Students: Consumers or Window Shoppers

Written on June 28, 2020

This summer I had the opportunity to read two books that have challenged me to revisit my position as a teacher. The first book was 'Empower" by John Spencer and A.J. Juliani, and the second book was "Educated Design" by Michael Cohen. Both of these books may be ordered through Amazon.

As an educator, I was taught that the business curriculum we define for students should be a curriculum that prepares them for the real world. I have spent my entire career as a teacher working on this goal. Inviting speakers into the classroom, providing projects and activities that would be engaging for students, using gamification to help students learn concepts and business terms, and having student collaborate and share work hoping they would absorb the information that would help them be better prepared for their future.

I have had many students who have returned to visit share with me how well prepared they were for the next step in their education, whether it was college or entering the work force. After reading these two books, I am sure that though I had great intentions and my students did learn and were ready to move forward to the next level, I realize now that my curriculum was missing a key ingredient. Even though every year I revisit my teaching philosophy and introduce new ideas and concepts, it wasn't until I read these two books that I was able to put my finger on the ingredient that I think will put my teaching on a new level with a new focus.

I am a business teacher, so how I approach my curriculum is surrounded by business strategies. However, the one strategy that I have missed up to this point was the ingredient that is ultimately the most important ingredient in the business world. This ingredient or strategy is the backbone of the business community and will make or break any business. However, I have never made an active connection between my teaching philosophy and this key ingredient until now.

I believe that my students are actively engaged in the classroom utilizing the various tools that are provided for the activities assigned. You can see that if you walk into any of my classes. Students are usually busy working, chatting and collaborating. They produce great work and I am proud of the how they use their creativity to design, develop and alter their product designs. But after reading both of the aforementioned books, I was left with the following questions:

• Is it enough just for my students to be actively engaged in their work? 
• Is it enough just to see them growing and learning? 
• Is it enough just for them to collaborate and share their experiences?
• Is it enough just to see them analyzing and critiquing their work and peer work?
• Is it enough just to see them go back to the drawing board and redesign and improve their output?

The reason these five questions popped into my mind was because I recognize something students are lacking even after being heavily engaged in the activities that they do, and that is the ability to apply these ideas and concepts to other ideas that they are learning. They know the concepts and skills in the moment, but struggle at applying them to previous and new material that they have learned or are learning. The other area where students struggle is in the ability to apply what they learn in my classes to other disciplines. Ryan Read and I have been talking about these issues for quite awhile because his experience is very similar to mine Thus, we are asking the question, "Why?"

These five questions brings me back to that ingredient that needed to be awakened in me as a teacher. As a business teacher, I know that the most important part of business planning is the consumer and the product that the consumer wants to purchase. If a business fails to offer a product (or service) that is of interest or useful to the consumer, the consumer becomes just a "window shopper". They look, they examine, they analyze, they share and talk about the product, but they do not "invest" in the product. In other words, they don't buy the product (or service). They do not see it as something they need or want. So in the business world, if you offer a product that consumers do not want or do not feel they need, your product will not be successful. The business world is all about providing products and services that consumers need and want. In a nut shell, businesses help consumers solve problems through the products or services that they offer. If the product solves consumer problems, they will continue to invest in it AND the consumer will promote it through word of mouth to others (good or bad). It is the consumer's buy-in to the product that makes or breaks a business.

So, how does this apply to the classroom? As a teacher, I was left with this question: Are the students in my classroom window shoppers or are they consumers? To answer this question, I had to first ask the question, What product was I offering to my students? Believe it or not, this was a very difficult question to answer. I was not sure. In my technology classes, I might answer computer skills, or certification, or business knowledge. Some other responses might be our class outcomes that we provide for our students or the teaching standards that we use as our guides. But after much reflection, I realized that I am not quite sure if any of these answers describe the product that is offered in my classroom. So, I need to take time to reflect on what my product truly is for my students. Is the product the same for all classes, or is the product different for each class? Thus, this leads me to my next question: What are students willing to invest in? What do students need or want? What are students willing to buy?

