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Seymour Papert has died

media.mit.edu

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Re: Seymour Papert has died

#71

Post by ef4 »

wallflower wrote: post #28

RIP, Seymour Papert. Scratch is the spiritual successor to Logo. As Scratch becomes more and more popular, it has been sad to say that there is a tension between the spirit of Scratch and commercialization. Scratch is all about exploration and making mistakes and experiential learning. However, there is a deluge of companies who are trying to create curriculums for Scratch that fit into the traditional School lesson…

Yup. Most schools can't authentically do the things that Papert describes in Mindstorms. It goes against their very structure.

I don't blame the commercial vendors -- they are following the public-policy-directed money. I blame the schools for their culture of top-down control and conformity.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#72

Post by j0e1 »

Logo was the first language that familiarized me with the fundamentals of programming and got me excited about computers back when I was in 4th grade in India, in the late 90s. It's amazing how a person's vision and hard work can have such far-reaching impact. I'm grateful for his life and work. Rest in Peace Seymour Papert.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#73

Post by throwaway2998 »

throw42 wrote: post #69

My office was next door to Seymour's office at the Media Lab. This was before the motorcycle accident in Vietnam. I was a freshly arrived student from India. His main observation about India was about how the IITs were terrible for the country because they left such a profound debilitating effect on those who did not make it to those schools.

Interesting. Greetings from India .

Could you elaborate on his thoughts on that ?

I too sometimes feel like I've missed out on a good education. But I feel it's too late now to change that. :(

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#74

Post by daeken »

gbin wrote: post #23

Python has a "logo inspired" turtle in the standard lib: https://docs.python.org/3.5/library/turtle.html We played with it with my son and it brought back memories from the 80s when the French government made a big push on Logo in the schools.

Oh man, you absolutely made my day. I've been teaching my fiancee bits of Python for the past couple days (her first code ever!) and this library made it all make sense. It let her take all the little concepts I taught her, and put them together to make something cool. She just wrote a street with houses on it, generated by a simple for loop!

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#75

Post by jkestner »

qwertyuiop924 wrote: post #68

In 200x, when I was in 4th grade, my teacher said that that day, we would be learning some programming. We were strictly a Mac school, and Scratch wasn't as well known at the time, so the language and environment we learned was Terrapin Logo. There's nothing like looking at the screen and seeing something that you made come to life for the first time. And there's nothing quite like being given a problem that seems im…

You youths! I had a similar introduction to Logo, on an Apple ][ at a computer day camp in the summer of 198x. We programmers tend to love learning the shiny new languages, but it's thanks to the enduring idea behind this language that many of us acquired the love. I strive to build something as lasting.

Papert on the turtle, children and the physical version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTd3N5Oj2jk

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#76

Post by gohrt »

throwaway2998 wrote: post #73
throw42 wrote: post #69

My office was next door to Seymour's office at the Media Lab. This was before the motorcycle accident in Vietnam. I was a freshly arrived student from India. His main observation about India was about how the IITs were terrible for the country because they left such a profound debilitating effect on those who did not make it to those schools.

Interesting. Greetings from India . Could you elaborate on his thoughts on that ? I too sometimes feel like I've missed out on a good education. But I feel it's too late now to change that. :(

My guess is that Papert believed that IIT curriculum (or similar) should be taught everywhere, not limited to the few seats in IIT.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#77

Post by jkestner »

ef4 wrote: post #71
wallflower wrote: post #28

RIP, Seymour Papert. Scratch is the spiritual successor to Logo. As Scratch becomes more and more popular, it has been sad to say that there is a tension between the spirit of Scratch and commercialization. Scratch is all about exploration and making mistakes and experiential learning. However, there is a deluge of companies who are trying to create curriculums for Scratch that fit into the traditional School lesson…

Yup. Most schools can't authentically do the things that Papert describes in Mindstorms. It goes against their very structure. I don't blame the commercial vendors -- they are following the public-policy-directed money. I blame the schools for their culture of top-down control and conformity.

And it goes with the grain in Montessori schools. I was introduced to Mindstorms by my mother, a Montessori educator with barely an interest in computers.

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#78

Post by drawkbox »

His central tenet could be useful in rebuilding the U.S. education systems more like Finland where it is project based, real-world based.

"The central tenet of his Constructionist theory of learning is that people build knowledge most effectively when they are actively engaged in constructing things in the world."

"you cannot think about thinking without thinking about thinking about something"

Re: Seymour Papert has died

#79

Post by gizmodo59 »

gohrt wrote: post #76
throwaway2998 wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting. Greetings from India . Could you elaborate on his thoughts on that ? I too sometimes feel like I've missed out on a good education. But I feel it's too late now to change that. :(

My guess is that Papert believed that IIT curriculum (or similar) should be taught everywhere, not limited to the few seats in IIT.

I'm not sure about this. Stanford/Harvard is much more than the curriculum.
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