Thanks a lot, Phil, for sharing that paper. I never really thought too much about the implications of the word "client." I especially found interesting this particular quote from the paper, as it sums up nicely what I I think of as a kind of fundamental irony of university.
"By positioning the student as a client who purchases services, including teaching, a false assumption is built in to the relationship between the student and the university: that an education can be bought. In making such an assumption, the responsibility for producing “uneducated” - or failed - students must fall to the institution for providing a “faulty” or inadequate service."
Why I think it is an irony is that on one hand institutions experience pressure to be "rigorous" (I mean, part of the rhetoric of what is a "good" teacher ed program seems to me to be how difficult it is to pass through) and on the other hand the students (if we are using this client-paradigm) and the parents who pay for the program (I am kind of cynical and so I have to say they are kind of buying accreditation - the piece of paper that says the student has completed the program). So from this I think emerges an irony, where the professor is at once given the task of gate-keeper and provider of (pre-paid) services. And I think the professor is given the precarious position to fail just enough kids so the institution doesn't complain ("grade creep," we call it at my institution, and it is like a symptom of lack of rigor, a very bad thing) and pass enough so she/he doesn't have to fend off too many student/parent complaints.
Um, and all this before any mention is made of learning, which I think so far has not even entered into this system (and I might flash my most cynical side and say that it need not ever enter the system).
So that's not to say I don't think learning is possible at universities, only to say it is not exactly fostered by the institutional structure itself.
So what are our alternatives...?
(this is not a rhetorical comment, I am hoping people have some)
Renee
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