Measurement clutter
Education Reform, FE Saturday, November 25th, 2006
What is wrong with the above? This:
- artificial
- cold and calculating (no pun intended!)
- short-termist
You cannot and should not base a society on numbers. Society should be based on trust, relationships, compassion for others, charity and tolerance. It is also imposing on life a set of methods and an approach which is abstract and misused. Maths gives you answers, but it gives you answers and solutions to problems (4 + 7 = 11, for example) because it is man-made and unreal. In real life, the numbers don’t always add up! It is simply isn’t possible to numerically reduce everything to a figure, number or variable. You can’t factor in human emotions or unpredictability, no matter how hard you try. Numbers and accounts have become a convenient excuse to make unpopular decisions and we have become addicted to targets and performance tables. But we have imposed a decision-making system which can only be used in mathematical situations NOT where variables are unknown or nebulous. Why therefore have such methods of measurement been introduced into Education?
Data gathering is supposed to raise ‘standards’. Such gathering is flawed, however. Overburdened staff may ‘cook the books’ in order to get their paperwork done, for instance. Even if the entire cohort of every institution were sampled, there is still no guarantee that they are telling the truth and even if that were guaranteed then you can still argue over the results or targets or…….!!!!! Indeed, if you are assessing students based on judgement i.e. personal opinion then who’s to say that the examiner was too harsh or too lenient. You simply can’t measure everything and perfectly so why bother?
We will treat each other better once we stop seeing each other in terms of units or demographics. A society should be anchored to mutual trust, interdependency and need, not to cost-effectiveness, individuality and want.