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On pg 25 of Mason's book he discusses how capacity as a model for understanding is rather inadequate. Critiquing Ryle's suggestion, "overt intelligent performances are not clues to the workings of minds; they are those workings," Mason goes on to posit that "to understand--in a case where what happens, is entirely private within someone's mind." (pg 26). This seemed, to me, to fit nicely with Nelson Goodman's understanding of understanding; "comprehension and creation go on together," (pg 72). Yet Goodman seems to purport that capacity is a natural consequence of understanding; "Perceiving motion often consists in producing it. Discovering laws involve drafting them. Recognizing patterns is very much a matter of inventing and imposing them." And Mason, as well, recognizes that there must be "some cases where a capacity to do something would be a necessary condition for understanding." However, Mason then contrasts how one must speak a language to understand it, with the example of a translation machine and its inability to understand the words it translates.

Capacity seems central to our discussion on education considering most, if not all, education consists of judging a student's capacity to do something, and not whether a student understands beyond that task. Moreover, considering Mason's thoughts on understanding being a private matter, and also Goodman's 'comprehension-creation,' it would be difficult, if not impossible, to balance judging or grading a students capacity with the possibility or probability of suffocating the creativity inherent with understanding. In other words, to steal Mason's quote from WE Johnson: "If I say that a sentence has meaning for me no one has a right to say it is senseless," (pg 26).
I feel going one step further, and saying that our current systems of education are counterproductive to the interests of furthering understanding (insofar as grading/judging, what is correct understanding and what is not), is not to much of a stretch considering Goodman's and Mason's articles thus far. Though, Mason has a lot of work to do still in his book.