Give the teacher an apple

Why Teachers are Associated with and Traditionally Given Apples

Widespread publicly funded, mandatory education has only been around since about the 19th century. Before then, the responsibility of providing schooling to children fell primarily on their families. Upper- and middle-class families tended to hire tutors or send their children to a private school run by a schoolmaster. That didn’t mean the children in lower-class families missed out on learning how to read and write. They often learned this at home, through apprenticeships, or at church-funded schools.

In addition, some poor families scraped together enough money to pay for their children to receive an education. Some even worked out a barter arrangement with teachers where they paid with surplus produce from the family farm. For instance, poor students from farming families in Denmark and Sweden often brought baskets of potatoes or apples to school as payment, among other staples (the potato being used for food, and the apple generally used for making drinks at the time).

In the United States, things changed when various social reforms came about in the 1800s. The reforms addressed issues ranging from food sanitation, treatment of the mentally ill, and even education. Schools became publicly funded and subject to regulations in order to ensure that all students were more or less getting the same educational opportunity.

By 1913, a majority of the states in the United States of America required that schools be paid for by the government. However towns on the sparsely settled western frontier still often bore the responsibility for paying for a teacher in the town. As before, they recruited teachers, and they provided a schoolhouse where classes could be held, a place for the teachers to live, fuel for heating, and often food. In these sorts of arrangements, students were also often tasked with helping the teacher maintain the schoolhouse, such as gathering on Saturdays to give it a thorough cleaning.

That tradition of bringing food to teachers continued even as the United States government took over the responsibility for funding public education in the West. The baskets of food were eventually replaced with smaller amounts as the old “Boarding Round” room and board pay system was replaced by more in the way of a cash salary.

But why do schoolchildren traditionally give apples to their teachers? As mentioned, there are records of students from such places as Denmark and Sweden bringing both apples and potatoes to their teachers, among other things, so why don’t students traditionally give potatoes to teachers? There are two generally accepted answers, one or both of which possibly contributing to this tradition over other food items like the potato.

For the first theory, teachers were often seen as a moral influence into the lives of children. (Indeed, the “Boarding Round” system often insured that teachers toed the line with the community’s moral standards- teach something outside of this, and suddenly see something like your food or heating fuel payment disappear.) Along with this, the “Tree of Knowledge” in the story of Adam and Eve in the Book of Genesis has often been mistakenly referred to as an apple tree. This is partially thanks to Aquila Ponticus, who was a second century translator translating the Old Testament from Hebrew to Greek. He took the liberty of referring to the Tree of Knowledge as an apple tree, even though the original text doesn’t say that. It’s likely that he chose this due to the fact that he was translating it into Greek for Greeks and that in Greek mythology apples were seen as symbols of desire and destruction.

Due to the prevalence of this “Tree of Knowledge” / apple tree idea, it wouldn’t be an out of place gift, then, for students to give their teachers an apple, the fruit representative of knowledge.

On to the second popular theory for the continuance of giving apples- apples arrived in North America shortly after the Jamestown Colony was founded in the early 1600s. These apples, unlike the ones found in supermarkets today, tasted bitter, but they could be used to make hard apple cider. Many people, whether rightly or wrongly, considered hard cider a safer beverage than water because widespread sanitation of drinking water did not yet exist. Apple trees also flourished in a variety of climates, contributing to the popularity of the fruit.

The sweeping social reforms that allowed schools and education to become regulated also posed a major problem for apples. The temperance movement that spanned from the mid-19th century to the early 20th century sought to eliminate the drinking of alcohol in the United States. Apple growers scrambled to re-brand the fruit in order to remove themselves from the controversy. Careful cultivation caused the fruit to lose its bitter taste and to become sweeter and sweeter with each new generation of apples.

Marketing campaigns also played a part in the apple’s new image. Phrases like “An apple a day keeps the doctor away” were dusted off and used to brand the apple as a healthy snack. So the theory goes that students and their parents who wanted to get on a teacher’s good side saw apples as a way to give the teacher a healthy, cheap snack, which was also quite versatile, able to be used now for both drink and a sweet treat. Thus, they chose to keep giving this food item, rather than something like the potato.

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The first apples were grown in Kazakhstan. For more on this, see: A Brief History of the Apple Tree
The Red Delicious apple was one of those created when apple growers worked to sweeten apples in response to the temperance movement. On the other hand, Granny Smith apples were discovered quite by accident growing on the property of one Maria Ann Smith.
The term “apple-polish” was coined in the early 1900s and means that a student is trying to get favors from their teacher- essentially a brown-noser or suck-up.

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An Apple for the Teacher или немного об американских традициях

Во многих американских фильмах о школе вы, скорее всего, видели сцену, в которой ученик дарит учителю яблоко. Я вам сейчас расскажу, откуда эта традиция взялась. На двух языках расскажу. Попробуйте прочитать сначала английский вариант, а потом проверить себя с помощью русского)

🇺🇸In American schools there is a tradition of gifting apples to teachers. Have you ever wondered where it came from?

Well, there are two theories. The first one is connected with Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden. Here, the «Tree of Knowledge», from which Eve eats the forbidden fruit, is often depicted as an apple tree. So, the connection is obvious. Apple is a fruit of knowledge. Teachers give us knowledge. It’s a perfect match!

