This relationship is fatally compromised if the learner becomes principally a source of profit. One of the saddest comments on our culture is that some good people have embraced the 'student as customer' idea because they see it as the only way to encourage teachers to 'care' about their students. We can apparently only care about people if they are potential sources of profit. They do not seem to realize that it will destroy the kind of 'care' which is the basis of education. A product is a finished object which is handed over to someone for their use.
Delivery is a one-way transmission to a recipient.
They must grow from within - stimulated and nurtured by writers, teachers and peers in a process which is essentially interactive and social. What can be packaged and delivered are the materials for use in a course, but it is a grave error to confuse these materials with the course itself. The conceptualisation of a course of study as a product is part of a widespread and powerful trend in this society towards the commodification of areas of life which previously have been seen in very different imaginative terms. A striking example was provided recently in the debate about the future of Wilson's Promontory. It is a national park'.