We all know that as teachers, we work very hard to provide our students the very best. We have been trained well and see ourselves as the experts and the coaches in the classroom, and as such, are the ones best to define for our students what they need to learn. I do agree with this. I have spent enormous amounts of money on my education to learn about the important elements of business and technology. I think this concept is a given. But in this discussion, I want to move past this given to something that for me involves two new realities: looking at my students as the consumers of the products I offer and, are these consumers buying-in to the product? I think we as teachers must consider doing what businesses do and analyze what products our customers need and want as well as what will that product look like within our classrooms. Unlike private schools, public school students do not financial invest in their education; that is provided for them. I think this is a fact that challenges all of us in the public school system. Students do not see themselves as "paying" for the product we offer them (though the school tax system begs to differ). So, how do we get students who do not see themselves as "losing money" in their education, invest in the product we offer?

At the present time, I believe that the majority of our students are "window shoppers' and are not consumers of our product. To be true consumers, you have to be able to reflect on what your needs and wants are in order to determine what products you need to buy. For many of our younger students, they are not sure of their needs or wants because they really have not asked the question. Our older students are starting to ask these questions, but due to lack of experience they are unsure as well. That is why so many of our students are window shoppers--they just don't know or are unaware. So expect that when students walk through the door of your classroom, the majority will be window shoppers--they are trying to figure out if your class has any real merit for their lives. It is up to us as teachers to present the product in a way that moves them from window shoppers to consumers; to convince students that in taking the risk to buy the product, they will benefit from it in exciting ways even though they might not see themselves as actually "spending" money. Just like when they buy a new cell phone with all of the latest gadgets, our classes need to offer various ways to learn that are fun and meaningful in a way that students perceive solve problems. We have to know what is important to them and what risks they are willing to take to invest. We are like the business community; we are in business to help consumers solve problems through the products or services that we offer.

How do we identify these window shoppers? They come in all shapes and size. They are the ones that want to know what it takes to get the "A". They are the ones that do the requirements necessary to pass the class. They are the ones that will follow the rules and complete the tasks at hand. These are the ones that might even say, "Why do we need to know this? and go on to learn it anyway. These are the ones that have become the "experts" in playing the game called, "school" and have started perfecting these skills as early as kindergarten. What we
 as teachers must recognize is that we played the game as well, and developed the same survival skills as our students. Like us, these students have learned to perfect their survival skills. They can:

• Memorize quickly (but not necessarily retain). 
• Research and find the right answers
• Don't need to read the directions because from experience, the directions are all the same
• They know the rules to follow and how to achieve success in earning a class grade
• They may engage quickly and collaborate well
• They know how to manipulate the system to get what they want.
• They are generally indifferent to what they learn as long as they pass the quiz or test

These window shoppers are not necessarily consumers of our products. They don't need to be. These students are experts at doing what they do best: earn they grade they want so they can move on to the next class, grade or on with their future. These students sign up for classes and then enter our rooms with the expectation that our class will be no different than the classes they have had in the past. So they put on their game faces and dive into the work expecting similar results. These students may get very upset when they are in a classroom where it is a challenge and they cannot earn the grade they want. This is when they get very good at being manipulators. They get agitated that though they study, they still cannot do the work. Their survival skills have not prepared them for challenges. They are great window shoppers: they look interested; they look engaged; they look like their working hard and they look like investors. But in reality, they are not. These window shoppers fail at assimilating information in a way that is meaningful and applicable to other topic areas in a specific discipline, and they fail to connect information learned from one discipline to another. They struggle with finding deeper meaning because all they do is memorize information to pass test (not that memorization is bad) and quizzes. How often as teachers have we discussed the failure to retain information? The failure of students to be able to apply this information to other classes, other topic areas or other disciplines?

I want my students to be investors in my class. I want them to be consumers of my product and I want them to buy-in because it is meaningful and relevant to them. I want them to be able to find deeper meaning and be able to recognize the opportunities to apply new meanings in new ways across all disciplines. However, I think for this process to occur, students have to make the plunge from window shopper to consumer; a consumer who has invested in the product. The question is, how do we motivate them to take the risk to become consumers? To move from windowsill decoration to active buyer of a product?

