In an excellent essay, Andy M and Michael N explain why they use the phrase 'tools for thought.' While they interrogate the term 'tool', they leave 'thought' unexamined. I'll argue why we should replace 'thought' with 'think with.'

Why does this matter?

How we frame a problem shapes how we work. In this case, building tools to think with instead of tools for thought helps us do a few things:

  1. "Think" reminds us that knowledge is constructed — and that learning and thinking is the process of constructing knowledge. As Eleanor Duckworth masterfully shows in The Having of Wonderful Ideas (and as constructivists argue more broadly) — each individual discovers ideas in their own particular way through a process of active construction. They draw on experience. Interactions. Materials in their environment. In the process, they build and rebuild mental models. In their heads and dialectically with the world, people, and materials around them

Tools to think with puts the focus on the person, not on external concepts. Focusing on tools for thought makes it easier to repackage behaviorist notions of learning and knowledge. Knowledge exists out there as bites and bits for each of us to acquire and process.

  1. "With" reminds us that learning involves interaction. With people, materials, ideas, cultures, etc. Centering that moves us from an atomistic way of thinking about ideas.

  2. "Think with" therefore reminds us that (a) thinking is an active process of construction and (b) that we do this with people, materials, and contexts. This helps us design for different paths and styles. What we can call epistemological pluralism.

Epistemological Pluralism

Epistemological pluralism is a mouthful, but helps us think about how people think. And how to build better tools to think with.

In Papert's work, epistemology implies how a person constructs knowledge. Pluralism suggests there are different ways to do that.