This category describes the time period in which Papert published or spoke the specific quote
“For many children traditional school is a very dangerous place because you can be humiliated, embarrassed – scared of being found out that you don’t know how to do something. Whereas with the Turtle, you can play with it by yourself. It’s okay that you don’t understand it because you found out that you didn’t […]
Note: This is a future vision for education, not a report on the present… “School is a place where students learn largely by working on projects that come from their own interests — their own visions of a place where they want to be, a thing they want to make or a subject they want
“Teachers were once among the most respected members of their communities — often the most respected. This position is slipping as schools deteriorate and lose their social function. Some visions of the role of technology in education, for example, the image of the best teacher as a distant teacher, further undermine respect for teachers and
“I’m saying that it is inconceivable that school as we’ve known it will continue. Inconceivable. And the reason why it’s inconceivable is that little glimmer with my grandson who is used to finding knowledge when he wants to and can get it when he needs it, and can get in touch with other people and
“Incremental change can be self-defeating; it’s not a step on the way to the big change. A silly example: suppose that the inventor of the refrigerator found that the only way to persuade people to buy them would be to make a refrigerator that could drop the temperature by just one degree. Now that thing
“I think it’s an exaggeration, but that there’s a lot of truth in saying that when you go to school, the trauma is that you must stop learning and you must now accept being taught.” Seymour Papert in conversation with Paolo Friere in Brazil during the late 1980s. It was sponsored by Pontifícia Universidade Católica,
Papert’s Principle: “Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows.” Minsky, M. (1988) The Society of Mind. NY: Touchstone. p.102. Read the original source of this quote online, here.
“Unless I am missing Tyack and Cuban’s point, this account is in the spirit of Tinkering Towards Utopia and in fact, exemplifies one of the major principles in its presentation of the generic life-cycle of reforms: The reform sets out to change School but in the end School changes the reform. One may at first
“I think that Al Gore and Bill Clinton are doing an incredibly mischievous thing, as is everybody who is propagating the idea that these NetDays, in putting one computer in every classroom connected to the Internet, is a good thing. Now of course it’s a good thing… there’s no question that it is a good
It takes intellectual chutzpah to be serious about replacing “using technology to improve education” by a similar sounding statement with a very different meaning: “inventing new visions of education in the context of a digital world.” And it takes personal chutzpah to face down members of the Education Establishment when they sneer (or worse, smile)