n these six essays, Marvin shares his wisdom about children, learning, school, and computation. He emphasizes computers not only as tools for learning typical subject areas like math but also as offering opportunities for children to learn “good ways to think about thinking” itself. One way of doing this, Marvin suggests, is “to get children to think of themselves as though they were programmed computers” (essay 4). For instance, in my Logo classes children were asked to “play turtle” or to become researchers collecting both computer and human bugs, to talk about necessary debugging steps, and at times to recognize that some bugs can be features.
Another one of Marvin’s ever-sharp observations is about teaching: “instead of promoting inventiveness, we focus on pre-venting mistakes.” In teaching children arithmetic, he suspected that “this negative emphasis leads many children not only to dislike Arithmetic, but also later to become averse to everything else that smells of technology (essay 2).
Unsurprisingly, these essays are relevant to today’s discussions about school, computers, and learning. I assume most readers have thought about the issues raised here; Marvin adds a refresh-ing perspective. We leave it to you to bring in your knowledge of other writers and researchers offering similar, or contrary, points of view. Enjoy Marvin’s wisdom.