A LOOK BACK
The Original Integration of
Computers into Education By Visual Arts Department Chair, Teacher and School Archivist Mark Macrides
In September 1983, the Board of Trustees approved a Planning and Policy report that included the following recommendation: “That the school continue to support the efforts of the Faculty Computer Committee, as it examines and implements the use of the computer in the curriculum.” This statement was the first widespread formal acknowledgment that the computer had a permanent role to play in the future of Country School’s program. Indeed, it had! Thirty-seven years later, as we join the rest of the country in pioneering extended distance-learning programs for our students, it is on that visionary foundation that we firmly stand. As early as 1982, Head of School Nick Thacher was discussing in his Annual Address “The proper integration of computers into the process of educating children…” and believing it to be “…the single most important aspect of educational stewardship in the foreseeable future.” This foresight had already helped to create support for technical visionaries such as Ed Mills and Reinhold Wappler, whose implementation of innovative educational oppor-
Mr. Wappler, learning the language of LOGO in support of their
tunities around the use of the computer were already gaining
mathematics curriculum. The LOGO program and computer lab
ground on campus. Ed Mills, former Head of the Middle School,
that was designed to support it became a model for the devel-
had by the early 1980’s become Head of the Science Department
opment of computer labs in other divisions, particularly in the
and is credited for setting up the first computer on campus. The
lower level of the Stevens Building, where older students began
large cumbersome “appliance” initially became a circus-like attrac-
to learn the benefits of the computer as a tool for research and
tion to students. However, under Ed’s knowledge and creative
word processing. In typical Country School fashion, as the pres-
guidance, Country School created its first computer course, and
ence of computers expanded on campus, so did conversation
by 1985 computer classes were an established component of
about the challenge of balancing reality with the new virtual
the NCCS curriculum from LOGO in the Lower School to broader
world of technology.
applications of study in the upper grades.
These past weeks, if we can be grateful for anything, it is the
Reinhold Wappler, Lower School mathematics teacher,
computer and accompanying technology that are enabling us to
pioneered the LOGO program not long after Mills set up his
remain connected and continue to deliver an innovative version
first computer in the Middle School science lab. Described in
of the valuable Country School program to children and families.
simple terms as a “tool to think math with,” LOGO evolved
The school’s success over the years in striking the appropriate
in 1970 at the Artificial Intelligence Laboratory at the
balance between the physical and virtual worlds highlights the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The work at MIT was
need for an eventual return to campus and all of the physical
strongly influenced by combining computer theory with the
connections, activities and “hands-on” learning that distinguish
concepts of educational psychologist Jean Piaget. By 1980,
NCCS. In the meantime, we are grateful for the solid founda-
NCCS was one of the first schools to bring the results of this
tion in computer science provided by our forerunners, as well
important research into the classroom. Two years later, children
as our ability to use those resources to continue to support our
in Grades 2 through 5 were spending time on computers with
students through such an unprecedented time in history.
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