We Love *Other Things* Aside From Starbucks

May 8th-12th is National Teacher Appreciation Week! Here are some stories that will make you laugh and hopefully, move you to get creative with your appreciation of educators.

Listen…I am not dogging on Starbucks fully. I am just saying that the sheer amount of Starbucks gift cards I received as a teacher for $3.48 is astounding. Does their coffee still get us through 6th period? Sure. But is it what we need? Hmmm…. I messaged some teachers about funny insults they have received as a way to first, laugh at ourselves, and second, convince you that they do not get paid enough to deal with these heathens. (I love kids. But it is May and every educator is scraping the bottom of the barrel for an ounce of patience, and dare I say, barely finding it?)

The Art of the Insult

I am desperate for these to make you laugh, as we all need some levity right now. But we know that with dismal wages, 190 ornery teens a day, gun violence, “achievement gaps”, grading, parents, and admin, these educators deserve a bit more than just a gift card for black coffee. These clap backs are from the mouths of kindergarten to 12th graders, who we love dearly, but who needed to be on summer break like yesterday…

Mined from the teachers who received the insults, I present to you, “We Can’t Do Anything Right”: A Guide to Having Thick Skin:

• I got called a “little bald bitch” two weeks ago. But for the record, I do still like gift cards. Apologies for the language in the text: it’s a direct quote.

• I, like so many of us, have been called “Chunky Monkey.”

• Last week I decided to wear color for once (neon yellow) and I got called a tennis ball 🎾 and a student told me, “It’s serving piss and the whole look is shit.”

• You’re short as hell, how can you be so mean?

• I am reminded of the time last year of this exchange: I call out to a group of loitering girls “Where are you headed?” And one replies, “Up your butt.”

• “You look pregnant all the time.”

• “What are you doing with your hair, it’s awful and you need to change your products.”

• “If you paid more attention you’d know what I was talking about.”

• I had just gotten my booster and man was that thing kicking in, and a student from the back of my class yelled out, “Moran! You look like you’re passing away.”

• Walks into class wearing a striped shirt and a flare pant, what I thought to be a cute look, and student comments, “Where’s the yacht?”

• My 10th-grade class: “Same shoes, different day, huh Moran?”

• A 7th grader to me: “You have a combover.” It was a side part.

• One time I got asked, “So you sleep in school right?”

• A kindergartener said, “What’s wrong with your eyes,” referring to the bags under them.

• One time, as a warm-up, I gave them the prompt to draw the last elderly person they saw. They drew me. I was 37.

• A student once said, “You smell like a ding-a-ling bittcchhhhh” and it was on a Google Doc.

• “You look like a ghost.” I was wearing a LuLu Lemon poncho.

• “Do you play Risk? You look like the kinda guy who would play Risk.”

• “Ms.P, you got baby knees.”

It has been made clear that in order to be an educator, a requirement is having a thick skin. I think we can all agree that if your job has an “appreciation week” then that profession gets taken advantage of the other 51 weeks out of the year. *Shoutout to literally anyone in a helping field/essential workers.* My good friend who teaches Special Education at a large public high school told me that one of her “appreciations” from admin one day last week was Make Your Own S’More in the library. One s’more, uncooked, that you put together yourself. NOTHING says, “Thank you for your hours of tireless support of students in a world of chaos” quite like a raw brick of milk chocolate between stale grahams.

Creative Ideas for Teacher Appreciation

The best advice I can give the non-educator is to directly ask the teacher what they want/need. Maybe they have a favorite coffee shop aside from Starbucks, or would rather have money for groceries like a Trader Joes gift card. Target? A movie or bookstore gift card? What about a massage?! Maybe a Visa gift card where multiple folks went in on it together so they can spend the money freely. What about money for mental health services because Lord knows we are in crisis. A record shop gift card, home goods, plants, a staycation gift card? There are a plethora of other ideas aside from ye olde Starbucks coffee (now, an educator might also appreciate this, but let’s veer away from making this the default).

The best thing I ever received as a teacher was a handwritten, encouragement letter from both student and parent (and maybe the bottle of wine that came with). That action truly changed my tune going into the summer. Teacher Appreciation happens during the month when nothing matters and every single thing matters. It is a gray area after Spring Break and before summer, where no one’s brains are functioning and kids are…let’s just say…gremlins that smell of broccoli and Hot Cheetos. The buildings are getting hotter, and the attitudes spicier, so teachers need a lifeline of someone who not only gives them a gift but actually appreciates them. The word appreciate literally means: to recognize the full worth of. The entire worth of a teacher cannot be summed up in a Starbucks gift card.

We can appreciate teachers this week in a myriad of different ways aside from gifts as well. Get involved with your local School Boards. Do you know what district you live in and who the Superintendent is/what kind of job they are doing? Follow some teacher accounts on IG, go to the protests, and talk to other parents of school-aged children about how to act civilly when speaking with an educator (another post to come on that soon).

This summer, give teachers space to melt, rest, be unhinged, play, and laugh.