A high quality video reproduction of this television episode remains the holy grail of the Papert archives here at The Daily Papert. If you know how to get our hands on a good quality of this episode of Donahue, please let us know. In the meantime, this episode, in which Papert (and Donahue) disagree with Joseph Weizenbaum about the role of computers in education is a fascinating historical document despite its poor quality. There are rarely discussions of teaching, learning, and the future to be found in mainstream media. You will also discover that many of the same concerns about “screens” and AI today are no different from the ones expressed forty years ago.
Fingers crossed we find a good version of this program for the sake of posterity. Every attempt was made to label the speaker correctly. Errors inevitably exist. (The transcript could use a lot of editing help too – reach out if you’re so inclined – curator [at] dailypapert.com)
Sadly, the video I have begins in the middle of the show…
Seymour Papert: They could learn something, master something with the computer, and then they went on to learn everything else. Because what they got from the computer wasn’t mastered. The computer was self confident and believing in themselves and learning.
Phil Donahue: Here’s the caller
Caller: I don’t believe that you need to put computers into a school, especially primary grades, young children, when they’re having problems learning how to read, how to write, learning how to do simple math, and another thing too is, you’re putting them in front of the machine so they can get along with the machine, so they can talk to the machine, but they’re not being able to talk to anyone else.
Phil Donahue: Uh, as a matter of fact, the surveys show, incidentally, here’s, here’s the people about whom we speak. Direct from our lab in Berwyn where we develop stereotypes. Here are, what grades are you? Seventh. Here are your basic American seventh graders. Um, bright, young, talented, uh, people all. You have, uh, your school is, uh, Westview Hills Middle School and also we have Roberto Clemente High School students as well in our audience.
Uh, is this your equipment? Is this Apple II? Uh, would you be good enough to, uh, Can I ask you a question? Sure, go right ahead. Do you talk to one another a lot about the computer? Yeah. Would you say the computer makes you isolated and lonely or gives you a lot to talk to a friend about? Well, now, objection, uh, leading the witness.
Uh, the jury will ignore the question. Uh, how would you answer that?
Child demonstrating Logo: Well, it gives you a wider thing to talk about because it’s, you can explore into the computers. You can create different things.
Phil Donahue: Yeah. Uh, what’s, we got a magic wand here. This is uh, this kills me. I gotta get one of these. Uh, thanks for the billing incidentally.
Child demonstrating Logo: Yes. You can use this as a tool. Like you can say this to me. You can have, you can use a cross. Yeah. Which you can do several things with. Yeah. Like draw like that. Uh
Phil Donahue: huh.
Child demonstrating Logo: Or,
Phil Donahue: That’s alright, they take your time. You’re doing two things at once. Like
Child demonstrating Logo: that. You can change colors. Yeah.
Phil Donahue: Now, how, but how often do you have access? Your first name is?
Child demonstrating Logo: Dawn.
Phil Donahue: Dawn. How often do you have access to the computer terminal?
Child demonstrating Logo: Well, um, you can either do it like come in during one of the classes that you’re free, or you can come in during, um, After school, or you can come in if you have the class computer.
Phil Donahue: I see. Uh, I’m not sure what ratio we’ve got now. I think we’ve got, what, one computer to every 92 students?
Seymour Papert: About that, one.
Phil Donahue: One to every 90 students.
Seymour Papert: You mean in the United States? Yeah.
Female panelist: But that’s only an average in lower income schools. It’s a much higher ratio, and there’s, there are real issues of access to the computer itself.
To just having one in the school. I’m very happy to see Dawn serving as a role model for girls around the country who are discouraged from thinking they should be computer experts, you see?
Phil Donahue: Hi, are you there?
Caller 2: Yes, I hate that Adam commercial. I think it insinuates that we’re bad parents because we won’t get our children a computer.
Phil Donahue: Well, in defense of Coleco, I don’t think anybody, they’re not trying to suggest you’re bad parents. They are suggesting, to be sure. That a terminal, that a computer in your home will help your child join the rest of the average children, uh, in the happiness of knowing that you’re not going to drop out or be behind.
That’s the issue.
Caller 2: But I feel that my child can do just as well without one.
Joseph Weizenbaum: Well, well, let me, can I get in on this? Sure. Yeah, let’s get back to, to, uh, two things that she said. One is she said the fact that kids can’t read and so on and so forth. That’s boring. The other thing is how glad he was that there was an encyclopedia in his house.
