It's been ages since I taught and I taught older students, so I never got the group gift card. It wasn't really common to get gifts back then anyway, but I did get a few that were really special and I still have them. I've kept many notes, cards and letters.
A student whose family was from another country had gone home for a visit and brought back a teapot for me. I look at it every day in my kitchen. He was an incredibly shy student and it took all he had to walk up and give me that teapot. I taught history and one of my students came across a piece of graphite shaped as a pencil, found in an old abandoned schoolhouse and gave it to me. I still treasure that.
I'm not really talking about "wow, that was an expensive and impressive gift" type of things, but did you ever get a gift from a student that touched your heart?
A student whose family was from another country had gone home for a visit and brought back a teapot for me. I look at it every day in my kitchen. He was an incredibly shy student and it took all he had to walk up and give me that teapot. I taught history and one of my students came across a piece of graphite shaped as a pencil, found in an old abandoned schoolhouse and gave it to me. I still treasure that.
I'm not really talking about "wow, that was an expensive and impressive gift" type of things, but did you ever get a gift from a student that touched your heart?