February 14, 2011
In honor of Valentine’s Day… “Closely related to appropriation is another word, love. Einstein said, “Love is a better master than duty.” This is often forgotten in many of the modern theories of education. Take cognitive science, for example. I don’t think the people who gave it that name meant any harm, but in psychology,... Read More
February 10, 2011
DON’T: get hung up monitoring your kids’ every mouse click DO: begin to share their joyful experience of discovery Papert, S. (1995) The Parent Trap. Time Magazine. November 13, 1995. p. 34. Tweet This Post
February 10, 2011
“Well, first thing you have to do is to give up the idea of curriculum. Curriculum meaning you have to learn this on a given day. Replace it by a system where you learn this where you need it. So that means we’re going to put kids in a position where they’re going to use... Read More
February 9, 2011
“The central issue of change in education is the tension between technicalizing and not technicalizing, and here the teacher occupies the fulcrum position.” “My paradoxical argument is that technology can support megachange in education as far-reaching as what we have seen in medicine, but it will do this through a process directly opposite to what... Read More
February 8, 2011
“It is not surprising that people rooted in schools’ concept of how learning should take place resist such restructuring. What is surprising is the logical distortion they resort to in order to persuade themselves that there are powerful objective reasons that make the transformation impossible.” Papert, S. (1996). Computers in the Classroom: Agents of Change.... Read More
February 7, 2011
On the NCTM Standards….. “I think they [the Standards] are going in the right direction but they are incredibly conservative, from my point of view. But again, I’d make reservation that if one has to work within the framework for schools as they are and curriculum as it is, maybe there isn’t very much room... Read More
February 3, 2011
“I contrast this with a sex education class I witnessed in a school. Teacher produces a diagram showing the plumbing of human genitalia and gives a lesson full of physiological information. I could almost hear him ticking off in his mind the “content” that has to be “covered” in the lesson plan. Meechai didn’t teach... Read More
February 2, 2011
“Piaget was not an educator and never enunciated rules about how to intervene in such situations. But his work strongly suggests that the automatic reaction of putting the child right may well be abusive. Practicing the art of making theories may be more valuable for children than achieving meteorological orthodoxy. And if their theories are... Read More
February 1, 2011
“My thesis could be summarized as: What the gears cannot do the computer might. The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its power to simulate. Because it can take on a thousand forms and can serve a thousand functions, it can appeal to a thousand tastes.” Papert, S. (1981). Mindstorms:... Read More
January 31, 2011
“The phrase, “technology and education” usually means inventing new gadgets to teach the same old stuff in a thinly disguised version of the same old way. Moreover, if the gadgets are computers, the same old teaching becomes incredibly more expensive and biased towards its dumbest parts, namely the kind of rote learning in which measurable... Read More