I think, uh, I, I’m glad he was glad to have an encyclopedia in house, but the, but the fact that the encyclopedia was actually used in his house, whereas in many cases it just stood there for many years after it was bought, has something to do with the kind of family in which he was brought up. Okay. It has to do with the parents contributing to the learning of the child is not the function of the, of, of the encyclopedia.
The difficulty with the, with, with the computer and the whole or instrument is that the computer, in most instances serves as a technological state. Something is wrong, you install a computer and then you say, okay, we’re fixing it. And again, I want to come back to that. We don’t ask the question, why can’t Johnny read?
Now, we’re not talking about an elite school. But there are millions of kids in the United States for whom school represents a minimum security prison in which they have to serve so many years of their lives. There are millions of kids in the United States who go to school hungry, for example, and you can’t learn to read when you’re hungry.
Recently at the American Psychiatric Convention in Los Angeles. A survey was announced, and a very similar survey in, in, in Great Britain, which showed, uh, that, that more than half the kids under 11 years old in school believe that they’re not going to grow up to be adults, because they fear atomic holocaust.
Under these circumstances, I think one has to address those questions, and not simply say, look at the computer motivation, and so on and so forth. Um, I have a more practical question, and that is, what, can we ever expect in a, an efficient computer orientation? And a fair one in school. As long as it’s never going to be practical for every child to have a terminal and a screen.
But I think that’s putting the cock before the horse. I, I, I don’t, you know, what do you mean by efficiency? You know, what is it, what is it they’re trying to, what, what is it they’re trying to do? You know, I really do think that, uh, the people of your community, the, the bright, mathematic, uh, minds of our time, and you too certainly, uh, are members of that community, have that ability.
To create software that will, I think, expand the mind of children. That will, that will provide for them a unique vehicle to develop insight, curiosity, and I think the next Einstein is going to be a child who grew up on very creative software that was challenged. Could
Female panelist: we go back to another example? One of the, uh, major, uh, events in a classroom is, the major event in a classroom is the interaction between teacher and student.
Phil Donahue: And we should probably talk about the role of teachers in all of this. Why don’t you then, briefly?
Female panelist: Yes, because all of us who are, what, over 15, uh, can look back and remember a teacher who turned us on, got us excited about something. I majored in English because My senior English teacher was my role model.
She inspired me. Um, I was discouraged from taking math because girls don’t need that. But, of course, no one, no one younger has been told that, right? Um, I think we have to look at the way in which the computer is a tool of teaching. It is a tool of learning and it is not, uh, it’s not an end in itself. If you’re going to be a checkout, person at the grocery store, you’re going to be using a computer.
Seymour Papert: Uh, that’s not the point here. We’re not talking About which you won’t have to know anything.
Female panelist: That’s right. You won’t have to know how it works inside any more than you need to know how your battery in your car works.
Seymour Papert: Isn’t it terrible that we’re growing up without understanding the things we use?
Female panelist: I tend to agree that we should understand it, but at the very least, we should be able to have Children in schools equally learning the same basic skills.
Hang on a minute.
Seymour Papert: I don’t think that electric motors are to be entirely mysterious to everybody. No, I like them. But the question is how, in the sense of priorities, what’s important to teach? How much should we teach, especially in the primary and secondary school, about electric motors? Over here, please.
Audience member: Well, I work in the computer field and my son does not have a computer. However, I’m all for having them in the schools. I want him and my younger daughters to grow up and not having to learn it on the job as I did. I will not get them to have one in the home. I don’t think it’s absolutely necessary, but I hope our schools have them.
Seymour Papert: Yeah, but look, you can’t just say I’m all for having computers in the schools without saying what you’re going to give up. For Okay. If you, no, no, I don’t think we
Female panelist: want to be giving up.
Joseph Weizenbaum: You’re gonna have to, you’re gonna have to give up something. Among other things, I don’t think we should. Not for computer computers costs money in the first place, but wait, and if you don’t have enough books in the library, then you’re making the choice for computers instead of books.
Female panelist: We are in a phase now where the federal government is slashing the budget for. Right. That’s exactly right. And now the question is all the more urgent. What is it you should buy? But we don’t accept that.
