goodbye to a teacher who helped me a lot through my stuff, was thinking maybe chocolate, but one of the dudes said that it’s not a very good idea, I was thinking maybe a perfume/cologne? What do you guys suggest? She is in probably in her early 20s if it helps, and I am in senior high, damn this is getting weirder and weirder, I just want to run away lol
Maybe find another student and gift something together.
I live in a trashy society and my friends are a gr8 example, if they even catch a snitch, next day is gonna be like ‘Oooooh he loves his teacher ooooooh’
“I live in a trashy society” don’t we all brother
More seriously, you got great advices in the thread, esp the pen and the muffins. You can offer sweets without having it mistaken as a romantic gestures, it then depends on the sweets you offer. A box of chocolates intent can easily be misconstrued, a box of donuts/muffins, much less so. Except if said muffins have hearts on them, it’s all about context.
Good luck !
Protip since you’re young, it’s all fine and good if your friends bust your balls as a joke, but if you genuinely don’t think you can do a nice gesture for a teacher without them incessantly mocking you, you need better friends.
Like if you give a gift to this teacher, and your friends start cracking wise about it, do you think they’ll stop on their own or give you shit about it for the rest of time?
Don’t be embarrassed about wanting to do something nice for someone. If your friends are immature about it, that’s their problem.
A greeting card with a note about how she helped you.
Material gifts will get used up and thrown out over time. But she’ll collect notes and letters from her students over the years, and they will help remind her why she’s teaching.
This, and if you really really wanna put a monetary gift in there, get them a gift card for coffee(go local fuck Starbucks) or honestly somewhere like target that sells school supplies. It’s a bit orphan crushing machine but they may really appreciate the extra cash for supplies.
Concur. I have every card, note, poster, or coloring page I’ve ever gotten from a student. (I volunteered with kids younger than OP)
Misspelled words don’t matter (I guess maybe if it’s your language arts/spelling/writing teacher it would matter a little) because they thought of me and put time, thought, and energy into a gift for me instead of making a tiktok or whatever.
I got fired from my job, and while I was cleaning out my locker I found a folder in the back of my locker.
It had a note from an old lady I helped once. She wrote a whole note about how nice it was to work with me.
The other thing was a hand-drawn card from a coworker’s daughter, proclaiming me as her friend forever.
I also had a big stack of gift cards the company had given me to show their appreciation, and I just took them so I’d have food. I don’t feel the slightest bit of meaning from those gift cards.
Honestly an email from my boss saying “Hey good job on X” would have gone so much further than those gift cards.
This. I’m a teacher, and I have about a thousand gift mugs stuck in a closet, but I will hang on to that raggedy half torn post it note that says, “Thank you Mr. [Name] for helping me :)” literally until the day I die.
In my desk, I have a special folder full of notes from students that I look at when I have a bad day.
We don’t do it for the money, we do it to help you have a better life. So when students tell us we helped, the feeling is incredible.
If you want to make sure it doesn’t get mistaken for romantic feelings, just think, “Would I feel weird saying this to my Aunt/Uncle?” while writing it.
Some potential sentence starters:
What I appreciated most about being in your class was…
One time you really helped me was when…
Something you really helped me understand was…
The one thing you should never stop doing in class is…
Whatever you write, your teacher will love it :)
Eh, muffins and a card would probably work lol.
‘Good Morning, Thanks for your help throughout the session, here are some muffins’
But this could work ig, muffins are delicious and probably the simplest thing so I don’t think it’s gonna get mistaken
Exactly. Not many people use a batch of blueberry muffins as a romantic gesture but it still gets the intended point across and shows that you’re grateful.
Yeah, I feel like it’s better than a pen, but I gotta find a way to preserve it in my bag for about 4hrs, assuming I am able to get them in the morning, during exams teachers are quite busy in the morning, It would probably not go bad but I feel like muffins taste best when they are warm and fresh, even after a day I feel like they are not quite as good
The thing that you wrote in your first post on this topic is what she needs to hear. Not:
thanks for your help throughout the session
but more like:
Nobody else has been there for me this past year and I was headed down a dark and miserable path but your being here this year helped me feel that I was someone worth putting effort into. You have given me a gift that I will never forget.
That is the best gift you can give your teacher.
You keep trying to put the value in some material gift but those words are what she’s going to value.
I’m just going to say this: if you give her a card that says “Thanks for your help this session” you will have missed a beautiful opportunity. DO NOT give her that generic “thanks” message.
I was the guy who warned you about the chocolate being interpreted as romantic. But a far worse danger is going through life missing the opportunities to create beauty.
You have an opportunity to create something beautiful and meaningful for this teacher, and you’ll only achieve that by articulating exactly how she helped you.
Believe me when I say that, for adults, meaning is the thing we crave and lack in our life. Muffins can be obtained at the grocery store. A true, well-articulated and vulnerable communication of the way one has had a positive impact in another person’s life is a treat most people hear maybe once or never in their lives.
I know it’s hard. But you did a good job of explaining her positive impact in your original post. All you need to do is re-state that while addressing her in a note, instead of us.
Thanks a lot! I recently woke up from my sleep, and your point makes a lot sense, me trying to present my appreciation through something materialistic isn’t gonna work, instead of that, I should start trying to draft my card, which is both somewhat formal and gets what I am trying to say across
A fountain pen or a nice moleskin notebook with a note saying how her lessons will help you in your future life.
I think a perfume is too personal and might come out as a romantic gesture (and difficult to choose if you don’t know what she likes anyway).
As a fountain pen user, I would suggest against that unless you know it suits her personality. Fountains pens require maintenance, and certainly it’s easy maintenance, but it’s definitely more work than a ballpoint. They are a hobby, and if it’s is not her thing, she’ll never use it.
I would instead recommend a nice ballpoint pen set where the ink can be replaced when empty. Something she can use without having to think about or maintaining it.
Speaking as a teacher here: do not buy any teacher anything, as in NOTHING.
I would be super weirded out if a student gave me something.
We had a student of more years than most, present the teacher’s lounge with a chocolate basket once, and everyone thought it was strange. So presenting a teacher with a personal gift would be even stranger.
But if you insist on getting her a gift, perfume would be up there with lingerie and jewelry … WTF dude?
what should you do? how about you decide what it is that you want to say. Like “you did so and so, that meant a lot for me because of so and so”.
- Figure out what to say
- make sure you don’t spend more than 30 or 45 seconds to say it.
Idk but judging from the username, maybe this kind of culture is there in nordic countries? Idk but here students give gifts all the time on teachers day, I just don’t know what is in those boxes lol, as I never attend these kind of events, and idk if ppl give them outside of these events
A card with a well-written note would be the best. Take time thinking about the tiny things she did that meant a lot to you.
Yeah card is a given, I should probably start now because I suck at arts and some paper is gonna get wasted