The second theory goes back to America’s western frontier. It’s said that «families whose children attended schools were often responsible for housing and feeding teachers». In that tradition, an apple for the teacher could be considered a sweet token of appreciation.

Anyway, «An Apple for the Teacher» is a nice tradition and it’s likely to stay for a long time. 🇺🇸

🇷🇺Есть такая традиция, дарить американским учителям яблоки. Про нее даже песня есть. Знаете, откуда она пришла?

Есть две теории. Первая связана с Адамом, Евой и Эдемским садом. Дерево познания, с которого Ева вкусила запретный плод, изображают в виде яблони. Дальше логика такая: яблоко — фрукт познания; учителя дают нам знания. Все сходится.

Следующая теория связана с американским старым Западом. Там семьи, чьи дети посещали школу, были ответственны за размещение и питание учителей. Яблоко считалось знаком благодаоности.

Вот такая милая традиция, которая, вероятно, будет жить ещё очень долго. 🇷🇺

Кстати, учителя радуются, когда им яблоки дарят. Это расценивается как знак уважения и признания того, что они хорошие учителя. Некоторые даже слишком рады такому подарку)

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Apple for Teacher

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A common stereotype of schools is the Teacher’s Pet giving the teacher a shiny red apple as a token of appreciation. Sometimes it’s given to them directly in front of the whole class, or it can be placed on the teacher’s desk in secret and anonymously.

A common variation is the class clown (or, conversely, the class bully) giving an apple with a worm inside to gross them out. A variation of this variation is to play a joke on the teacher by giving them an apple with gummie worm candies inside. Another common variation is for the student to give the teacher a chocolate-dipped, candy-coated apple as a Halloween, Christmas, and/or Valentine’s Day gift (this works best during the winter, as the heat of the warmer summer, late spring, and early fall temperatures would cause the chocolate coating to melt). Further variations include giving the teacher apple pie, apple cider, or apple-flavored ice cream and/or frozen yogurt instead of actual regular apples in their purest traditional form.

Sometimes some other type of fruits appear as yet another variation, best if it’s traditional fruit from the kids’ (or their parents’) gardens like pears or plums. Apples, pears, and plums are traditionally harvested in autumn, which makes them ideal gifts for teachers at the beginning of the school year. The trope seems to originate in a rule or a law from some communities: the village or town and its people were responsible for providing food for their local teacher.

Giving the teacher plain, traditional apples is now somewhat of a Discredited Trope, but the apple is still strongly associated with teachers (at least those teaching in elementary schools).

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An Apple for the Teacher

The tradition of putting an apple on teacher’s desk was allegedly started by a grade-school student who polished a red apple and placed it on teacher’s desk just before the class start. The “apple polisher’s” intention was to ask for a better grade or bribe the teacher with a bright and shiny red apple.

REMEMBERING OUR FIRST STAGE OF EDUCATION

Apple as a Symbol of Teaching in Different Countries

The apple has been the symbol of teaching for many years but used differently some parts of the world. For instance, seems so different from the original apple polisher’s intention, students in Europe who cannot afford school fees traditionally bring an apple for the teacher as acceptable payment in kind.

In Nashville, Tennessee, U.S, a crystal apple award is given to a teacher “who made a difference”. Moreover, the apple according to literature represents the happy relationship between teachers, students, and their families and from a teacher’s perspective, an apple on their desk is an appreciation of their hard work and a gift from people who like and see them as noble professionals.

Teaching is the most demanding of all profession but according to a teacher with more than thirty years in service, teaching is the most rewarding and noble profession of all. For one thing, teachers help younger generation survive the challenges of present and future by transferring their knowledge and skills. The reward on the other hand such as simple a bear hug from students, an apple on the desk, a birthday card with a note, and so on is far greater than the demands.

Teaching Is the Noblest Profession of All

Teaching is a profession that is conceptually and ideally noble. Compared to another profession, teaching has a multitude of dimensions and it is considered to be the only profession that requires becoming a qualified practitioner. For instance, teachers must undertake sound professional training before they can teach, undergo induction training at work and update their knowledge and skills through continuous education. Moreover, teachers are mostly engaged in human development activities.

Qualified teachers normally mastered the knowledge of the subject, the pedagogy, teaching techniques, dedicated to students’ learning and betterment of our society. The professional and cultural dimensions of teaching made it an even more difficult profession.

However, the most inspiring justification for being an exceptional and noblest profession is the reality that monetary consideration in teaching is often secondary. One of its primary principles is selflessness and required by the code of ethics to maintain dignity and avoid controversies in and out of school. In fact, aside from maintaining a high standard of personal appearance, a teacher’s own life should reflect dignity in education, act as people with superior educational skills, blameless, obedient, and neutral to any social, economic, and political issues.

Despite enormous demands and pressure, teaching is a poorly paid profession, teachers do not usually have similar public respect that other professionals enjoy, considered professional but not autonomous at the workplace, they normally need to work in the evenings and on weekends, perform enormous clerical activities, and in most occasion dealing with poor working condition.

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Give the teacher an apple

Перевод песни An apple for the teacher (Bing Crosby)

В исполнении: Bing Crosby, Connee Boswell.

An apple for the teacher

Яблоко для учительницы