stuff

["Rauber, Joel Phys" <RAUBERJ@mg.sdstate.edu>]

Dear Colleagues,

I no longer can resist jumping in. (groans are heard in the audience).

It was written

> Students as "consumers"? Jane Smiley, where are you? Hasn't anyone else on
> this list read "Moo?" I think it was one of my chemistry colleagues on
> CHEMED-L that said, if education is a business and students are its
> consumers, then it's the only enterprise in which the consumer demands
> less and less for their money year after year.

I read Smiley's book, and found it to be quite depressing.  Its all too true 
and should be label not as fiction buy as historical tragi-comedy.

I also have often heard the above hyperbole about students as consumers.  I 
think it breaks down (although I like it, it reflects my prejudices) because 
the students aren't buying what we think we are selling.  They aren't buying 
knowledge, they are buying credentials.  And if we insist that we are 
selling knowledge, the effort to gain it increases the cost of the 
credentials to the student (not monetary cost, but effort cost).  So the 
demanding of less and less, is really demanding a lower cost.  Something 
consumers always do.

Joel
rauberj@mg.sdstate.edu