Professor Derek is teaching MBA in Hong Kong who is my classmate. We have a dinner together a few years ago when I was in Hong Kong.
He told me that the world is changed; the students’ attitudes are totally different from the day we were. Those students are not that respecting their teacher nowadays. They only think that the education is only a trading. They pay the money and buy the certificate only.
He continue to told me an example that one time he still have little bit time left on his class. He gave an exercise for the students to do but one of the students refuses to do it and yelling on him.
The student said, “I pay the school fee is buying your time and helping you to earn a living, you should need to feed me until the class finished, don’t be stop, keep going!”
My classmate Derek is a funny guy, he answered the student with humour, “Yes, you are right, you help me to make a living, but please don’t forget who have the right to qualify your graduation and issue your certificate.”
If a student has this kind of thinking, then do you think that the teacher will treat him as a student or a client?
Although some of the teachers may also think they are selling the knowledge, but once an education becomes as a trading, its original meaning is already loss.