Replying to LO25504 --
Barry Mallis wrote:
> A structure where people come together to perform tasks which produce an
> output have to be driven by a focus on a real or imaginary customer.
Hi Barry,
Sorry to barge in but just because there is a product does not necessarily
mean that there is a "customer." Maybe I am mis-understanding?
It seems to me that there are two different discipline structures at work
depending upon the product. If the product is singular then it fits an
academic structure where contemplation and understanding is adequate to
the completion of the job. I would equate that with Stone henge as an
architecture. If on the other hand you are speaking of Stonehenge as a
stage where instantaneous performance responses (holistic knowing) within
the parameters of a score or text (limited by the time of day, the sun
setting, the shadows required or the acoustic found within the structure
at any one point,) then the issue is not a single product but the practice
of a process that can respond to the changing requirements in an
improvisatory manner. Product as object or product as a dialogue that is
alive between audience and performer.
One could call the audience the customers or the artists their teacher's
customers but somehow it rings hollow to me. You can't buy units of
instruction, they have to be learned and they may not be, no matter how
much you pay. The dialogue is more than about profit, and education is
not a humdrum profession that is about units for pay. It usually fails
when put in that context. In music we define humdrum as coaching and it
is immediate and rote while we define teaching as holistic and not subject
to time issues. It is interesting that the Unions and the School
management both use the same humdrum language and it has been disastrous
for the Unions who attempted it first. Unions came from manufacturing but
schools aren't factories. Factories operate on very simple principles
compared to the complexity of teaching.
I guess my point is that I find the customer or consumer model to be
inappropriate to a pedagogical setting. Only in the economic sense of one
paying and the other teaching does it seem moderately accurate but that
too often places both in a time constriction which limits growth.
Customer/consumer seems to be a historical concept that is about money and
consumption and in education nothing is consumed. In fact the opposite
happens. Simplification comes with mastery but it then opens into a
greater flowering and complexity of structure as it grows. Customer
indicates a retail reality and I don't think that relates well to
educational development unless you are working at short term training in a
company structure. Is that the "school" that you are refering to?
I would reference Richard Caves book on the Creative Industries Contracts
where he covers these issues for the arts as a business problem and the
book by Keith E. Maskus "Intellectual Property Rights in the Global
Economy". Both are dealing with a product that is not an object and
cannot be sold to a customer but will eventually lead to something that
can be. This is the issue for economists known as "public goods" and is a
can of worms that we will all eventually face due to the internet. Am I
completely off base from where you were? If so I apologize but I have a
visceral feeling that the customer model doesn't work in a truly
educational situation except where a specific short term skill is being
developed for a particular task.
best,
Ray Evans Harrell, artistic director
The Magic Circle Opera Repertory Ensemble, Inc.
mcore@idt.net
--"Ray E. Harrell" <mcore@idt.net>
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