Seymour Papert: I spend at least a day a week in school. Same prison school. I have never seen a school No, I disagree.
Joseph Weizenbaum: You don’t spend a day a week in prison school.
Seymour Papert: Well, I do. In actual prisons, too.
No, but not I work in schools in West Harlem. And your point is And your point is what? I voyaged to New York and I worked at a school, you know. And my point is that wherever I’ve seen the computer in the school The only thing that I see being given up is the teacher no longer has to be a policeman to say to the children, now you learn this, the children start demanding to be taught and so the teacher can start really teaching.
Phil Donahue: What are the 91 students doing though?
Seymour Papert: That’s, that’s, I wouldn’t go, I, I observe such schools, I’m doing experiments where we’re working with a computer on every desk, with four computers, with a computer for every four children, with high density. I think this is the model of the future, and anything else Oh, that may very well be How much is that going to cost?
Joseph Weizenbaum: We don’t, we don’t disagree on that. That may very well be the model of the future. But one thing that model includes is a Seymour Papert. Personally inspiring the teachers, personally inspiring the teachers.
Seymour Papert: Oh, I don’t think so. I don’t think so. I’ve written a book called Mindstorms, which you should all read.
Yes. Tomorrow. Mindstorms, read it tomorrow. I’ve tried through this book and other writing to convey to teachers a sense of a new excitement about learning. I think I’d like to ask the teachers a question. whether he thinks this is conveyed. Well, I’ll give you a chance, hold it. But I think that many thousands of pieces through the computer acquired a new enthusiasm about the potential for these children.
Phil Donahue: Yes, but you will not be upset, Dr. Papert, if I call this audience’s attention to something they already know, and that is that the almighty dollar is at work here. We have companies, we have companies and publishing houses who can’t wait to To put out the accompanying material for new programs, it is a multi billion dollar business.
Whether companies in the Silicon Valley will survive at all depends in a major way on what, on the decisions this audience and the community at large makes regarding what we’re going to do with computers in public education. Um, and I, I think that it’s, it doesn’t necessarily mean that these are, are, uh, all together, uh, People consumed with greed, as much as it is that their judgment might be clouded by the fact that you make a lot of money if you get a computer on every desk in school.
Seymour Papert: The judgment is clouded, and one of the themes in my Mindstorms book, Just Quoting, is that Something funny is happening in society that the major decisions about education are being left to the industry. Now, I don’t think you fix that by screaming computers are bad. Oh, screaming you should think about other things.
The way you fix it is what I and colleagues of mine are doing. We’re jumping in there. We are trying to design that software. We are trying to work to make the computer culture something that has deep origins in the basic
Phil Donahue: But how does MIT keep its soul during all this, uh, I mean, it must be a very seductive thing to be I think the point
Go ahead.
Joseph Weizenbaum: I want to get into this. Now, first of all, I’m not screaming. Secondly, I’m not screaming that computers are bad. Thirdly, I agree with everything you do, okay, that the computer should be given a new foundation, and a foundation as good as the one you provided, so on and so forth. When enough teachers have been trained, and so on, and, and, and when you see a research, it’s a billion dollar industry.
It’s, I mean, somebody has to put out those billion dollars. And when we have an educational system, which, which I, and I do think this is the most important thing, teaches children to master their native language so they can speak clearly and with precision. When that’s done, okay, and when all the teachers have been trained in the stuff you do, as opposed to, as opposed to simply reading a book.
Phil Donahue: Learning, then let’s go ahead. That’s a little bit like saying, don’t make this DC 3 airplane in mass production, wait until the trains work. No, no, no, no, it isn’t like that. Wait until the trains run on time, what are you worried about these airplanes?
Seymour Papert: It’s less than that, it’s like saying, don’t make airplanes, wait until you’ve trained everybody to be a pilot.
No, no, no, that’s learning. Said by giving them, but
Female panelist: listen, rules, rules are able to do much, much more. They’re not that simple,
Phil Donahue: but industry is making the decision. That’s it. Is industry that’s deciding what you’ve got. Salesmen are out there making their calls. Well, and not that they, and it’s also, let’s get this in.
It was industry that decided that the future course of energy in this country would be nuclear. Yes. We can’t finish the plants. We’ve started and we’ve already turned one into a coal furnace and you and I are paying for that industrial decision. So now’s the time, you don’t, you don’t argue that, I’m sure, in Mindstorms or anywhere else, that the people have got to get in this dialogue.
