My grandparents brought fruit, or eggs, milk, veggies from the farm on a weekly basis (gma), and rabbits every month (grandfather). For holidays each hosted the teacher for 1 or 2 days. Unless they were wealthy. Then a week or so.
In today's market... Their yearly contributions would = several thousand dollars each year. Each student (except the poorest) did the same.
When my mum was a child in the city, students still brought produce (apple for the teacher!), but instead of livestock, parents offered services. Mechanics fixed cars. Beauticians did hair. Knitters made sweaters. Doctors treated. Cops escorted. Brewers brought beers and wines. Butchers, bakers, etc.
My mum always felt badly that we didn't have 'more' to give our teachers growing up, but by my day in school, teachers weren't brought produce every day, nor livestock monthly, nor were teachers hosted (room & board) over holidays. But they were still given tokens. HOWEVER in my day, attitudes really started shifting. Not just surrounding teaching, but world in general. Mom n Pop bit the dust in my childhood. Families tended to be employees (instead of self employed or laborers). A LOT changed in the 70's & 80's. I remember some of the big teaching strikes. We were on a military base. The teachers lost the respect offset military families, when -already making 3x as much as most servicemembers... They struck for weeks for higher pay. There was a paradigm switch as teachers started being the wealthiest 'family' in their classroom, as teachers made more than military and working class families. And moonlit over 3 months of break (remember those? 12 weeks of summer. 3 weeks of Christmas break.
At the same time the educational experiments really went into full swing (including only meeting with parents twice a year, instead of talking daily & weekly).
There were MASSIVE changes that happened, some positive some negative.
Gifting teachers has stuck around. But in the token sense.
Shrug. I think its interesting. The past 3 generations have seen a LOT of change!!!