Well, I started teaching in 1976 and I got gifts; not so many in the beginning, but I had many years of receiving delicious homemade tamales from my students or lasagna.
I never gave gifts as a kid, back in the dark ages, in elementary school. But, since there were only like, 5 non-Jewish kids in my elementary school, X-Mas gifts were not on the radar. I remember in maybe 5th or 6th grade, the room mothers getting together and giving a class gift to the teacher.