Sex, Drugs, and Boredom

Now I have a response to those daft punks in my classroom!

I'm posting this article on my office door. I've got every right to expect high quality work from the little buggars.

Having recently graduated, I can remember more than a few times that I've been late to class. However, even so, I've never thought that I'm a paying customer and that I have that right. For one, it was a public school, so my tuition is subsidized by the government and by corporate donations. Second, I don't believe any sort of transaction should be consumerist. Even business contracts have to be relationship based; if you're starting to rely on the exact terms of a contract, you're already in a terrible position.

I have to say, though, that even though I wish things aren't becoming that way, I myself feel like I'm getting sucked into consumerism, and I don't think it has to do with entertainment. It's the fact that products are becoming more and more commoditized, and a lack of a general sense of social identity. People don't talk to each other while they wait in line, and "How are yous" with the cashiers are generally completely meaningless.

I wouldn't say I'm a hypocrite, but I feel like the tides are turning in our society, and I have no idea how to change my behavior to fight it.

The sad truth is that students are paying customers in the eyes of many university administrators. I see this not just in entertainment, but in course difficulty too.

If a faculty member doesn't have tenure, they gain an edge by having a full roster enrolled in the course. If the faculty member is too hard, or boring, however, there will be a dip in enrollment. God knows I have dodged many a course (outside of the courses I am interested in) because the professor was known to be difficult. This can especially be a problem at small liberal arts colleages where pretty much every student knows how easy or hard a given teacher is.

Websites like ratemyprofessor.com just make it worse too. I know I have scrolled people's comments and avoided a class if people comment consistently on that teacher being too hard. I wasn't going to risk a poor grade in some natural science course which could jeopardize my grad school prospects. So I took courses like, "geology of national parks" with a teacher I knew would be easy, based on the feedback of other student that I knew and had good GPAs.

I think this is one of the (wholly foreseeable) problems of the recent recruitment practices of many North American universities. "We cater to your needs" often gets interpreted as "students rule the roost". It's one of the key reasons that I have wrestled with staying in academia.

I had one student attempt to justify receiving a higher grade solely on the basis that he had paid his tuition and attended regularly. I had to explain carefully that he had paid not for a specific grade, but for the *opportunity* to earn one. This didn't seem to compute.

On the other hand, I do think that professors have the obligation to make their courses interesting -- if not entertaining per se. The fact that I had a lot of students say I was a favorite professor even when I felt like I did a poor job, either speaks to my low self-worth or the low engagement engendered by their other courses.

At any rate, my advice to new instructors is to make clear policies and stick them on your syllabus. Even the most mercenary pupil is compelled by such a contract.

This concept is getting into hospital too where "patients" are "customers" or "consumers". The problem is that the concept of a "customer" highlight the entitlement nature but it hides the suffering part. People come to the hospital not to get "entertained" but because they are suffering and "customers" hides the suffering aspect of it.

I think I'm missing how a student pointing how they pay for a class is consumerism in the classroom and the same as wanting entertainment? A student that understands economics will realize that paying for something is a voluntary transaction between two parties and as such both parties need to act according to the agreement. It most certainly is not the student's "right" to be disruptive to other paying consumers by being late. The student has agreed to follow certain rules of the professor by purchasing the class. Why they purchase a class (easy A, great professor, fits their schedule) are all economic issues that will effect later success.

Thanks for your questions, here are my answers:

You begin from the assumption that students understand that paying for something entails mutual obligations. I can buy that (get it?), but it neglects the fact that a student/teacher relationship cannot be understood as fundamentally economic. After all, most schooling in the U.S. is free, and thus most teacher/student relationships cannot be understood as economic relationships. I suppose you could argue that such relationships are fundamentally economic even though the student does not pay the teacher, but you do not make that argument here.

But let’s think about those cases where the student is paying, as with private schools. You say that paying for something entails acting according to “the agreement,” and again I agree so long as it is understood that that agreement is often stipulated by tradition and that it varies according to the transaction. When you buy care from a therapist, there are different expectations than when you hire a plumber or rent a video. My point is that in my understanding “the agreement” that a student enters into is not the same as an agreement to purchase something from a retailer, but that evidently some people do not share my understanding. Rather, those people seem to be understanding their role as students more along the lines of retail customers. That is why I think the expectations of consumerism seem to be entering the classroom. It’s not the same as the expectation to be entertained, but I think increasingly students (in fact all of us) have that expectation as well.

If I read between the lines a bit, it seems like you want to understand a wide range of relationships as fundamentally economic. That’s an interesting and provocative approach, but I think you need to be more specific about the different agreements that various transactions entail.

"After all, most schooling in the U.S. is free, and thus most teacher/student relationships cannot be understood as economic relationships. I suppose you could argue that such relationships are fundamentally economic even though the student does not pay the teacher, but you do not make that argument here."

Technically school in the US is not free, it is paid by taxpayers. I doubt many professors would teach in a school setting without getting a paycheck, so yes I do see it as economic. I'm sure most teach for other reasons as well, but the economic issue is still there.

I completely agree the different transactions have different expectations based on tradition. However, I don't think people thinking more in economic terms is a bad thing considering how bad people in the US seem to be at managing money. If a doctor doesn't help me figure out the cause of an illness, I will not be going back even if my insurance plan will cover it. I expect value for my money even if it isn't directly going from my pocket to the doctor. If we all act this way we will get better healthcare...and better professors.

Maybe we have a different definition of consumerism. I see being a consumer as neither good or bad, but an economic reality. If you see consumerism and excessive consuming of resources in a manner that replaces relationships then I understand your blog and agree that it is disturbing. I look forward to your next post.