The Big Read: Can't measure what we should treasure

If there is one change in education that has swept across nations in recent times, it is the ubiquitous culture of measurement in schools and universities. Science, in the narrow sense, has won.

Governments want evidence-based reforms not only to measure teachers and schools, but whole nations. There is even now, for example, something called The Global Project on Measuring the Progress of Societies. We not only speak about political science these days but also about the communication sciences or the education sciences. Teaching used to be an art. Now the measurement believers tell us it is a science.

Ever more complex statistical tests are used to determine whether a specific Reform (X) has an impact on test Results (Y). That alone is the measure of success on which scientific man can agree.

If it moves, the saying goes, measure it.

The science graduate in me likes statistical tests or evaluation indicators. They are neat and tidy, and easy to understand. You do not have to get lost in mushy qualitative stories about lives or organisations; all of this can be reduced to a simple metric that tells you about the global ranking of a university or the degree of smartness of a child or the effectiveness of a new curriculum. But are things really that simple?

Well, first, not everything worth teaching can or should be measured. How do you measure the joy of a child who learns inside a safe and secure classroom with classes conducted by a loving teacher? How do you reduce to a simple indicator the complexity of teaching in a diverse classroom, where a highly competent teacher must not only retain the attention of the smart learners, but also make sure slower learners catch up?

What do you lose in averages when you compare the consistent 80% results of a school of privileged, middle-class learners with internet connections at home, with those of a poor school where the results jumped reliably from 30% to 60% over three years?

Which is the better teacher, the one in the privileged school or the one in the poor school? That surely depends on a whole lot of things like where you teach, how you teach and whom you teach.

Second, you only get in to an evaluation that which you choose to measure. There is a silly university ranking instrument that measures how well an institution performs based on its website content. Consumers of this website-based ranking hardly read the detail, and I field anxious calls from students and parents about how high or low a particular university appears in an international ranking - based on what is on their website.

All the consumer knows is that one university is at the top and another at the bottom, and everyone starts to make snap judgments about complex organisations based on this ranking system.

Third, the obsession with measurement can change education behaviours for the worse. There is ample evidence that when teachers are under pressure to boost exam results, they take all kinds of short cuts to achieve high outcomes - such as teaching to the test.

This past week I learnt of the disappointment of a mathematics teacher who told me her colleagues had gone through all the past examination papers and found they were of no help with this year's Paper III. Instead of teaching mathematics for the love of the subject, everybody had the examinations in mind. No wonder students struggle at university with high marks in the National Senior Certificate but with superficial understandings of complex subjects.

It is important in this culture of measurement to keep reminding children their human worth can't be reduced to their marks in a test or exam. This is very important because too many young people become despondent, some to the point of suicide, when they feel exam marks offer the final word on their capacity and potential.

It is also important to remind teachers who give their lives to teaching that there is much, much more to their labour of love than what can be captured in the examination marks of their children. I have yet to be told by one of my former students, at school or university, that they appreciate me for their marks in biology or curriculum theory. They are more likely to remember and appreciate the love, devotion, compassion and care of their former teachers. And that cannot be measured.