“Any adult who thinks one of these games is easy need only sit down and try to master one,” he writes. “Most are hard, with complex information–as well as technique–to be mastered.” Video games empower children “to test out ideas about working within prefixed rules and structures in a way few other toys are capable […]
“I was observing a child working with a C.A.I. program for multiplication. There was something strange going on. I had seen the child do several multiplications quickly and accurately. Then I saw him give a series of wrong answers to easier problems. It took me a while to realize that the child had become bored
Educators should “start clearing their heads about notions that computers are expensive. Every child should have a computer like an Apple II.” Mr. Papert noted that New York City schools spend more than $30,000 on a student over the course of his 13 years of public schooling. If the computer were priced at its manufacturing
“The institution of School, with its daily lesson plans, fixed curriculum, standardized tests, and other such paraphernalia, tends constantly to reduce learning to a series of technical acts and the teacher to the role of a technician.” Hill, D. (1993) Inventing the Future. In Education Week January 12, 1993. Accessed at http://www.edweek.org/ew/articles/1994/01/12/16papert.h13.html
”Why is it that children have to do 98,000 repetitions of this?” Mr. Papert said, pointing to an addition problem. “One reason is that they don’t know what they’re looking at. They need an object to think about other things with.” (Seymour Papert) Euchner, C. (1983) Seymour Papert’s ‘Microworld’: An Educational Utopia in Education Week.
“We have described what we consider to be an example of truly educational computing — active, exploratory, student-directed learning involving the use of the computer. Through programming languages such as LOGO, computers allow our students, within certain limits, to perform tasks that are difficult or even impossible to achieve with other materials. We emphasize that
“Rationality is a force for the good.” Papert, S. (2007) Seymour Papert Interview – One Laptop per Child (OLPC). Cambridge, MA: One Laptop Per Child Foundation. YouTube video.
“Much of what the child learns we don’t even notice.” Papert, S. (1984). Computer as Mudpie. Intelligent Schoolhouse: Readings on Computers and Learning. D. Peterson. Reston, VA, Reston Publishing Company. Note: A higher-quality version of this article will be uploaded shortly.
“Precisely these criticisms have often been made by humanists. If they have failed to put schools right what can a “technologist” do? This: take away the cause of the problem. The anti-social nature of school undoubtedly has roots in the class structure of society and in the nature of the Freudian unconscious. As long as
“I know. I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities. I think that the examples I have given of learning in a computational environment provide a glimpse of a context for learning in which socialization