So utilizing some business guidelines, I think I came up with some maneuvers that will help encourage students to change from being window shoppers to consumers. My first step is to be clear with myself on what product I am offering for each of my classes and reinforce this consistently. If I am unclear, then the students will be unclear and probably confused. Second, I need to focus more on advertising and marketing my product in a way that taps into student needs and wants; I need to tap into seeing the product from the student's perspective.  Third, I have to pay attention to "word-of-mouth" about the product students want and are willing to invest in for their future. Fourth, in my classes, content needs to be applied in a meaningful way that taps into the interests and desires of students in a manner in which makes sense to students. If it does not have merit for them, students will not invest and take the risk to spend time with the material to truly apply it in ways that are beneficial and meaningful for them. For example, not many students (or teachers for that matter) find lecture engaging. There is nothing attractive about someone talking at you for longer than 10 minutes. However, does this mean I stop lecturing? Maybe, or it may mean that I have to disguise a lecture by placing it into a new context. This is where we as teachers need to uses our creative juices to come up with effective ways to sell our product. Students will buy what we are selling if it meets their needs and their wants. Otherwise, they will just be windowsill decoration in our classroom, there to earn the grade to move on.

How do we market and advertise our product? At the high school level, one of the marketing tools that is used is the course guide book. Ryan and I have discussed how we want our class descriptions to be written. We have turned to writing these descriptions in the second person. We want to make these class descriptions as personal as possible for students. I think our next step is to review those course descriptions and question whether they are written from the perspective of a teacher, or if they are written for the perspective of students. This means we have to look seriously at the language we use and the manner in which we write up the class description. We want these descriptions to have meaning for the student (as well as the parents) so they can make the right choices for their future.

I think one of the most popular advertising tools that students use to enroll in classes is WOM (word-of-mouth). Amidst the teenage world, sharing with other students is BIG. But word-of-mouth is a tough marketing tool to handle. Why? Because we the business owners, do not have control over what students share and say about classes and us. Thus, this is where it gets very tough. Because students use word-of-mouth as their primary means of sharing, we as teachers have to be on top of our game everyday. As teachers, we have to realize that our product is being marketed every class period, and what students share with other students in and outside of the classroom will make a difference in the success of our product. As stated earlier, word-of-mouth can make or break the success of any classroom curriculum. It influences the attitudes of student who take the class the next semester or the next year. Based on my experience, the classes that are most vulnerable to negative feedback are the required classes; classes that students have to take to graduate from school. When students know that they is no way out of a class, they will have a window shopper attitude from the start. Not only will they come in as windowsill decor, but they will also bring with them all the negative (and positive) experiences they have had in the past. How do we as teachers get students who are forced to be in our classes to move from a windowsill experience to a consumer--a buyer of our product? A believer in what is being offered in our classroom?

As much as I would like to solve that problem, I cannot. Each teacher and department needs to sit together and collaborate and share ideas from a consumer perspective. We are all consumers and we know why we buy or don't buy products. Start here. It takes hard-cord honesty to move from a teacher expert position into the mindset of a student. It takes a lot of guts to redefine our product and find new ways of selling our product in the classroom. It takes a lot of creativity to change our mindset in regards to how we structure our classes. But it also takes a lot of ingenuity to figure out what is the best way to reach students to engage them as individuals who want to invest in our product. When students decide to invest in our product, students will do a better job retaining information. They will have an understanding that the classes they take are not separate islands, but are one, united nation that relies on information to be shared, gathered and assembled so that they can created better products using information from across all disciplines.

So this year is another year of experimentation. I don't know what this will look like, but I do know that Ryan, Tammy and I will discuss, share and talk about the steps we need to take to honor the consumer approach to our classes. It will be challenging. I will spend this summer reviewing, contemplating and analyzing the adjustments that I may make in my classes so that I am offering a product that is interesting and relevant to my students.

Special thanks to Ryan Read for encouraging me to read these two books. I hope all of you are in small communities that encourage you to grow as an educator. I am very fortunate to have Ryan Read and Tammy Pierson; people who truly encourage a vision of growth and relevancy. I also encourage all of you who read this to join us on our #WeAreMCUSD Teacher podcast. We are sharing information to educators in our District as well as interviewing other educators who have exciting activities that they are using in the classroom and want to share out to others.