Dear gifts to the teacher

Knowledge Day and Teacher's Day are just the tip of the teacher's congratulatory iceberg. But there are still a good dozen calendar, personal and public dates in the year when a gift to a teacher is appropriate. We'll talk about them today. And also about a lot of pleasant and useful things that will help you sincerely thank the teacher for the work that has been revered for centuries as one of the most important on earth.

Why do they give flowers to the teacher?

Most of them are brought from everywhere to the already mentioned, celebrated on a grand scale holidays:

• Knowledge day
• Teacher's Day

It is curious that these official holiday dates appeared relatively recently, but the celebration of the culprits with flowers these days began on the initiative of the bottom and much earlier.

In 1984, the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR issued a decree making the beginning of the school year an official holiday. But our great-great-grandmothers also went to school with bouquets on the first day of school. The date turns out to be not secular, but the most ecclesiastical. In the year 325 A.D., the First Ecumenical Council, convened by the Byzantine Emperor Constantine in Nicaea, decided to celebrate the beginning of the new church year on September 1.

What do teachers have to do with the Church? In Russia, where the tradition of giving flowers to the teacher originated, the most direct thing. The first schools in Russia were parochial, and therefore it was customary to start a new school year in them on the day of the church's New Year.

The custom of giving flowers to the teacher is also old. Firstly, the teacher was originally a highly respected person, and secondly, teaching did not relate to social activities for the sake of bread. It was believed that teaching how to heal was a great gift from God. And what is received for free is given for free, otherwise the Creator will punish the mercenary.

Although flowers surpass the rich robes of King Solomon in beauty and luxury, they still do not belong to material values. Therefore, their teachers accepted them as a sign of love and attention, without fear of retribution from above.

Soviet universal education not only did not displace the pre-revolutionary tradition, but the mass donation of flowers spread to another autumn holiday, Teacher's Day, which appeared already in the USSR. At first, it was celebrated on the first Sunday of October, and the students congratulated the teachers the day before on Friday. And in 1994, Russia joined the countries that celebrate the UNESCO-established World Teacher's Day on October 5.

The flowers are not the same anymore.

Recently, there has been a tendency to abandon the traditional school bouquet of fresh flowers. Giving hand-grown asters and gladioli to the inhabitants of the stone jungle is an impossible dream. The delights of florists on the eve of Knowledge Day are inexpensive, and even more so you can not call them free: to buy a really fresh bouquet on August 31, and even at a reasonable price, is almost fantastic, and it is also impossible to make a purchase in advance: it is not a fact that it is worthy of a solemn line. For parents, it's a complete ruin and hassle. Teachers, who are loaded with bureaucracy more than the educational process, simply have no time to sort through the cluttered classroom and the bouquets that have lost their freshness.

Unfading bouquets have become an alternative convenient for both sides. You can buy them long before the holiday, without cheating on the marketable goods. They do not need care and watering. They delight the eye for years, becoming a delightfully beautiful interior decoration.

There are several varieties of an unfading bouquet on the modern market:

• Compositions of natural flowers – cut plants are dehydrated in a special way and placed in hermetically sealed vessels. The shape of such "vacuum vases" is diverse, as is the floral composition of the contents: roses, orchids of all kinds of colors and sizes.
• Flowers made of polymer clay – a high-tech material allows you to produce buds, inflorescences and leaves that are mirror-like to their natural prototypes. It is almost impossible to distinguish such a bouquet in a beautiful vase or a planter from a natural one by its appearance alone.
• Porcelain flowers are a little less realistic, but no less beautiful.
• Amber flowers – due to the shades of the solar mineral, their appearance is very exotic. And the visual splendor is complemented by the symbolism of the stone, which embodies happiness and health.

In addition to voluminous bouquets, their planar images are no less popular:

• Oil paintings
• Paintings made of stone
• Paintings on silk

Not every student can afford to present such a gift to a teacher alone. But it doesn't cost more to fold with classmates than a collective order of fresh flowers for the whole class.

"Non-main" teacher holidays

The minor one is about the scale of the celebration: it is indeed inferior to the world and All–Russian celebrations. However, from such small events, small overcomes, the heroic biography of the teacher develops.

Everything is like everyone else's

Birthday, New Year, March 8, February 23, etc. Profession rarely affects the choice of a gift on the occasion of generally accepted holidays. The teacher spends most of his life at work anyway, loading him with a reminder of his professional duty also on a legitimate day off or a purely personal holiday is not very humane. Relatives, friends and even colleagues congratulate the person first of all, not the teacher. They give the same as everyone else, depending on the degree of kinship and closeness of the relationship: Christmas tree balls on Christmas Eve, jewelry on women's day and weapons on men's day.

The exception is official congratulations on the occasion of an anniversary birthday, when professional achievements are spoken of as important milestones in life. That's where luxury professional souvenirs are indispensable.

