Challenge Coins for Educators

The phrase “these are challenging times” is often overused, but for educators, it certainly rings true. Times are tough for teachers, even in the best of years. With concerns about student testing, funding cuts and other issues facing both teachers and administrators, it’s more important than ever to encourage dedicated professionals to stay in their chosen field.

In a concerted effort to keep our best educators in the classrooms, schools and districts are trying to find creative ways to show appreciation for their faculty and staff. Many have turned to custom challenge coins as a way to recognize, honor and motivate their most dedicated educators.

The Appeal of Challenge Coins

Custom challenge coins, steeped in tradition, are a unique way to show appreciation for an act of service. The history of challenge coins can be traced back all the way to ancient Rome. Their popularity today is largely due to their widespread adoption in the U.S. Armed Forces in the 20th century.

From their origins in the military to the broader civilian market, custom coins are increasingly being used today as a way to celebrate achievement and promote camaraderie in many areas, from the corporate world to nonprofit groups to academia.

Challenge coins are forged in commemoration and gifted in recognition, which is why many organizations have adopted the tradition of presenting challenge coins to their employees, members and volunteers. Coins show the recipients that leadership appreciates and honors their efforts. A small investment in challenge coins can pay big dividends in motivation in just about any environment.

Challenge Coins as an Added Recognition

We need to take a moment here to stress the obvious. When it comes to recognition, challenge coins should be additional gifts for teachers. A challenge coin presented in place of monetary bonuses, extra vacation days, free catered lunches, and other appropriate offerings, could be considered disrespectful and would lose all meaning.

Those traditional gifts should be the standard, but because they are the standard, they are not necessarily symbolic. There is no commemoration in a tray of free bagels. This is why custom challenge coins can be truly meaningful for the recipients when given appropriately! It's the extra thought that counts - the extra mile taken to truly show your appreciation.

Why Give Educators Custom Challenge Coins?

That one’s easy. Educators spend their careers in service to their community. Teachers work after hours, they support their students’ extracurricular activities, and they inspire young minds to achieve their goals.

Custom challenge coins can boost morale by inspiring the inspirers! A challenge coin acts as a literal token of appreciation. It’s a tangible object that represents recognition of hard work. That’s also why challenge coins can be a great morale boost. Faculty and staff will feel a great sense of camaraderie when presented with these symbolic gestures. And showing that you appreciate people helps increase job satisfaction and reduce turnover as well.

What Should You Include on Educator Challenge Coins?

When designing custom challenge coins for teachers, there is much to consider. Should you include an image? A phrase? Should the coin be round or should the shape be less traditional? Whatever ideas you have, we at ChallengeCoins4Less.com are here to help bring them together with a quality custom challenge coin design. We offer many design options to help you create a truly unique coin that your educators will carry and display with pride.

Images Are The Key to Design

Imagery is an important aspect of any challenge coin design. Traditional imagery for teachers includes apples, rulers, and chalk boards, but you can push the design details even further with an image of the school itself or even the mascot!

Include your school’s motto or an inspirational phrase around the border of your coin as a reminder of why teachers work as hard as they do for their students. Create a colorful design for an eye-catching coin and include a coin stand, so that teachers can display their custom challenge coins on their desks or bookshelves.

When is the Best Time to Present Challenge Coins to Teachers?

Part of the tradition of challenge coins includes how they are presented. In the military, challenge coins are presented without much fanfare and often within a handshake, That doesn’t necessarily have to be the case when presenting custom challenge coins to educators. You could give the coins out during events or faculty meetings, even at schoolwide assemblies. Or you could make it more intimate by personally delivering a challenge coin to each individual teacher and thanking them for their service.

The timing should also be right when gifting challenge coins. You could give your faculty custom challenge coins at the beginning of the school year to set the tone or set a goal for the year.

Another good time to gift challenge coins is right before winter break, which usually marks the halfway point for the school year - plus the coin doubles as a holiday gift. (Keep in mind, however, the fact that challenge coins should be additional gifts, not the standard annual ones.) Teachers will return from vacation in January with renewed enthusiasm, and with their goals in mind.

The Right Coin Provider Makes a Difference

Designing and gifting custom challenge coins is the perfect extra step to take when you want to recognize the service of our teachers. At ChallengeCoins4Less.com, we have 20 years’ experience creating outstanding challenge coins for people, events and occasions of all kinds. We will be glad to help you craft the perfect coin designs to honor your teachers and administrators in a manner that’s perfect for your school or district.

Ready to find out more? Call us toll free at (855) 272-8451, or email us. Have a design in mind? Great! Fill out or no-obligation free quote form and we’ll send you a free digital proof of your design. Let us show you how easy it can be to motivate and honor your hard-working educators with custom educator challenge coins for these challenging times!