Seymour Papert: I think this is the major political and social issue of our time. Everybody should be in this dialogue. What will, the way that computers will influence children depends on Social decisions that we all make about how they’re going to be used. But we can’t make those decisions in the armchair. We have to get out there and be working with computers in our homes, in our food, in our
Phil Donahue: I have to break.
They’re upset. I’ve got to get out of here. We’ll be back in just a moment.
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Phil Donahue: Honey, can I see 110? Here are the, uh, listen to that, we’re speaking computerese. 110. I don’t know what that means. In 1981, 11 percent, this is 1981, of elementary schools had computers. Look at this, look at these numbers. Last year, 62 percent, and going up. Now what, let’s get this in. That does not mean that every child in all those schools has access to a computer.
And also we can assume that the ratio of terminal to student varies significantly within this number of elementary schools that have computers. Here’s the junior high numbers. From 26 percent in 81 to 81 percent in 83. Look at that. And you’re talking about a multi billion dollar industry here, which does not make it bad.
But failing to understand the economic politics of this is to fail to understand the total, uh,
Seymour Papert: Can I ask you a question? Sure. Let me get the high school thing in. 43 percent in 81 and 86 percent in 83. I’d like to ask you a question about numbers and billions. I’d like you to make a guess at What it would add on as a percentage to the cost of education in the United States to give every child a computer?
Just your hunch, what it would be?
Phil Donahue: Now, you say every child. Now, is there a Every child gets a In other words, there’s a screen on the desk of every child?
Seymour Papert: Yes. What would this What do you think this would add as a percentage? 200%, 50% Of the cost, you mean, of education? Of the present total cost of education.
We spend so much. And if we gave every child a personal computer I have no Just have a guess. What comes to mind? Yeah.
Phil Donahue: Okay, you want me to say, of the basic cost of education today, how much more? Yeah.
25 percent.
Seymour Papert: 2 percent.
Phil Donahue: Come on. 2 percent. Come on.
Seymour Papert: You can read this arithmetic in your results, too, and it’s going down.
Phil Donahue: Is this because, well, first of all, uh, Apple, Coleco, IBM, and Wang, and all these people are going, uh, candy. Are all going to give, uh, discounts, first of all,
Seymour Papert: I assume, huh? I, I assume that, with reasonable price.
That, when I first did the experiments with these computers, we had a 100, 000 computer.
Phil Donahue: Yeah.
Seymour Papert: Then, a few years ago, there was a 15, 000 computer. Yeah. Now it’s a 1, 000 computer. And, do you know how much it cost to make that computer?
Phil Donahue: How much?
Seymour Papert: Less than 100.
Phil Donahue: You mean online?
Seymour Papert: Less than 50.
Phil Donahue: Per unit cost?
Seymour Papert: Per unit cost.
If we didn’t have to spend the money on the hardware, If it’s a national policy, we decide to make the computers, give them to the schools, to everybody. But then we have to
Joseph Weizenbaum: That assumes that’s a very good thing to do. You
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Phil Donahue: when you see the kids come home from school, you know, 3rd, 2nd grade, 1st grade, and they’ve always got, with the paste and the picture of Daddy and, you know, and a turkey at Thanksgiving, and they’re walking home, like, sitting out, we obviously have decided We’ve decided that this is an instructive, creative exercise to provide for, uh, and to nurture in young people.
And most of us agree. This is a, that kind of, uh, paste and paper and drawing is a very, very instructive, creative thing to do. There’s going to be no more turkeys or construction paper or glue or crayons. If we put one of these things on everybody’s desk, there goes imagination. And once, and not only have we got our kids, we’ve got our kids buried in a screen at night with the Dukes of Hazzard.
You’re going to have a child buried in a screen all day long. We are going to be the zombies of the 21st century.
Seymour Papert: You weren’t listening to your own audience. Your own audience said, when I asked these children, these young people, does the computer cause you to be lost in the screen or does it give you a lot more to talk about and think about?
They said, a lot more to talk about and think about. When the computer is handled properly and integrated into a good school environment, you’re It leads to more imagination, more creativity, more social interaction. Now, of course, you can use it badly. You can use anything badly.
Phil Donahue: But Dr. Papert,
if this is in my desk, I won’t be able to see the teacher.
