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December 7, 2006
Prayers for Seymour Papert
I've just heard the terrible news that educator and artificial intelligence pioneer Seymour Papert has been gravely injured in a motorbike accident. He was attending a conference in Hanoi when he was hit by the motorbike.
I received an email forwarded from a colleague in Hanoi:
i am in still in vietnam at the ICMI conference. i have to just tell people the news, at least those i think will be interested. On tuesday afternoon, Seymour Papert got run over. He hit his head, and has had to undergo emergency neurosurgery. We are deluged here with well-wishers, and people flying in, so forgive me if this is very terse. His chances of a full recovery are not good but they are not zero. Everyone here is doing what they can - the local people here are just marvellous. Everything that can be done is being done.
Seymour is one of the founding fathers of education technology. A protege of Jean Piaget, he was one of the first proponents of constructionist learning, the notion that students learn best through the act of creating things. My first website, EdWeb, was heavily influenced by Seymour, as I talked about the role of the Web in education. This was 1994, when almost no schools had Web access, but Seymour's work made perfect sense to me, envisioning a world where students would have the tools and skills to become publishers of knowledge as part of their learning experience.
Seymour's list of accomplishments is staggering. He was the co-developer of the LOGO programming language, and was one of the leading players behind MIT's Media Lab, its artificial intelligence lab and the $100 laptop. He also was a driving force behind Maine's pioneering laptop initiative, which distributed free laptops to every middle school student in the state. Earlier this summer, I heard former Maine governor Angus King recount the meeting with Seymour that caused the idea to click into place:
I said to him we have five kids for every computer. What if we could have three kids per computer? Seymour shook his head. What about two kids per computer? "Wouldn't matter," Seymour said. Then he said, "It is only when it is one to one that the power occurs."
I've met Seymour on several occasions, but I cannot say that I know him personally. But my experiences with him are seared into my consciousness. I remember when my friend Patsy helped organize an education technology conference about 10 years ago, and Seymour was invited to be the keynote speaker. When the session was done, he had the opportunity to wander the conference and see other presenters. Instead, he wanted to go to the playroom where a group of kids were playing with toys, both high-tech and low-tech. In a matter of moments, Seymour dropped to the floor and got on his hands and needs. He then passed his time by playing with the toys while masterfully getting the kids to talk about what play means to them. I sat down against the wall, legs crossed, and watched him work his magic. I learned more about education from observing him construct legos buildings with these kids than any book I've ever read on epistemology.
My thoughts and prayers are with Seymour and his family. The world can't afford to lose him. -andy
photo credit: Seymour Papert, as seen earlier this year at a telecentre in Uruguay. Photograph courtesy of Telecentre.org, used in accordance with their Creative Commons license.
Posted by acarvin at December 7, 2006 5:20 PM
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