The Decline and Fall of Teacher Appreciation Week

Ask most teachers and they’ll tell you that Teacher Appreciation Week isn’t what it used to be.

Many teachers who have been in the classical Christian education industry (it’s no longer a movement) for more than seven or eight years know this is the case. Back in the day, Teacher Appreciation Week was a more elaborate affair—a full five days of treats, gifts, and stacks of handwritten notes from students and parents. The week might culminate with a themed, sit-down lunch prepared by a crew of generous, long-suffering mothers. At the end of that lunch, a teacher might stand, call for quiet, and deliver a short oration on those mothers which began with the words, “You really went all out this time.”

At many schools, that’s really not how things work anymore.

What used to seem like a big deal has become a blip on the school calendar. Teacher Appreciation Week has gone from five days to four or three. It’s gone from sit-down meals to boxes of pizza, from piles of notes to pairs of notes. By the time the next election cycle finishes, Teacher Appreciation Week might be nothing more than a breakroom bowl of Corn Nuts beside a card affixed with that ubiquitous expression of obligatory and bureaucratic gratitude: “Thanks for all you do.”

I’ll grant that I’ve said some controversial things in the past, but the idea that Teacher Appreciation Week is in a state of sad decline is not one of them. I mentioned the matter at a table full of administrators recently and heard more than a few pained moans. Mention it among teachers and you get an earful of wistful stories about how things used to be. As Leonard Cohen once sang, “Everybody knows.”

The decline of Teacher Appreciation Week is either a random phenomenon or it means something, and I think it the latter. We can’t explain away the current state of Teacher Appreciation Week on the grounds that no one has the time, energy, or money for little parties and treats that they once had, because at roughly the same pace that Teacher Appreciation Week has fallen off, senior year has morphed into a nine-month-long Instagram-worthy bash. It’s not that people don’t have the energy for catered lunches and little gifts anymore. It’s just that they’re far less interested in giving those things to teachers.

Before going further, I should say that I’m no longer a K-12 classroom teacher, so I’m neither directly nor indirectly asking to personally receive anything. In fact, I waited until I was no longer a K-12 teacher to write this article. These days, I’m really nothing more than a common parent, which means I’m writing this article to myself as much as anyone else. The next time Teacher Appreciation Week rolls around, the burden is on me. Here and now, I simply want to explain that burden to everyone else who shares it.

So, if the fall of Teacher Appreciation Week signifies something, what?

Ask any teacher and they’ll tell you it’s a sign of declining respect for teachers. There are only about six million reasons for this—a few of them warranted, but most of them not. 1) At the broadest level, waning respect for teachers goes hand-in-hand with the distrust of all institutions which entered Western thought through Rousseau back in the eighteenth century, and schools are definitely institutions. 2) The only authority Americans are now willing to accept about the proper treatment of children is fashionable doctors, and the claims of Christian teachers about what is normal and good is often at odds with fashionable doctors, especially as concerns mental health. There’s no avoiding the fact that a good teacher will add some stress to the life of a child (they more than return the favor), and the DSM-5 currently lists stress as The Great Enemy of Mankind, which means all teachers are somewhat villainous (ATAB, etc). 3) Teachers at schools that went all in for Lockdown protocols and rhetoric lost an eminence and authority in their classrooms that they still haven’t recovered. I’ve lost count of the think-pieces written about the decline of discipline in schools since the return from Lockdown, and the unpunished flouting of rules makes teachers look helpless and contemptible. They don’t deserve tacos. Feed them bread and water. 4) The loss of respect for teachers is a self-fulfilling prophecy. It has brought teachers to think less of their calling, and this has truly decreased the quality of their work.

When teachers are shown respect and high esteem, everyone except the devil wins. Showing respect for teachers trains them to think of their job as a high calling, which makes them stand up a little straighter, return papers a little faster, prepare for lectures a little longer. The same thing happens to a slob when you give him a sharp haircut and a freshly pressed uniform to wear. When teachers hold themselves to high standards, students think better of them—and so students hold themselves to higher standards, as well. The sort of prep schools and boarding schools which inspire fierce loyalty from students are also stocked with teachers who command respect and get it—and students who adore their schools tend to accomplish more in the world than students who think they’re better than the places that made them.

Formal gestures of respect for teachers are what help preserve that “specialty of rule” which keeps everything in its right place, arranged according to its “degree” of glory, as Ulysses puts it in Troilus and Cressida. “When degree is shaked, which is the ladder of all high designs, the enterprise is sick.” If students don’t respect and trust their teachers, or teachers don’t respect and trust the administration, the school is either on its way to closure or to complete administrative turnover. When order is restored, it’s usually from the top down.

But returning to the matter of little treats and gifts, very few people are willing to admit how obvious their lack of interest in others is. Teachers talk, but so do students—and if you ask them, students are pretty good at calling out teachers who are just phoning it in. Teachers will sometimes admit to each other that they phoned it in (this morning, this week), but they often speak as though their students can’t tell. They can. Likewise, teachers both notice and bluntly discuss the fact that Teacher Appreciation Week just keeps getting lamer. They stare at a box of doughnuts that have each been cut in half and say, “Five years ago, there was a seafood boil that went for two hours, and the students just got a really long recess. It was amazing.” There’s a huge difference between something not being a priority and something not being a priority anymore. That “anymore” is the crack through which cynicism seeps in.

While America is quite charitable as a nation, American Christians don’t have a strong theological understanding of gift-giving. Our impoverished definitions of “grace” prompt us to give cheap presents with the self-exonerating excuse, “Given that we all deserve to burn in hell eternally, he ought to be happy with anything he gets.” American Christians also have a curious tendency to believe that TJ Maxx is “my little secret” and that no one else can recognize a seven-dollar bottle of flavored olive oil when they see it. My brothers and sisters in the Lord, they can tell that olive oil was not forty dollars. Buy yourself a discounted Michael Kors handbag there if you must but let the Christians of the world agree that they will not give each other gifts purchased from TJ Maxx.

The only way to prove something is important is to lavish time and money on it. If you have no money, it must be time. If you can spend more money on Teacher Appreciation Week, do so. Still, one of my favorite Teacher Appreciation Week treats came from several mothers who gussied up a gourmet coffee cart with all kinds of syrups and creams and went from room to room, preparing individually customized drinks for teachers. In terms of dollars spent, that coffee cart probably wasn’t all that much, and yet the attention to detail and the sacrifice of many hours to visit every teacher was impressive and humbling.

I must add one more caveat: Teacher Appreciation Week has declined because fewer people are interested in supplying it, though I suspect every school still has one or two tireless mothers who work just as hard at it as they did five years ago. These women should not feel that a single word of this article is directed at them—or that I’m trying to shame them into working even harder. Not at all. I want other people to notice your good work and to pitch in.

For the administrators reading this, let me moneyball it for you: it’s cheaper to keep good people around than it is to find new good people. Teachers will text each other pictures of that bowl of Corn Nuts. They will also text each other pictures of lavish spreads, if that’s the case, and I know many teachers who have taken lower paying positions for the respect and love that came with them. The more popular classical Christian education becomes, the more aware teachers become of the options out there. In a few years, you’re going to be competing with a classical charter school that’s opened up down the street—and given that you probably can’t offer teachers a superior salary, you have to offer them a superior faculty culture. Don’t assume a box of doughnuts from “this amazing community” is going to keep them interested.