Outtakes from Seymour Papert’s Squeakers DVD Interview
This interview appears to have been recorded for the 2002 Squeakers documentary DVD by a team from Ball State University. Transcription attached.
This interview appears to have been recorded for the 2002 Squeakers documentary DVD by a team from Ball State University. Transcription attached.
“The world lost an amazing wit, intellect, inventor, bricoleur, scholar, freedom fighter, and friend with the passing of Seymour Papert. He was arguably the most influential educator of the past half century. It would be wise for us all to start thinking about what we each might do to build upon his mighty legacy.” Gary Stager, …
“Everyone works with procedures in everyday life. Playing a game or giving directions to a lost motorist are exercises in procedural thinking. But in everyday life procedures are lived and used, they are not necessarily reflected on. In the LOGO environment, a procedure becomes a thing that is named, manipulated, and recognized as the children …
“Approaching Logo as an idea in development rather than a fixed thing to be judged has placed me in a third position in relation to debates between people who think Logo is great and those who think it has “failed.” Just as Logo encourages children to see bugs as positive things to think about, so …
“People often congratulate me for making such a good language for children. But they are wrong. Logo isn’t a “good language for children”–in fact, a language that was “good for children” in this limited sense would not be good for children. Children deserve a language that is good, period. Logo is only good for children …
“In 1971 Channel 5, a local Boston TV station, produced a program on children in new learning situations and included a segment on Logo. Here is that segment. My one regret is that Seymour was not talking with a child during the filming. By the way I am indebted to youTube and one of its …
“A central idea behind our learning environments was that children would be able to use powerful ideas from mathematics and science as instruments of personal power. For example, geometry would become a means to create visual effects on a television screen. But achieving this often meant developing new topics in mathematics and science, an enterprise …