Papertexplores the complex underpinning of constuctionism and the importance of choice and passion. In this article Papert tells the story of how as a young child he was fascinated with gears, through his obsession Papert discovered a lot about how cars and gears work, he learnt about cause and effect, he was able to create his own simple models. I think we can all relate to this story, the idea that if learning is pitched in an area of interest it is a fun and exciting task rather than an onerous, dull workload.
When I was in school my mother was a quilter, she used to always ask me any maths questions to do with her latest project. I would draw, cut and calculate trying to work out exactly how much fabric she needed, what shape would fit together or how to create an interesting pattern. For a recent maths project we were asked to create a video that shows maths in real life, when I started putting sylabus outcomes to the things I learnt with my mother in the sewing room and I was shocked, it never seamed like work!
Papert connects these experiences to e-learning by summarising
‘”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. This book is the result of my own attempts over the past decade to turn computers into instruments flexible enough so that many children can each create for themselves something like what the gears were for me.”
Source The Gears of My Childhood. Extract from Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas
Papert, S. (1980). The Gears of My Childhood. Extract from Mindstorms: Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas (Basic Books, 1980).Retrieved March 16, 2007 at: