I have just finished term until the new year (hoorah) and have come home laden with presesnts from my lovely students. Amongst the usual, chocolates, plants and toiletries I have been given some Stress Relief Bath Oil and significantly more bottles of wine than last year - after my show this term I obviuosly look like I need them.<P>My question is what do you think is the ideal present for a student to give their dance teacher and what what do you strongly recommend not giving.<P>Happy Holidays!

My idea of an ideal present from a student is anything they made themselves - I love the thought and care that went into that. <P>My idea of the least ideal? I don't ever, ever, never-ever, want to get another card with one of those pink dancing Disney hippos in tutus. The first one hundred I received were funny - but now I am ready for a new dancing animal.

i hope you don't mind this response, joanne and others...but i a little uncomfortable with the idea that maybe i 'should' get a present... <P>i was pleasantly surprised the first year i had my own school and received presents.<P>actually i was pleasantly surprised, years earlier, when a studio owner i worked for, bought me a christmas present - she gave me a book voucher from a good bookshop, knowing i like books, and i bought markova's authorised biography. but i wouldn't say that it was at all commonplace for such presents to be given here.<P>it is more common, i think, for students to give gifts, than for an employer to give one.<P>what i am uncomfortable with, is any sense that, seeing one child give a gift, any of the other children or parents will feel <B>obliged</B> to give one. i am not a believer in obligatory gift-giving, for any occasion, and nor are my family, so we try hard to avoid all commercial pressures - most especially at christmas. <P>i also personally find the commercialisation of christmas really repellent, on a spiritual level - and i don't necessarily mean that in a formal institutionalised religious way - but just as a commment, on a pervasive negative force acting on our lives, which i think we would all do better to resist - but that's just my personal belief.<P>so, ...getting off the soapbox (which is such a familiar place to me...) and back to the students - i do love it when a child brings me a handmade gift, spontaneously - and with the smaller children that tends to happen anytime, not just at christmas.<P>i do like the handmade gift or the hand written card the best - just as a symbol of appreciation, rather than as a christmas gift.<P>last year i stopped the habit of the parents taking up a collection to buy me flowers, to present at the concert, as i feel it's just yet another commercial pressure on them, at christmas, which i'm quite sure they are all pleased to be without. it WAS lovely to have the pretty flowers to look at, for up to 2 weeks afterwards, but its was also very expensive, and they have already paid fees and concert tickets, and costumes, and sometimes new ballet shoes, and maybe food or a bottle of something to bring to the christmas party, etc etc - the list just seems to go on around christmas time, when there are so many other pressures on them anyway....<P>

Hold on a minute Grace - please do get off your soapbox - We are in the fun stuff section and that is what my posting is supposed to be - FUN!!! If I wanted a serious discussion about whether students should or should not give presents I would have posted in The Studio. Also I never expect presents and am always overwhelmed by the amount I receive. However i do think that if people want to send presents to teachers (of any type) or people that have helped them or developed them in some way throughout the year then that is their perogative to do so and discouraging them may offend. I know if i wanted to give someone a present (even someone i was paying for a service) I would take no notice of a no present rule - I think in some ways a no present rule is worse because that in some ways suggests that you were expecting presents. Anyway back to what my original post was intended to be - FUN!!!! and I am sorry if i didn't put that across very well.<P>What made me chuckle was the fact that some students (or parents) had a sense of humour when giving a present - the Stress Relief Bath Oil and the increase in bottles of Wine this year after having completed my first show - I found amusing. No gift a students gives me do i ever belittle and I am very grateful for anything I recieve. In fact i received some very touching presents which i would not even mention here because it is personal. The above presents the parents have obviously judged my sense of humour and sent accordingly. My posting was intended to bring out some of the excellent humour seen on this board i.e perhaps under lists of things not wanting to receive would be, for example, a book "How to be a better Teacher" - do you get the idea.<P>Please do not get all serious on me - I've just finished for the term and was hoping to have a little fun!!<p>[This message has been edited by Joanne (edited December 12, 2000).]

Like you Joanne - I have received some very endearing presents - like foot bath oil from a child who were sure I could use it. Which was very much appreciated!! <P> One very young child gave me a picture she had found of Natalia Makarova - and informed me very seriously that it was a picture of me!! LOL - I, of course, explained to her it was not - but it was so heart warming. As she was telling me how she had found my picture those eyes of hers were so big and blue. Of course I was really wishing that it was me!! Sometimes when they are so young they really do see the teacher through a pink cloud.<P>I used to find a really exciting picture of a famous ballerina in a beautiful costume and have it duplicated and on the back write my thank you notes to the children. Oh, how they loved it!! The parents told me they would pin up the picture of the ballerina in their bedrooms. <P>It was fun on both sides.....it really was.

That is lovely Basheva - a similar thing I have had happen although not to do with Christmas presents, is one day last Summer a pre-school pupil arrived early for class with her Mum and I hadn't yet changed into my dance gear. I was wearing an outfit in hot pink. I heard the pre-schooler whisper to her Mum, "Mummy, Miss Joanne is a Barbie"<P>2 of the loveliest presents I have ever received are items that have lasted way beyond the festive season. One was a ballerina fridge magnet - which reminds me of the student every time I go the fridge the other is a Christmas Tree decoration of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer which again reminds me of the student that bought it for me every time I decorate my tree.<BR>

I do not recommend giving your Russian teacher, who lived in St. Petersburg all her life, and graduated from the Vaganova Academy, "Basic Principles of Classical Ballet" by Agrippina Vaganova, especially not if your teacher can quote passages from it as though it were the Holy Bible . giving her "Suki Schorer on Balanchine Technique" might not be a good idea, either. <P>I give both my teachers a gift each time we do a ballet (but please don't think that it's "cute" to give your teacher a Nutcracker after s/he has just completed rehearsing and supervising several performances of Casse~Noisette)! <P>------------------<BR>~Intuviel~<BR><A HREF="http://www.freetown.com/Uptown/HaightAshbury/1055/ballet.html" TARGET=_blank>Balletica</A><BR>

<BLOCKQUOTE><font size="1" face="Verdana, Arial">quote:</font><HR>If I wanted a serious discussion about whether students should or should not give presents I would have posted in The Studio.<HR></BLOCKQUOTE><P>sorry joanne. <P>i guess i'm just a serious person....

OK - trying hard to get into the spirit of it. what would i NOT want to receive in 2 days time?...:<P>a diet book.....<P>a voodoo doll of me with pins stuck in it...<P>any well-meant advice about where to buy a better sound system....<P>

Don't worry about it Grace - the post was never meant to offend your beliefs, just be fun.<P>Happy Holidays.

Last year I scanned the logo of our studio and printed it out on a special paper product. I purchased a mouse pad and thus made a "studio logo" mouse pad. It was not expensive and it was a one of a kind gift.