"The examination did not simply mark the end of an apprenticeship; it was one of its permanent factors; it was woven into it through a constantly repeated ritual of power. The examination enabled the teacher, while transmitting his knowledge, to transform his pupils into a whole field of knowledge."
"... the examination in a school was a constant exchanger of knowledge; it guaranteed the movement of knowledge from the teacher to the pupil, but it extracted from the pupil a knowledge destined and reserved for the teacher."
"The examination transformed the economy of visibility into the exercise of power. Traditionally, power was what was seen, what was shown and what was manifested and, paradoxically, found the principle of its force in the movement by which it deployed that force."
"And the examination is the technique by which power, instead of emitting the signs of its potency, instead of imposing its mark on its subjects, holds them in a mechanism of objectification. In this space of domination, disciplinary power manifests its potency, essentially by arranging objects. The examination is, as it were, the ceremony of this objectification."
These quotes refer not only to the transformation of schools but to students as well, and not just those in K - 12 settings, but in colleges, medical schools, seminaries alike. The examination, according to Foucault, has allowed power to become more powerful by way of providing it a means of exertion that turns students into objects. Power by way of the examination, according to Foucault, "places individuals in a field of surveillance" in a complexity of objectification in order to "capture and fix" them in place according to the norms presented and reinforced by the examination.
Is there validity in Foucault's assertions? How important is the examination? Does it really tell us as much as we think it does?
Interesting thoughts...
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