It’s in the center of my life. I can’t get this thing out of my life.
Seymour Papert: First of all, that’s the wrong picture, but the computer in a few years time will be much smaller than that. Much smaller. Presently You mean the smaller screen too? Much smaller screen, the same size as the book. So I’ll be able to see the teacher then, behind that thing.
If you want to, I suppose. But, uh, as for seeing the teacher, the typical thing in the school, if you go into these places, they crowd it around the computers, they’re arguing with one another, they’re showing one another what they’ve done. Ah, and one other thing about imagination.
Phil Donahue: Yeah, what?
Seymour Papert: That, uh Where people want to write, where writing counts as trying to make money, like in newspapers.
Universally, everybody in every progressive newspaper these days has computers. Isaac Asimov was quoted, Every writer is gradually being converted That’s about word processing. That’s word processing. I happen to have one of those myself. And it is a wonderful instrument.
Phil Donahue: I can’t go back
to a mechanical typewriter.
Never could again. Wait a minute, let me in. Let me in.
Joseph Weizenbaum: A word processor is for computers What a vacuum cleaner is to an electric motor, okay? Word processors are not computers, okay? One can, and one can, thousands of people can use them and so on. That’s not what we’re talking about. And I think, yeah, I want to, I want to, yeah, I want to, I want to emphasize when, when at, when at the, at, when out of the, the, the very, very best high schools of the United States, The very brightest people come to a place like MIT, most of them having used computers since they were 10 years old.
800 of them can’t pass a simple writing test. That’s something terribly important to consider.
Phil Donahue: Yeah, he’s got you. He’s got you on that now.
Seymour Papert: I’d like to plant an image in your mind. The computer’s like a pencil.
Phil Donahue: You’re anti computer! You’re old fashioned stick in the mud and you never change. And you’re probably thinking,
They laughed at Robert Fulton.
They laughed at aviation. You resist progress. And you’re doing it right now. And your children are going to suffer.
Audience member: No, we don’t resist progress. It’s just the idea. We may resent the fact to think that, we think that our children will be illiterate because they don’t understand the computer.
Phil Donahue: Do you believe
that?
Audience member: No, I don’t. I think it’s a good thing and I think it’s a wave of the future. It is here. We can’t ignore it. But, it’s no more important than learning basic fundamentals, I think that’s more important. We have to learn to read the right creative arts. And
Seymour Papert: we’ll be back in just a moment.
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Audience member: I need to know, what are they going to learn out of a computer that they can’t
learn without it?
First of all, nothing. But I’d like you to think about the pencil. When pencils were invented, there was education before that. And let’s imagine some people said, why should we give the people’s children pencils or paper?
They’ve always learned. The pencil enhances your ability to learn everything. You write with it, you do math with it, you scribble with it, you write love notes with it, you write illegal letters with it, you write everything. I see the computer like that. It’s an expressive medium which enables you to do everything better.
There’s no single thing that you couldn’t do without it, you just do everything better with it.
Joseph Weizenbaum: But let’s not throw pencils away.
Seymour Papert: Who says throw pencils away?
Joseph Weizenbaum: Oh, I’m just saying, let’s not throw pencils away.
Another audience member: Um, I’m
It’s sort of against the computer. Alright, now the child learns everything through the computer.
Now in his lifetime, he’s not going to be around a computer all the time. What happens when he gets in a situation where the computer’s not there for the answer? Where is he going to find it in his brain if he hasn’t been taught to use his mind? The computer
Seymour Papert: These children making the computer do their thing are learning to use their minds in a new and very important way.
Phil Donahue: This is the smartest audience we have ever had in the history of our show.
Audience member: I’d like to know
how many times a day or week these children have the opportunity to work off the computer. Hmm.
Phil Donahue: You would, huh? Well, I’m gonna have to go back here. Let’s, uh, Do you have any idea about what percentage of the day, uh, you are a student of?
Child demonstrating Logo: West New York Middle School. Right.
Phil Donahue: And, uh, she wants to get some sense about how often you have access to a term.
Child demonstrating Logo: Well, we have about two hours each day that we can, but some people don’t. Um, I really wouldn’t know the percentage.
Phil Donahue: Two hours. Two hours. Figured, what was that, that’d be about, that’s 240, if it’s a five hour day, that’s 30 percent, almost.
