Numerical Ranking of Examinations: Beyond Technopoly

In his book Technopoly: The Surrender of Culture to Technology Neil Postman says the “idea that a quantitative value should be assigned to human thoughts” was first proposed in 1792 by William Farish, a tutor at Cambridge University (Postman, 1992, p. 13). Postman goes on to explain that almost nothing is known about William Farish and this makes questionable Postman’s use of the word should in describing the idea of applying quantitative values to human thoughts.

Did Farish sit down in front of a pile of student’s papers and say, “This will be easy. I should simply assign a number to each paper and the higher the number the better the paper and the students ability to think.”

Or did it happen more by accident?
Did Farish sit down in front of a pile of student’s papers and after going through them over and over and over did he, out of desperation, decide to try assigning a number to each paper to see if that could help him keep better track of his efforts in evaluating the papers. It is very doubtful that William Farish believed “that quantitative values should be should be assigned to human thoughts” (Postman, 1992, p.13, emphasize added) as Postman indicates.

It is much more likely that he simply believed that he could use quantitative values and that doing so might assist him in his work of evaluating the papers. This distinction between should and could is very important because it sets the context not only for the book Technolopy but for the world we now live in where quantitative grading of human thought is done in almost every educational institution in the United States.

In Technopoly Postman presents a world that has decided it will do whatever technology tells it to do and is using a grading system because it believes that technology says it should. Here grades are assigned to anything and everything that educators think they can measure.

The real world is much more complex.
In the book Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning, by Thomas R. Guskey and Jane M. Bailey, a different view of grading is presented. In addition to presenting the four most widely used grading methods, “Letter grades, plus and minus letter grades, other categorical grades, and percentage grades,” (Guskey, Bailey, 2000, p.83) the authors also explore alternative grading methods.

These alternative methods are: standards based, pass/fail, mastery grading, and narratives. Two of these methods, mastery grading and narrative reports, “represent two of the earliest forms of grading used in formal school settings” (Guskey, Bailey, 2000, p.83). In the book, each of the grading methods is covered in detail with its strengths and weaknesses to provide those involved in the grading process new insight and new ideas to help them determine the best way to grade their student’s work.

This leads us to another question. Before a teacher can grade a paper they need to know what the purpose of grading the paper is.

In Postmans world where “to a man with a grade sheet, everything looks like a number” (Postman, 1992, p. 14) grading is used to make education efficient and machine-like. Grading is how technology technopolizes education.

In the real world we find several very different purposes and meanings for the use of grades. At Princeton University where only 35% of all students in undergraduate classes can receive an A, grades are used “as a sorting mechanism by which those who are most meritorious will be separated from those who are less meritorious” (Greer-Pitt, 2007).

At other educational institutions the purpose for using grades is to “determine who has mastered the knowledge or skills to enter into a particular occupational field or field of study” (Greer-Pitt, 2007). Here it does not matter how many students receive a specific grade but rather if the students have demonstrated mastery of the subject (Greer-Pitt, 2007). According to Guskey and Bailey the primary purpose of grading is to communicate to the student (Guskey, Bailey, 2000, p.83).

There is thought and rationale behind each and every grading process and the purpose for grading is a far cry from Postman’s “man with a grade sheet” (Postman, 1992, p. 14). Grades are not merely a means of technologizing education and turning it into a mass commodity. It is true that this can happen if grades are applied lazily or inappropriately, which is why it is the obligation of the educational system or the educator to determine which grading process best applies in which situation.

Grades are like any other technology or tool, extremely useful when used the right way, and extremely damaging when used inappropriately.


Greer-Pit, Sue (2007). Sociological stew: What purpose do grades serve? Retrieved December 7, 2008 from: http://suesstew.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-purpose-do-grades-serve.html.

Guskey, Thomas, R. & Bailey, Jane, M. (2000). Developing Grading and Reporting Systems for Student Learning. Thousand Oaks, California: Corwin Press. Retrieved December 5, 2008 from: http://books.google.com/books?id=O37oL0PL8wUC&dq=Dr+Thomas+R+Guskey&pg=PP1&ots=PAzv24fkoL&source=an&sig=uSgRK15vi_ELEH55krgZ-lfaHeU&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=4&ct=result.

Postman, Neil (1992). Technoploy: The surrender of culture to technology. New York: Random House.

