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.