Teacher: I’d say it’s even better than 30 percent. Uh, they have the opportunity to come in and use the computer facility. Uh, when they have free time and after school on a daily basis.
Phil Donahue: Okay. You are, uh, James Gary. Uh, you’re an educational computer specialist for Southwestern Public Schools of Suburban Chicago.
You teach computer courses for children. We’re, uh, obviously you think the computer’s a good idea. I do. Uh, our whole district is committed to computers. Uh, I think there’s an issue here that hasn’t been brought up and I’d like to bring it up. The fact that we’re using the computer to enhance the teaching of the basic, uh, skills areas.
We’re using the computer to teach writing and reading. We’re also using the computer to expand the, the student’s ability to think. And that, that fits every area. If you can think better, you can work better.
Joseph Weizenbaum: Well, that’s what, you know, this is, I think this is exactly, this is exactly what I’m trying to get at.
Uh, there, there are obviously very, very serious problems with, with, with fundamental teaching in the United States. You know, when, when, uh, when a government report says we’re having a rising tide of mediocrity and all that sort of thing. Okay, kids can’t write, among other things, we know that. Okay, now, along comes somebody and says, You’re using the computer to enhance writing skills, but that’s, that’s using it as a technological fix.
That’s not asking, why can’t kids write? Okay, and when we, and when we ask that question and we push it, one of the things we come across is that education in the United States has a very, very low priority. As opposed to other things. That teachers have very little prestige and get paid less than garbage collectors.
And this isn’t going to help
that.
And that isn’t going to help that.
Audience member: My thought is why not have both? Why sacrifice one for the other? And why not have business and industry help donate computers to the
school? It’s already happening. No question about that. I’m actually
Female panelist: thinking about some of the problems with that.
This middle school, I think, is a model. To have that much, uh, computer equipment and I’m assuming wonderful software available to all of the students and to have required courses is very unusual in this country. Most schools where most children go, there are very few computers, there’s very limited access.
Um, if you are a female student, for example, you’re not as encouraged. And you’re in fact discouraged from using the computer and you find that there’s a certain, um, barrier, a sex based barrier and to some extent a race based barrier based on wealth, based on some old ideas. Here’s the school about which you speak.
Phil Donahue: This is
the model. This is the great role model. Please, please let me get this tape on if I can. Here’s the tape, here’s the, uh, pictures of, uh, this is your, uh, place, is it? Uh, what, uh, what is your computer, uh, student terminal rate?
Teacher: Um, we have about one computer for every, uh, twenty two students.
Phil Donahue: That’s great.
And what was the name, uh, this is a, uh, a public, uh, school. And, uh, how was the decision made, uh, actually one, one per, uh, Twenty two to one is a rather high. Twenty two to one is our ratio. That’s good. What I mean to say is most schools don’t have that, uh, what do I want to say, lower ratio. Correct. I, I, I would have to agree with you.
Teacher: The average, uh, statistics will bear that out. I think what’s important to realize, and we have in our budget, uh, uh, realize that this has not raised our purviewable costs. To have these machines available for the kids has not raised that. What was it, just briefly, how was the equipment acquired? We’ve acquired the equipment over a period of years.
So many, you know, each year that we thought we could afford in that budget. And that’s put us in this position today. We’ve really built over a period of about four or five years. But public monies were used to acquire the equipment. Yes, we’ve tapped into federal monies which are available. We have our parent teacher organization that has purchased computers for us.
We have a lot of contributions.
Phil Donahue: You know, that’s going to be another interesting question. What will be the politics of the acquisition of this equipment? Who decides which company gets the business? How much will the companies charge, since it’s going to be paid for with our tax money? What promotional benefits do the companies get for having their logo in my kid’s school?
That’s the equipment he’s going to insist that I buy when we go to Sears.
Female panelist: Well,
you know that one of the major efforts in what we loosely call corporate philanthropy in this country among computer companies, IBM, Apple, and the rest, is to put their computers in the schools as gifts. I don’t know if your school has received any of these gifts, but In Washington, D.
C., uh, IBM is putting at least one IBM PC into each public school. Now, this does not say anything about how the machinery will be used, what kind of software will be used, how the teachers will be trained, but it’s what they are calling corporate philanthropy, and if it only costs a little bit. 50 to 100 to construct each one, as Seymour says, and it’s not such a bad deal,
commercial: but it is a
Female panelist: major problem.
