The Long Blue Line

In Economics, there is a theory called the "Fallacy of Composition:" what applies to one person does not apply to an entire industry. The undergraduate taking final exams is subject to this fallacy. He has spent an entire term studying a course, has arrived at his own ideas, and to him, the three hours spent in examinations are vitally important. But his grader, faced with 100 blue books, sees the exam as just one unit in a mass production.

Unfortunately, the grader is not a machine and his standards do vary from bluebook to bluebook--but that is not the most serious problem. Graders rarely have time to comment on final exams and rarely have a chance to talk personally with students. If education is defined as a dialogue between teacher and student, it's hard to see where Harvard's final exams fit in.

Obviously, the incentives for education differ from person to person--for some high marks might lead to graduate school or a good job, for others an exchange of ideas might provide new ideas or, at least, clearer ones. But incentives, which are the means to an end, can be imposed externally. At Harvard the end product of a final examination is the mark achieved, and little else.