Today it is commonplace that computers and technology permeate almost every aspect of education. In the late 1960s, though, the idea that computers could serve as a catalyst for thinking about the way children learn was a radical concept. In the early 1960s, Seymour Papert joined the faculty of MIT and founded the Artificial Intelligence Lab with Marvin Minski. As a mathematician and educational theoretician working in a technology-rich environment, he was in the right place with the right background to consider the educational possibilities of technology. Others had suggested that the computer could serve as a delivery system for presenting content. Papert suggested that the computer could also serve as an environment for "thinking about thinking." This article provides the history of Seymour Papert's work toward a vision in which every child would employ a computer as a tool for thinking, and introduces Seymour Papert's republished paper, "Teaching Children Thinking," with an updated introduction by the author. [For "Teaching Children Thinking," see EJ1080969.]