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Phil Donahue: Doctor, would you kindly give us a brief demo here? Logo is your, uh, creation. And, uh, you want to? Go ahead. Yes. Okay. Well, uh,
Seymour Papert: we’re going to show you something. It isn’t the fanciest computer demonstration you’ve seen, but it is a program that was written by seven year old children.
And
so the seven year old children made what this guy is going to show the computer. You see those things? Okay. Don’t know what to do. Okay, it broke down. Now when the thing breaks down, the most important thing you learn is you dive in and fix it. So edit well and fix it. And this is one of the most important things that you learn when computers are properly dealt with in, in, in school.
That this complicated technology is something you can master. And if it doesn’t work, you don’t say it’s bad, you don’t say I’m stupid, you dive in there and you fix it. And that lesson that you can dive in and fix it is number one. Because once you’ve learned that, if you find you can’t read, you don’t say, I’m bad, I’m stupid, you dive in and you fix it.
And you learn, you learn to read because you believe that you can fix things. And I think this is the attitude that I’ve seen growing up wherever there are these computers. And, and, on this question of numbers of Now, here. Okay, now, you see how he did that? He changed it, he made it work, and he introduced a new element that they change color every time.
Now, you see those things there? Okay, it’s
Audience member: just a
Phil Donahue: Hang on a minute, we got some real live people here. What’s the matter?
Audience member: Uh, this man says he’d love to see a computer on every desk in every school in all the country. Chicago Public Schools can afford to buy textbooks or pencils for their children.
Seymour Papert: Well,
I’m sorry, I think that, I think, I’ll make a prediction.
That within ten years, as parents catch on to the fact, especially the parents of economically deprived children, catch on to the fact that they’re being deprived of something by not having computers, that the demand for education, Creating those funds will be so great, this will become a major political issue, and the money will happen.
Audience member: I have a five year old, and um, I would like to buy him a computer, but as I see more and more of them come into the market, I wonder, should I buy it now, or should I wait, because it may be obsolete tomorrow.
Phil Donahue: Not only that, don’t these people buy computers? Show them the ColecoSpot, can we do that? If you joined us late, I’ll tell you this.
They’re playing your guilt out there. Here’s just one campaign to encourage you to buy a computer for your child. A campaign which suggests that if you don’t have one, you’re not seeing a good parent.
commercial: Oh, well, Tommy’s having trouble with his schoolwork. Have you thought about a home computer?
I wouldn’t even know how to buy one.
Well, there’s all that other stuff you need to buy, and that stuff costs money.
It all seems so confusing. That’s why we got an Atom. Atom is the only affordable home computer that comes complete with high speed drive, built in word processing, even a typewriter quality printer. I was afraid to buy a home computer, but I was more
afraid not to.
Phil Donahue: Uh, listen, don’t miss our point here. This is not a commentary on that particular piece of equipment, which I’m sure is a very, you know, in fact, it’s got very good reviews from the technical community. The issue is how we’re selling them. One more thing. How many people bought the computer and it’s, you know, first three days, all the kids used it, and then it’s set aside and they never look at the thing?
Seymour Papert: How many?
Phil Donahue: I think a large percentage, doctor, and I can’t prove it. I’m saying that’s my feeling. I’d like to tell you, will touch that again.
Seymour Papert: We are doing research on how to remake the computer, not the way it is, but to make the computer be different so that people will use it, and that’s what we’re doing.
Audience member: I would like to know, it hasn’t been brought up at all about the children’s eyes. Has any research been done about Well, you know, there is some There is some research about
Female panelist: But there is some research about those video display terminals. It’s primarily on women working in offices. The tiny bit of radiation is dangerous.
And I don’t think that that has been transferred to the computer screen. But remember when color TV came out, we were We’re all scared about that, too. I think it’s very minimal, but there needs to be some, some more research on it.
Audience member: I would agree with the doctor’s contention about half an hour ago, schools being a minimum security prison.
Getting, people having the interest, students getting the interest in learning, this is the most important thing. And, other thing too, I got a calculator 15 years ago, big thing, couple hundred dollars, and now about a year ago I got one for 5. 98, it does the same type of thing. So, rates are going to be going down, and I think it’s equal education, you should have computers everywhere.
Phil Donahue: And we’ll be back in just a moment.