“In New York City there is a growing number of classrooms, I believe nearly fifty now, where future and past seem to meet. In the front a chalkboard: a teacher talking, perhaps about sentences, perhaps about ratios, in the middle desks: children sitting, some listening, some dreaming. Familiar. At the back something different. Two computers side by side against the wall: a child working at each keyboard. Sometimes a little group around them, sometimes excited talk, sometimes exaggerated by the clicks and the beeps of the machine.
On one of the two computer screens a spaceship flies through a star-filled sky. The eight year old programmer created it, designed its colours and defined its motions. A fantasy captured in a mixture of form, colour and mathematics. A lot of work went into getting the ratios of speeds right. Ratio: the same concept the teacher spoke of — maybe. But certainly a different relationship between learner and concepts. For this child, ratio is a personal instrument. Something to think with, something to dream with. That’s why I called my own dream book Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas.”
Papert, S. (1982) Tomorrow’s Classrooms?. In Times Educational Supplement March 5, 1982 (pp. 31-32,41)