Customers: (who) are they really?

What do we mean when we say that our students are our ‘customers’? It this simply a metaphor or are we really talking about a contracted for service?

If we buy something we may ask the manufacturer to change the product, but does the manufacturer have an obligation to do as we say? What are our ‘rights’ as customers; what are the manufacturer’s obligations? Could we, as customers, vote with our feet and simply take our business elsewhere?On expertise:For example, suppose I were to hire a licensed contractor to build an extension to my house, and he was in the process of installing the ¾ inch plywood in the roof. If I asked him to use ¼ inch instead (as this would be considerably cheaper) should he do as I ask because I am the customer?

On sharing:

When we buy something, does is matter how much who else is footing the bill? If a friend pays 80% of your gym subscription because she thinks you should get fit, how will she feel if you go to the gym every week but eat doughnuts instead of working out? Would she be happy if you were to ask the gym owner to take out all the exercise equipment and put in armchairs instead? Should the gym owner do so if all his customers asked for armchairs? And if he did, would your friend consider her money had been well spent? Continuing in the fitness metaphor, should your personal trainer accede to your request to ‘lighten up’; that twenty reps is too hard, and perhaps you should only do should 5 instead? What about the fact that the equipment is falling apart or uncomfortable, or that there is a new type of machine that the gym might consider acquiring?

On externalities:

Many of us think hamburgers and French fries are tasty. Is it so wrong to eat nothing but burgers and fries (even when our grandmothers warned us repeatedly to eat our greens)? Does is matter that a diet of burgers could lead to most hamburger consumers dying at the age of 45? Or worse yet, being hospitalized for the last 20 years of their lives at the expense of those who ate lettuce and carrots and who are fit and healthy?

I propose no answers here — you are most welcome to respond — but simply raise some question as we think about our role as educators, as producers, custodians and disseminators of knowledge.