Don’t Mask Your Appreciation

Entertaining At Its Finest
May 1, 2021
Breakfast in Bed
May 1, 2021
Entertaining At Its Finest
May 1, 2021
Breakfast in Bed
May 1, 2021

It’s teacher appreciation time. 

I used to try to think of creative ways to thank teachers. Search it up on Pinterest, and there’s no end of ideas: A Starbucks gift card with a note attached saying “thank you a latte.”

I just laughed out loud in a very literal sense when I read this Pinterest note attached to a candle: “A good teacher is like a candle, it consumes itself to light the way for others.” Maybe it’s just me, but consuming yourself sounds like being a cannibal, but worse because you’re consuming yourself. I can’t even look at a candle teacher gift the same any more without thinking of the note. 


There’s some 2020-2021 Pinterest ideas out there as well. A cute mask for your teacher with a note attached saying: “We cannot mask our appreciation for you.” Just don’t. I’m not a teacher, but I’m willing to bet no one wants to be reminded of the year of the masks with a thank you card with a mask attached. I could be wrong, though. After all, I drop my kids off in the car line by 8 a.m. and don’t see them again until 3 p.m. But I’m thinking that a teacher who has repeatedly fussed kids all this very, very long year about wearing masks properly might not want their thank you gift to revolve around the idea of a mask. 

But back to the whole dropping off kids and picking them up.

This year marks the first year I’ve never once volunteered in their school. From the very beginning of their school years, I’ve volunteered in their school throughout the year – helping with class parties, filling in when a teacher needs to miss an hour or two, or chaperoning on field trips.


In the years before, I’ll admit that it’s been a part of my “I’m too busy” list of complaints. It’s been part of a “to do” list that is never ending, with new items appearing on the list before I’ve even had the opportunity to scratch off the ones already there. 

This year has felt different. 

My middle school daughters talk of friends of theirs that I don’t know, because I’ve never had a chance to be in their classroom and meet new students. Entire holidays have passed, and I never stepped foot in their classroom for “Spring Fling” or any of the other holiday events that I’ve always volunteered. This year of masks and quarantines and the entire school shutting down for weeks has been a year unlike any other. I miss being a part of their school world. Even as I type, I wonder when parents will be allowed back in to help.


So maybe don’t give your teacher a mask for teacher appreciation.

They’ve done it all alone this year. In a year with new rules, new expectations, and virtual classrooms. They’ve tried to maintain normalcy in the most abnormal of years, when the world has gone mad more than once. They’ve maintained order in classrooms of children whose parents represent both sides of an extremely divided political spectrum in our country. They’ve become virtual teachers when they signed up to do in-person, classroom-only teaching. They’ve mastered new skills in order to teach a generation forever changed by the year 2020. 

So thank a teacher this month. 


Write a note. Or even better, have your children write a note. Give them gift cards to the spa, or a restaurant or Amazon. Or all three. 

Please do not give them a mask. Please do not let them go unthanked. 

Please do not think this year was easier for them because they might have been home more, due to virtual teaching. 


Your note doesn’t need to rhyme or have a catchy phrase. But don’t let this month pass by without thanking the teachers in your life.

Thank them for the unseen hours late at school and late into the night, when they were working out the kinks of this unprecedented school year in order to give your child a somewhat normal year. Thank them for smiling when they felt like crying. Thank them for loving when they wanted to leave. POV