Our definitions of people…are increasingly determined by their ethnic origin or their economic standing; increasingly the “human” sciences reduce the human being to a creature trapped in a stimulus/response relation to his environment; and statistics are increasingly confused with truth…our institutions of higher education continue to be haunted by the It [materialistic outlook]. The It is steeped in numbers, and nowhere are we more enthralled by numbers than in our colleges and universities. We make our students into numbers, into test scores and credit hours. Beyond that, the knowledge we offer them is largely quantitative, materialistic, and strictly pragmatic. Conscientiously handing out questionnaires covered with numerical scales, we use numbers to measure the success of our endeavors. Very often the most meaningful measure of our success is the number of dollars our graduates are raking in, just as it has become the most meaningful measure of the success of our college presidents. Thus has the influence of the It-world progressively increased…
All too often curricular concerns are shaped solely by an interest in science, technology, and business, so that various states, as well as the nation itself, may boost their economic and political influence. According to the prevailing viewpoint today, this is how state universities should serve their states. To attain such an end, we begin by trying to convince the young that the aim of higher education is to acquire the capacity and the skills to surround themselves with things. We want them to be consumers. Whenever the rationale for a given course is called into question, the most convincing justification for it is that students can use the information provided in that course, where “use” means to get a job, to make money, to manipulate people, and generally to prosper in the marketplace…
Our institutions of higher education have themselves become high-dollar brothels, where we buy and sell ourselves and the young souls placed in our care. A good school costs $10,000 per year and requires an ACT score of 21; a better one costs $20,000 and demands a score of 23. Engaging in this numbers racket, we succumb to the illusion that only that which can be quantified can be true…
The numbers numb us into the sleeping sickness of complacency, camouflaging and veiling the human face that cries out for our response.
– David Patterson, When Learned Men Murder
