Why Are Apples Associated with Teachers?

As you have probably noticed, provided there are no major holidays approaching, many of America’s elementary school teachers will be wearing something with an apple on it. If a holiday is coming up soon, they will of course be wearing novelty sweater vests decorated accordingly, but you can still find apples aplenty on wall decor and desk tchotchkes in classrooms across the country. Why is this?

There are at least two theories as to why apples are associated with teachers. The first is that when teachers teach the alphabet, words are paired with each letter as an example. A is for apple, and if a student wants his teacher to give him good grades, he gives her an apple so that she will associate him with the letter A.

These kids, of course, are the brown-nosers who get forced by the cooler kids on the playground to stick their tongues to frozen flagpoles.

That’s a pretty good theory, but there’s another major one out there. According to it, teachers in several countries were not paid very much from the 1500s to the 1700s, so parents would provide their children’s teachers with food to help sustain them. Some people say apples were a popular choice because they were prevalent in those countries at the time. Others say parents gave apples to teachers because apples were special and rather expensive, so the giving of an apple was honorable to the recipient. Still others believe that apples are associated with teachers because of what apples represent.

What Do Apples Represent?

From proverbs to idioms to celebrity baby names, apples are everywhere. It’s a popular fruit, to be sure, but is there more to the apple than meets the eye? Throughout history, apples have stood for many different things, all of which are applicable to teachers and education.

• Health – We all know that “an apple a day keeps the doctor away.” We also know that the best preventative medicine is education. Teachers, therefore, provide not only information, but also the means to a long, healthy life. The gift of an apple to a teacher could also be a message that the giver wishes good health for the teacher.
• Growth – Just as entire groves of apple trees grow from the tiny seeds inside the fruit, so do entire societies grow out of individual adults who were once small children. Tending an apple grove is not unlike teaching a classroom full of children. Both jobs require patience, discipline, care and knowledge (which the apple also happens to represent).
• Knowledge – This one is a tad skewed, but here’s the thought. Even though the Bible never says that the fruit Adam and Eve wrongly ate was an apple, many people still believe it was. Whatever the fruit was, it came from a tree in the center of the Garden of Eden – the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. Many people (probably the same ones who think the fruit was an apple) also mistakenly refer to the tree as “the tree of knowledge,” although that was not its whole name. Still, this is why apples are often associated with knowledge. That, and eating healthy foods helps to keep your mind, as well as your body, strong and healthy.
• Variety – A trip to your local grocery store’s produce aisle will remind you of just how many kinds of apples there are out there. You’ve got your Granny Smith, your Red Delicious, your Golden Delicious, your Fuji, your Pink Lady, and so on. They come in all different sizes, colors and flavors, from pink to green, sweet to tangy. Students also come in all different varieties, so perhaps one reason why students give apples to their teacher is to remind him that they are all unique, but all great in their own ways. Or perhaps the many different kinds of apples reminds us of the many subjects a teacher must master, or the many different roles a teacher plays in the life of a child.

No matter what the reason why apples are associated with teachers, the point is that good teachers deserve our thanks. But maybe these days an Apple product (like an iPod or MacBook) would be a better gift than a piece of fruit.