The Tyranny of Metrics (By Chris Hwang)

            In my first blog, I chronicled our perpetual cycle of eat, sleep, test, repeat. In fact for most classes, we’re tested roughly one out of every five classes. Stated in other terms, 20% of what could be “learning” time is devoted to “testing” time each week. In recent days, I’ve reflected on why it is that we’re tested so much. This is of course, from the vantage point of me as a high school student. If you poll our students, most will agree that we’re tested way too much. But they’ll also submit to the fact that we’ve grown accustomed to it. For most of us, the excessive testing has been a way of life since middle school. However, that doesn’t quite explain why we’re tested so much. Although the subject of testing is a highly controversial and debatable topic in all circles of education (students, teachers, administrators, statewide education committees, National Education Association, etc.), one fact is clear; we have become a nation obsessed with metrics. Let’s first start with the definition of what a metric is. Webster’s defines a metric as a standard measurement. But what makes a measurement standard? And what fuels our obsession with metrics? Further, do metrics tell us a complete and valid story?

As people, we are programmed to seek the “simple” truth. As I discussed in my last blog, we tend to exercise the concept of splitting where we are all inclined to categorize people, places, and things into binary groups such as good vs. bad, right vs. wrong, or friend vs. foe. That same concept of splitting also fuels our obsession with metrics since numbers are by nature, binary. Quantification allows us to simplify complex scenarios. Simply put, it is much easier and sometimes also entertaining for us to try to make sense of our complex world through metrics. As stated earlier, we have become a nation obsessed with numbers. You’ll see a top ten list for just about everything under the sun. A quick perusal of listverse.com provides us with top ten lists for “Top 10 mystifying mummies” to “Top 10 museums that will scare you silly” and even “Top 10 ancient jobs that sucked big time!” In fact, our favorite news bytes are those with numerical components such as weather, business, and sports. We seek numerical answers because they’re simple, comforting, and quick. Many of us tend to view non-numerical answers as vague and suspicious vs. specific and concrete (as with numbers) so we purposely look for answers that contain numbers or use numbers to justify an answer.

This practice of quantification inevitably started during our childhood. When I was a toddler, I can recall asking my mom how many meatballs I would get with my spaghetti meal at Tuscanero’s Italian Restaurant. She answered “four.” I asked her how many I’d get at Augie’s Pizzeria. She answered “three.” I responded by saying “Let’s go to Tuscanero’s then.” It would take five years before I gave myself a chance to realize that the meatballs from Augies tasted much better than those from Tuscanero’s. The lesson I learned is that more is not necessarily better and that numbers don’t tell the whole truth or the entire story. Shame on me for insisting that we eat at Tuscanero’s instead of Augies just because they gave us more meatballs! Fast forward to today. I’m still guilty of propagating the obsession with metrics at the expense of exploring the bigger and more complete picture. When talking to fellow student athletes, I am all too quick to ask “did you win?” or “did you score?” or “what was the final score?” For a more complete picture, I ought to ask “how well did you and the team play today?” or “did you get a chance to use the new move that you just learned?” As a wrestler, my world is filled with statistics. We track win-loss records, takedowns, escapes, reversals, pins, and forfeits. But even those numbers never tell the whole story. Winning is not black and white. For example, I lost to this one nationally ranked wrestler six times over the course of three years. Thus, my win-loss record was 0-6. On paper, it reads like a horrible metric. However, the metric doesn’t tell the entire picture or story. To see the bigger, more accurate picture, one must take a closer look at the substance behind those six matches, not just the win-loss metric. Long story short, the kid beat me by a lot during our first match. However, over the course of the next several matches, I would close that gap and lose by fewer and fewer points. On that sixth match, I lost by only one point. That last match could have gone either way. So on paper, it was written in the books a loss but for my journey as a wrestler, it was a victory in that I improved my technique and skill to the point of being competitive against this nationally ranked kid. I got better and better whereas he plateaued. If I share that superficial win-loss metric to a college recruiter, I am certain that he’d be underwhelmed because the simple two digit win-loss metric speaks nothing of my potential. However, if I share the content and substance (the full story) behind those superficial metrics, he’d beg for a closer look at my wrestling repertoire and ultimate potential. My point being, the quantitative description of things is not always complete.

We live in an era obsessed with measuring. We are overly enamored with metrics almost to the point where they control and dictate our very existence. As students, we see this at home, at play, and at school. Adults also see this at their places of employment. Teachers and administrators feel the pinch and as a consequence, we as students are measured even more and creativity is often stifled at the expense of testing. We are a culture who is obsessed with winning which further fuels our addiction and reliance on metrics so that we can categorize, judge, compare, and rank. Let’s not forget that we are a beautiful, complex species worthy of being represented from more than just simple lines and digits on a spreadsheet.