For those educators out there this is the time of year in May when our work officially gets recognized.  Of course, up until a few years ago, this event was called Teacher Appreciation Week.  However, after complaints from custodians and cafeteria workers, it has gone through the politically correct name change of Staff Appreciation Week.

If you are lucky enough, your local PTA will honor you with a special breakfast or lunch.  For many teachers, however, Teacher Appreciation celebrations have the opposite effect of their intentions--insulting teachers not honoring them.

Where I work the local PTA puts a lot of time and effort in a whole week of placing in each teacher's box a token "thank you."  Here are some examples:

• a Cup O'Noodles with "you are SOUP-er" taped on it

• a miniature fan with the saying "you are FAN-tastic"
• a marble with a note "you are MARBLE-lous"
• "we are the lucky ones" taped to a penny

How more substantive would it be to bundle all the money to pay for these trinkets and give teachers a special breakfast or lunch?  Plus, it would take only one timeframe of effort instead of 5 days.

What do you think?