Treat Students Like Customer? No Way! I Thought At First.......

As in - Customer is always right?

No way!

Or so I thought at first......

How can a student and a customer be on par? Can you imagine what would happen if "the customer is always right" adage were to be applied to students? Anarchy is schools....

Then I read through the article only to realize that the author meant something very different from what I took it to be at first glance. This was about transferable credits, students moving to other schools taking with them things such as grants etc. This was about how schools are plagued by such moves especially where school performance is tracked by governments.

But the impact of that phrase "Treat Students like Customers" wouldn't leave me. And slowly, the truth of that statement started seeping into my mind.

Okay... students and customers? What do they have in common? What do people who deal with them have in common? A second and third pass along these lines brought forth this idea - Sellers want the Customer to accept and buy their product. Sellers are the people who deal with Customers. The people who deal with students are Teachers. What do the teachers want - for the Student to accept and imbibe (buy) what they teach!

In each case there is a giver and a taker. When both are successful in their dealings with each other, both benefit.

So, in effect, the deal is the same - one wants to give/impart/sell. This will happen only if the other party can be enticed and attracted towards the product. In that context, I would say, convincing a thrifty customer and teaching a recalcitrant student are on par. While the one does not want to part with his money, the other does not want to accept what is given.

So would it help to treat a student as a customer? When you look at it in a certain way, it becomes clear that it would.