Comments on: Children and parents as customers?

By: Don’s Learning Log » Blog Archive » Parents and Children as Customers - an outward facing public service

Sat, 24 Nov 2007 14:01:38 +0000

[...] Guineapigmum likes the idea of partners - and I think a good school should be characterised by a partnership between teachers, parents and children - but it still doesn’t capture for me the idea of being “customer” (oops) facing. In other words it’s possible to enter into a partnership where you are primarily interested in your fulfilling your own needs - and that by working in partnership with others we gain mutual benefit. However, should schools only enter into partnership with parents and children to gain something for themselves? What if a parent doesn’t want to be a partner - do we treat them differently? What of a six year old child doesn’t want to be a partner - do we give up on them and wait until they do? [...]

By: John Connell » Blog Archive » Who and What do we Serve?

John Connell » Blog Archive » Who and What do we Serve? — Wed, 14 Nov 2007 11:24:14 +0000

[...] Don Ledingham picks up on a forthright response to his post on the parent as ‘customer’ of education. Don’s original post and the response from ‘Teacher’ can be read here. [...]

By: Don’s Learning Log » Blog Archive » Parents as customers?

Don’s Learning Log » Blog Archive » Parents as customers? — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 20:30:24 +0000

[...] as it might be in the private sector school system. These concerns are captured perfectly in a response to my recent post as this extract [...]

By: Don Ledingham

Don Ledingham — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 13:49:59 +0000

I know what you mean. The traditional conceptualisation of a “customer” appears to reinforce a transactional relationship i.e. “the customer pays the service delivers” - which only serves to promote education a commodity. However, would a service which was committed to serving its “customers” adopt such a resistant attitude as the one you describe in your comment?

I’d be really interested in what you make of the Demos paper and whether or not that might influence your perception?

By: guineapigmum

guineapigmum — Tue, 13 Nov 2007 12:54:43 +0000

I’m not sure that I like the idea of being a customer. I’d rather be a partner. But maybe this is difficult because of the very different starting points of teacher and parent/child.
The teachers after all are the trained professionals, many of whom have been in the job for a long time. Parents are very much learning on the job and pass through the education system in a relatively short space of time. I have often found teachers very intolerant of the opinions of non-teachers - this dates way back to before children (was there such a time?) and was instrumental in putting me off teaching as a career. I’ve also found similar attitudes on school boards - suggestions regularly dismissed with “we tried this 10 years ago and it didn’t work” or information simply not imparted - so any sort of partnership working is difficult. However, it certainly looks as though some of this is changing, with things like this blog for instance, and perhaps as new ideas and a new breed of teacher come through partnership working will be more of a reality. But a customer? It just doesn’t sound the right bells for me.

By: Teacher

Teacher — Mon, 12 Nov 2007 00:20:53 +0000

Sorry, did I overdo it? It took me a while to work out that you don’t use a 4lb club hammer when assembling an Ikea wardrobe, either.

By: Don Ledingham

Don Ledingham — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 23:53:51 +0000

Thanks for capturing so perfectly the concern that many involved in education would share about the concept of treating children and parents as customers. Much more powerful than the simplistic version I came up with in my post.

By: Teacher

Teacher — Sun, 11 Nov 2007 23:19:48 +0000

Oh my goodness. I’m sorry, Don, but the idea that somehow unknowing, inexperienced, untutored, hormone-ravaged, naive, self-centred, arrogant products of the weak state education of the past twenty years and their children are to be elevated to the status of customers - and the comical fallacy of “the customer is always right” - has me switching between rolling on the floor laughing and smacking myself hard on the forehead in disbelief.

Ideas like this picked up from the guttering around the edges of education underline the lack of principle and political understanding in this human history in which we are living. Can I spell it out: teachers, like great kings and soldiers, serve the greater “customer” of society itself. What we produce is the society in which we live: we fail when we tolerate liberal stupidities, political correctness and the false sycophantic grovelling to the “customers”; we succeed when the communities in which we live become intrinsically better because perspective, principle and purpose feature in the developed minds of our output.

The burger flipper is trained in customer service but the business serves its capital investors. Let’s keep our perspectives.