Does the Press Report the News or Tell Stories?

In his article Grisly Truth about Bare Facts Carlin Romano examines what stories the press chooses to covers. He argues that what the press covers is not necessarily news but rather what will sell papers. One of Romano’s main points is that “the press covers stories that will win it prizes” (Romano, 1986, p.52).

Romano goes on to explain that series articles win prizes while stand-alone articles do not (Romano, 1986). This leads into the question posed in the title of this blog; does the press report the news or tell stories?

In looking back at articles that have won the Pulitzer Prize in journalism it is clear that the winning articles read more like a story rather than merely report the facts. The best of the best in journalism were the articles that spanned several pages, and dug deep into the human characteristics of the story.

One article in particular that stands out to me was Barry Siegel’s 2001 article called A Father's Pain, a Judge's Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach (Siegel, 2001). I read this article over 6 years ago shortly after it won the 2002 Pulitzer Prize in feature writing.

The article covers the story of a man named Paul who left his sleeping two-year old son in his running pickup in the mountains of Utah in October while he goes to scout the area for an upcoming hunting trip. Paul is gone for 45 minutes and when he returns his son is gone (Siegel, 2001).

The boy had apparently woken up and opened the door to the pickup and wandered off. Paul called the police and a six-day search for the missing child followed. During those 6 days temperatures in the mountains reached as low as 27 degrees Fahrenheit (JAMA, 2002). When the boy was found after the six-day search it was determined that he had died from exposure to the cold (Siegel, 2001).

Paul stood trial for neglect and was convicted to serve only 30 days in jail because it was clear he had already suffered enough from the loss of his son. However Paul never served his jail time because he drove to the mountains near where his son had gone missing and shot and killed himself with his hunting rifle (Siegel, 2001).

Barry Siegel’s article does much more than cover the facts of the story that I have listed here. For starters the article is over 7,900 words long and reads like an emotional murder mystery. It begins the day Paul is supposed to start his jail time when the judge who sentenced him learns that Paul is nowhere to be found (Siegel, 2001).

The judge’s first thoughts are that Paul has killed himself over the internal anguish of being responsible for his son’s death. The judge’s thoughts than turn to the memory of his own father’s death and how closely related the two incidents are (Siegel, 2001).

From here the article jumps backward in time to beginning of the story in October 2000, then jumps to a story from the judges background, and then back to the present, and then back into the past in elaborate interweaving of the tale (Siegel, 2001).

When I finished reading the article/story I wished that I could write like Barry Siegel. I was truly moved by his coverage of the complexity of the issues and the internal struggle of all parties involved and how masterfully the story was woven. The Pulitzer Prize website accurately describes the story as a “humane and haunting portrait of a man tried for negligence in the death of his son” (Pulitzer, 2002).

However, after reading Romano and Chomsky and watching Manufacturing Consent I now view the article in a different light. Why would a paper give 7,900 words to cover a story about the death of a child and his father? Is this the most newsworthy story, or is this just the story that will sell the most papers and win the best prizes?

Chomsky would argue that the article is a distraction from the real news going on in the world that the mass media simply wants to divert our attention (Achbar, Symansky, & Wintonick, 1992). Romano would say that the article is an effort for the newspaper to win prizes and gain prestige so that readers think that its stories are of greater value.

I agree with both Chomsky and Romano in this instance. The press is offering this story up because it knows that people like a good drama. The story will get lots of readers, and it will win the paper prizes making the paper appear to be a credible source for news even though the article that won the prize isn’t necessarily a newsworthy article.

I also think that none of this is the medias fault.

It is my fault and the millions of others who read the article and felt the same way I initially did. It was a compelling story. So compelling that I remember it 6 years after first reading it. I can’t say that for any other news article.

It is my fault that the newspaper printed the article because I am the one who liked it, and in order for the newspaper to survive it has to print articles people like to read. Only when I and the millions like me change our preference for what we want to read in a newspaper will the newspaper follow suit and change what it prints.

I believe this is the call from both Romano and Chomsky. It is a wake up call to the masses to shake off the drama laden and emotionally charged stories and instead demand real reporting of real issues from the news media.

Lets keep the drama out of the news and leave it to those who know drama best.










