testing? teaching? learning? _2

N. Postman's (1992) remarks on a measurement's ideological prejudice--
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…. The procedure [the seemingly harmless practice of assigning marks or grades to the answers students give on examinations] seems so natural to most of us that we are hardly aware of its significance. …. If a number can be given to the quality of a thought, then a number can be given to the qualities of mercy, love, hate, beauty, creativity, intelligence, even sanity itself.

I shall not argue here that this is a stupid or dangerous idea, only that it is peculiar. What is even more peculiar is that so many of us do not find the idea peculiar. …. …embedded in every tool is an ideological bias, a predisposition to construct the world as one thing rather than another, to value one thing over another, to amplify one sense or skill or attitude more loudly than another.

…. … To a man with a pencil, everything looks like a list. To a man with a camera, everything looks like an image. To a man with a computer, everything looks like data. And to a man with a grade, everything looks like a number.
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Postman, N. (1992). Technopoly: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Vintage Books. 12-14.