The last time (I apologize for missing a week) I promised to continue discussion of an e-mail from Roy Martin who wrote “by all means use my name and give me hell if you wish.” I don’t so wish: he made a sound critique of “pop thinking” about the value of computers for schools. It is people like me who deserve to be “given hell” for not making sure more people understand that there is deeper way to think about it. I am grateful to Martin for allowing me to use his email to do so. But I first note that I (and many others as well) will be doing this far more effectively at the UM laptop conference to be held in Orono next week. If you can come you would be joining people from 12 countries, 15 states as well as teachers from many Maine schools. For logistics of how to come click www.agent.maine.edu/laptop or call Tom Bickford at 581-2012. For the logic of why to come, ponder the title of the conference, which I have used as the heading for this week’s column.

The “pop ideas vs. deep ideas” theme is related to a bittersweet aspect of my own experience of publishing the book “Mindstorms: Children, Computers and Powerful Ideas” from which the title is derived. Reviews were split between a few who reviled me for suggesting (remember this was 1980) that children should be exposed to computers and a larger number who praised me for writing so well “about children and computers.” I don’t know which upset me more. Of course we all like praise. But what if it is offered for doing the very opposite of what one meant to do? I didn’t mean to write a book about children and computers. I meant to write a book about powerful ideas. My message was that computers could be a vehicle for children to reach more powerful ideas than those in the traditional curriculum.

Most reviewers read it as suggesting ways for computers to be used for teaching the not so powerful ideas already in the curriculum. Fortunately I came to understand that although most of the reviewers missed the point many of the million or so teachers who read it in 17 languages got it. The big lesson for me was learning (surprise, surprise!) that classroom teachers often have a far better understanding than pontificating academics and opinion makers in the field of education.

Back to Roy Martin. Last time I commented on his criticism of the value of “computer literacy.” whose pop meaning refers to superficial knowledge about current software. No, I would not support putting the state into debt to give our kids this stuff. But I would support spending even more to give them a deep understanding of the truly powerful ideas that lie behind the workings of computers. In short: I support the idea of computer literacy but only on condition that we rethink what it means. (If any legislators are willing to learn before they condemn I would be very willing to offer them a short course on the subject. and indeed will do so at the coming UM conference.)

The idea that we have to replace a “pop ideas” by a “powerful idea” applies more widely in the discussion of what computers can do. Mr. Martin notes the pop idea of giving “access to the vast knowledge to be experienced on the Internet” and comments: “each student has, and has always had, access to far more knowledge than he or she can explore in a lifetime.” True enough in one sense but a different sense is illustrated by a personal story.

Last week my wife and I drove to Ellsworth to see a movie – “The Lady and the Duke” – whose action took place in the midst of the French revolution. We thought it was great and in the heat of our excitement we rushed home to find out from the Internet more about the times, the events and about what others might have thought about the movie. Neither the movie alone nor any document alone could have given me the new historical understanding I gained from this total experience. Words like “access” and “exploring” simply don’t capture the kind of relationship to knowledge that comes from getting it when it is “hot.”

What is in question here is not the quantity of knowledge in general but the quality of relationship with particular knowledge. And it was not just historical facts that entered the relationship. The opportunity of reading while the experience was hot in my mind how differently half a dozen reviewers reacted to the same movie provides a sense of the excitement of discussion that is no less important to our young people than any number of bare facts.

Seymour Papert is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a Distinguished Computer Scientist at the University of Maine and a member of the Maine Learning Technology Task Force. He may be contacted at Papert@midmaine.com.