References

Achbar, Mark, Symansky, Adam, & Wintonick, Peter (Producers), &Achbar, Mark & Wintonick, Peter (Directors) (1992). Manufacturing Consent Noam Chomsky and the media [Motion picture]. Canada: Necessary Illusions Productions, Inc.

JAMA (2002). Hypothermia-Related Deaths—Utah, 2000, and United States, 1979-1998. Retrived November 21, 2008 from: http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/full/287/8/981.

Romano, Carlin (1986). What? The grizzly truth about bare facts. In Manoff and Schudson.

Siegel, Barry (2001, December 30). A Father's Pain, a Judge's Duty, and a Justice Beyond Their Reach [Electronic Version]. Los Angeles Times. Retrieved November 21, 2008 from: http://articles.latimes.com/2001/dec/30/news/mn-18995.

The Pulitzer Prizes (2002). The 2002 Pulitzer Prize Winners Feature Writing. Retrieved November 21, 2008 from: http://www.pulitzer.org/works/2002,Feature+Writing.

Internet Addiction

Internet Addiction











Internet Addiction Disorder (IAD) was first introduced in 1995 as a spoof by Dr. Ivan Goldberg (Thurlow, Lengel, & Tomic, 2004). Since that time some have taken his spoof seriously claiming that individuals really can be addicted to the internet. In 2007, Katie Couric warned the entire nation against the dangers of internet addiction on the NBC Evening News (Notebook, 2007).

A Google search of the keywords “internet addiction” displays a link to a site for testing one’s addiction to the internet (Center, 2008). The test asks 20 questions about behavior and usage of the internet and the participant selects whether the behavior or usage fits them rarely, occasionally, frequently, often, always, or does not apply. Each answer has an associated number of points and the more points one earns the more addicted they are to the internet (Center, 2008).

Some sample questions include “How often do you snap, yell, or act annoyed if someone bothers you while you are on-line?” and “how often do you try to cut down the amount of time you spend on-line and fail?” (Center, 2008). The website offers resources to those who have an addiction including support groups, recommended readings, and information on how to find professional help.

Despite all of this information about IAD, there remains a controversy over whether IAD is a real disorder or not. The controversy stems from whether or not the internet itself is addictive or if only certain activities that can be done on the internet are addictive. For example internet gambling and internet pornography are both addictive but they are also addictive off line too. In other words gambling and pornography are what is addictive; the internet is just a means of accessing that addiction.

While the debate of whether the internet itself is addictive is still ongoing, there is no denying that the internet has made addictive behaviors like gambling and pornography more accessible
When someone is introduced to a new media like the internet the Operant Conditioning Model of Addiction states that the individuals “consumption behavior progresses in four phases: initiation, transition to ongoing use, addiction, and behavior change” (Marlatt et al., 1988 quoted in Larose, Lin, & Eastin, 2003, p. 230).

In the initiation phase the behaviors allowed by the new media are found to be enjoyable but “if the behavior acts as an important or exclusive mechanism to relieve stress, loneliness, depression or anxiety” it is likely that the behavior will transition into an addiction (Larose, Lin, & Eastin, 2003, p. 230). Once addicted the individual may need to get professional help but in many instances of IAD the individuals can cure themselves. This ability to cure one’s self also raises the question of whether or not IAD is a real disorder. Some argue that if it was a real disorder people would be unable to cure themselves without external help (Larose, Lin, & Eastin, 2003, p. 230).

In conclusion, to prevent internet addiction care should be given to the kinds of activities that are engaged in online. Activities that are also addictive offline are likely to cause addiction online and should be avoided. Also the internet should be not used as a means of escaping the stresses of everyday life as this type of behavior can also lead to addiction (Larose, Lin, & Eastin, 2003, p. 230).

References
Center for Internet Addiction Recovery (2008). Retrieved November 7, 2008 from http://www.netaddiction.com/resources/internet_addiction_test.htm.
Notebook: Internet Addiction (CBS News) (2007). Retrieved November 7, 2008 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IrlD3yh8bDE.
LaRose, Robert, Lin, Carolyn A. Eastin, Matthew S. (2003). Unregulated internet usage: Addiction, habit, or deficient self-regulation? Media Psychology, 5(3), 225-253. Thurlow, Crispen, Laura, Lengel, & Tomic, Alice (2004). Computer mediated communication: Social interation and the internet. London: SAGE Publications Ltd.