"Smell is the most powerful trigger to the memory there is. A certain flower or a whiff of smoke can bring up experiences long forgotten. Books smell musty and rich. The knowledge gained from a computer is... it has no texture, no context. It's there and then it's gone. If it's to last, then the getting of knowledge should be tangible. It should be - um - smelly."
-- Rupert Giles, Sunnydale High School Librarian. (on Buffy the Vampire Slayer)
(Thanks to BU for the quote)
The rows of bubbles were as imposing as Roman Legionnaires. Each cohort, ABCDE, flanked and backed by its bretheren, marching in perfect unity across the narrow sheaf of extra-thick paper. Pencils flew like barbarian arrows, striking home in the soft body of a member of each rank, besmirching the fibers with not-so-poisonous lead; the teachers of the Art of Academic War had long ago determined that graphite made for fewer friendly-fire casualties. The battle over, the battallions would be sent packing back to Rome, to have their losses tallied and a response sent to the Hordes: you may have captured our Eagles, but expect our revenge next week!
Those were the Wars of the Scan-Tron.
Standardization of academic tests birthed the bubble-filled sheet which anyone who has passed through our nation's public school system would know on sight. Others who have taken examinations for Higher Education would also recognize the form. Rows and rows of little bubbles, to be filled in with #2 pencils. Always, always, ALWAYS #2 pencils! To dare to use a #1 or a #3 was akin to blasphemy. To imagine using a pen was to invite immediate excommunication.
Filling out a single sheet could become a grueling process. Like soldiers sharing stories about the scars they received, many a student could relate a tale of how their eyes, already blurry from late-night cramming, had slipped in counting the rows, causing them to fill in the answer for row 31 in row 32. 20 numbers later they would realize their mistake. A wide stroke from a narrow eraser, and a lengthy transcribing period would follow. Afterwards, there would be much hope and prayer that the machine which tallied the answers would not pick up the imperfectly-erased mark (the paper seemed to be designed to leave a dark stain on any erased bubble) and tally the response as wrong.
We may be seeing the end of this era, as many institutions are moving to "cut the middle man" by eliminating the form altogether, and letting test-takers type their responses directly into a computer. The Graduate Records Examination, the Masters/Ph.D. version of the infamous SAT, has moved towards this end. Properly implemented, such machines could revolutionize the speed and efficiency of how scores are reported.
The end-result is to eliminate "human error" from the equation. A database can easily compare one test-taker's answers against the correct ones and spit out a proper response. Furthermore, there has been a move towards essays being graded by machine, which scans for punctuation, grammar, and, in terms of content, can compare the essayist's writing to samples in yet another computerized database.
Many students came/come to dread the Scan-Tron test, not so much because of poor performance but because of the cold, inhuman manner in which their answers would inevitably be counted. One cannot reason with a machine. One cannot go up to a machine and say, "I accidentally skipped that one number, so all of my answers are one row off. See, they're really the right answers!" The machine will just blip and keep on churning out what it is programmed to say is "right" and what is "wrong". Could not, and should not, this same dread apply to any attempt to eliminate the warmth of human response, the empathy derived therefrom, and to replace it with the cold, impersonal touch of a machine?
Especially if there are doubts about the integrity of that machine to provide a true reflection of one's answers?
When I applied for my Driver's Permit (the precursor to a full license) I took a computerized test. To this day, I still contest that one of the answers I got wrong I actually did not get wrong. Nevertheless, there was no way to confirm this: the computer gave no print-out, there was no way to review my responses after they were submitted, and the testing center did not have access to the source code to verify that the computer was properly tallying responses.
I feel the same way about computerized voting machines. There is so much potential in them. Properly implemented, with the means by which to verify the validity of each person's vote, they can quickly streamline elections, making reporting faster and more accurate than before.
Improperly implemented, they will be a nightmare, and there appears to be a movement whose goal is to make sure such an event comes about. There are legitimate concerns being raised about the security of electronic voting machines, and those concerns need to be addressed.
Politics has been called "down and dirty" by many an observer. In fact, many terms that have come to be used in American politics draw on this motif: grassroots, mudslinging, dirty laundry...just to name a few. Like research, there is something to be said for getting your hands dirty, sinking them into the issues; an issue with bad implications or a shady side is said to "smell". On the issue of voting machines, something definitely smells rotten. Machines aren't supposed to smell, so until they remove that smell by assuring the public that each person's vote will be counted properly, I believe America should stick with the "dirtier" option, and cast its ballots the old-fashioned way: little paper forms.