But students, by virtue of the inherent pedagogical ethics of subordination, congratulate the teacher first of all. They are more often limited to amateur performances, greeting cards and all the same colors. But on the occasion of anniversaries, especially when the teacher is beloved, a gift is often presented to the whole class. It is impossible to completely abandon ethical norms even in this case, because the spirit of collectivism in these presents comes first. Such a gift can be a good photo album or an electronic photo frame with shots from class life or teacher portraits from all angles. The thing is quite personal, but it does not violate the boundaries of what is allowed.

Festive weekdays

These are purely professional teaching events that cannot be ignored by relatives and friends.

• Initiation into the profession is not to be confused with initiation into students of a pedagogical university and obtaining a diploma of its completion. A teacher can only be called someone who did not turn away from his chosen path and went to work in his specialty. This first entry in the workbook is worth at least a small souvenir with a self-confident parting word. A tea pair, a diary, a branded pen – something that will become a beacon or a talisman on the difficult teaching path.
• Winning the Teacher of the Year competition is not necessarily at the federal level. The best in the region, city, and school is also a significant achievement. The official emblem of the competition is a pelican feeding children with its own heart. If desired, a recognizable bird can be applied to a souvenir plate, a gift cup holder, a silver spoon. Although something neutral without competitive symbols, such as a crystal or porcelain cup, can also become a present.
• Winning the subject Olympiad is, of course, the student wins, but a wise mentor leads him to victory. He also received a gift from the winner as a sign of gratitude. A box of chocolates, with which the victory is deliciously celebrated with toasts under the seagulls, is the very thing.
• Upgrading the qualification category and moving to a school leadership position – close friends and family will not miss the opportunity to congratulate. A new table lamp, a good writing set, a gift book edition, everything that will be useful in further work and emphasize the grown-up status.
• Graduation – the tradition of gifting teachers with valuable gifts on the occasion of graduation appeared in the post-perestroika decades, but has already been firmly entrenched. They give office equipment, expensive interior items to the classroom and to the house: vases, table and wall clocks, paintings, murals, gift book editions – there are no restrictions, as long as it is memorable, solid and within the framework of school etiquette.

Holidays of subject teachers

Some of the highly specialized holidays of subject teachers are celebrated all over the world, some invented by students of the main universities of the country and picked up by all the others smoothly migrated to school realities. The teacher does not expect gifts on this day, because few of the uninitiated usually know about the holiday. But if suddenly there is someone who said in the morning: "Congratulations!" - high spirits are guaranteed for the whole day. A small gift like a fridge magnet or a bigger one is already optional and possible. Some of the dates are listed below:

• Mathematician's Day – oddly enough, it is celebrated, albeit unofficially, on April 1. In addition, there is also the World Pi Day, celebrated on March 14.
• Russian Language Day is celebrated on the birthday of the greatest of the poets A.S. Pushkin on June 6.
• Physicist's Day is also Archimedes' Day – there is no date as such, but during April-May, physics students from all Russian universities try to celebrate it.
• Chemist's Day is dedicated to the Day of Workers of the Chemical and Oil and Gas Industry in Russia, celebrated on the last Sunday of May.
• World Historian's Day – March 28, world, October 27 – the memory of St. Nestor the Chronicler and his Russian representatives of non-scientific science also consider their holiday.
• Geographer's Day is a large–scale holiday and there is no fixed date, but those related to the profession celebrate it in a narrow circle. So in November, it is usually celebrated by the teaching staff and students of the Faculty of Geography of Moscow State University. And in April 2017, Russian President Vladimir Putin initiated the establishment of an all-Russian holiday at a meeting of the Board of Trustees of the Russian Geographical Society. The initiative has not been continued yet, but this is for now.
• Physical education Day is the second Saturday in August.

And one should not forget about pre-school and additional education. Kindergartens, music, art schools, schools of aesthetic development perform educational and educational tasks properly. They also have their own celebrations:

• Preschool Worker's Day is September 27th.
• International Music Day – October 1st;
• International Dance Day – April 29th
• International Artist's Day – December 8th

Top 10 gift ideas for a teacher

In conclusion, we offer ready-made gift ideas to the teacher. You can use them unchanged, or as a springboard for your own leap into creativity.

• The bronze bell "Teacher" - all world cultures consider the bell a favorable talisman. A messenger of joy, the personification of openness, and in the case of the school – also the soundtrack of the solemn lines.
• The statuette "In the classroom" by the Italian brand Elite & Fabris captured teachers' everyday life in dynamics and not without grace. Such a souvenir will become a family heirloom.
• The Tsarevich Cup with amethyst is a work of art from the masters of Chrysostom decorated with an amazingly beautiful gem symbolizing love and spiritual purity. The stone helps to restrain emotions, which is important for any teacher.
• The malachite microscope is a symbolic gift for a biology teacher on the occasion of the anniversary of his professional activity.
• The collectible complete works of A.S. Pushkin is an ornament of the teachers' library, the best gift for a graduate of the Faculty of Philology and for a Russian person in general.
• The Leningradsky tea set with a cobalt stripes pattern is a budget–friendly classic from the Imperial porcelain Factory that is good at home and in the teachers' room.
• The amber globe – the teacher opens the whole world to us, this gift is deserved.