“Most of what goes under the name “edutainment” reminds me of George Bernard Shaw’s response to a famous beauty who speculated on the marvelous child they could have together: “With your brains and my looks…” He retorted, “But what if the child had my looks and your brains?”” Papert, S. (1998) Does Easy Do It? […]
“Children seem to be such remarkable learners on their own, but then they enter school. Some succeed in school, and it is impressive that they learn as successfully as they do. But many if not most children somehow do not seem to learn very well in school. Why is it that these people who learn
“Demoting reading from its privileged position in the school curriculum is only one of many consequences of Knowledge Machines. A child who has grown up with the freedom to explore provided by such machines will not sit quietly through the standard curriculum dished out in most schools today. Already, children are made increasingly restive by
“Building and playing with castles of sand, families of dolls, houses of Lego, and collections of cards provide images of activities which are well rooted in contemporary cultures and which plausibly enter into learning processes that go beyond specific narrow skills. I do not believe that anyone fully understands what gives these activities their quality
Last week, The Daily Papert published texts and speeches by Seymour Papert that never been publicly available. One of the entries is a transcript of Papert’s last public speech. Other “rare discoveries” will be shared in the future as time and finances allow. If you have such media, please share it via The Daily Papert.
Rare Discoveries Week 1 Recap Read More »
“I shall describe learning paths that have led hundreds of children to becoming quite sophisticated programmers. Once programming is seen in the proper perspective, there is nothing very surprising about the fact that this should happen. Programming a computer means nothing more or less than communicating to it in a language that it and the
“So I think the number one task has to be to really create spearheads, nuclei of change where we can really demonstrate that something really different can be done – something not improvement, but radically different.” Papert, S. (2000) Keynote Address at CUE Conference. Palm Springs, CA. In May 2000, Seymour Papert delivered a barn-burner
May 10, 2012 (Rare Discoveries Week) Read More »
“…for example, Larry Cuban, the hypercritic, the king of the criticism of computers – recently, and again, in an interview with the New York Times says, ~”Well, we didn’t ask for the kids to have these computers! But you’re fundamentally mistaken if you think it will change education.”~ Why? Well, he goes on to say
May 9, 2012 (Rare Discoveries Week) Read More »
“So there are other ways, through this computer system that have opened up, that enable somebody to get knowledge when you need it. Now this leads to, not only to a radically different idea of what kind of knowledge it is, because there’s nothing numerical and nothing about fractions in the description of the parabola
May 8, 2012 (Rare Discoveries Week) Read More »
“Discussing laptops with local teachers reminded of my encounter in Thailand with Mr. Condom. His real name is Meechai, but he proudly accepts the nickname given in honor of his work teaching villagers in remote areas to use condoms. Statistics show that he has contributed significantly to keeping birth rate and sexually transmitted diseases under