The Bell Curve

            The bell curve was invented in the eighteen century as way to show binomial probability. But the mathematical notion of bell curve and normal distribution got involved with human sciences in the nineteenth century. Since then the bell curve idea is used in so many different areas, like business, sports and politics and education. The argument in this article is not about whether the bell curve is good or bad, is about if the bell curve idea exists or not, or the argument is about how bell-curve thinking gains its historical function. Lynn Fendler and Irfan Muzaffar argue that, “The acceptance of bell-curve thinking in education is a part of recursive project of governance and normalization”. There are so many arguments that are made in the article about the usage of bell curve idea in education by Muzaffar and Fendler, but their main goal is to show the contradiction that exists in the history of the bell curve.

The statistician Karl Pearson noted that Statistic was nothing than knowledge of the art or skill of conducting government affairs without any trace of mathematics in the time of Gauss, the founder of the idea of normal distribution. Statistics had nothing to do anything with numbers. They accept that this emerging relation between mathematics and the human sciences was historically accidental and not rationally certain. This article is not for the scholars or educators that are not aware of the bad effect of the bell curve idea is for the educators that are aware of the negative influence of the bell curve idea who resignedly accept what appear to be a natural law. It is for the open-minded educators who regret the injustices of sorting, but feel force to accept it or apply it.

I agree with the most of the arguments that Muzaffar and Fendler make as a person that have seen or experienced the negative influences of the bell curve in education. However, this question is coming to my mind that if they do not use the bell curve or some kind of standards what they can use? How about tests and grades? How the system of education will work? Who get the degree who does not?