“The failure of past reformers to bring about dramatically better learning has armed those within the educational establishment with the argument that future proposals will prove no more capable of bringing about radically improved learning. Some may well believe that the best argument against megachange is this: If it has so long been so desperately needed, why have previous calls for it not caught fire? But the establishment may be in for a shock. This book is informed and shaped by the belief that strong feelings of dissatisfaction within society at large are rapidly making it impossible to save education as we know it by continuing to tinker around at its edges. Not the least of these dissatisfactions are the feelings of children. In the past, children may not have liked School, but they were persuaded to believe that it was the passport to success in life. To the extent that children reject School as out of touch with contemporary life, they become active agents in creating pressure for change. Like any other social structure, School needs to be accepted by its participants. It will not survive very long beyond the time when children can no longer be persuaded to accord it a degree of legitimation.”
Papert, S. (1993) The Children’s Machine: Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer. NY: Basic Books. pp 5-6.