LOGO-L> Papert at the 92nd St. Y

[bbruckla@mnsfld.edu (Barry Brucklacher)]

I've read Mindstorms, The Children's Machine, and The Connected Family and
am being pulled, at times unevenly, toward Seymour Papert's thinking about
School. However, in a college class this week I watched a video tape of
Papert speaking last October at the 92nd Street Y (the conference was titled
"Children and Learning in the Computer Age"); I was confused by some
inconsistencies between what he's written and his actions during this
presentation. Did anyone in logo-l see the presentation (or the video tape)?
If so, maybe you could react to these two instances in the early part of the
presentation:

1. Papert's first comments were something like these: "What I'd like to talk
to you about gives me certain problems. One is that I want to say that it's
an absurd way to disseminate knowledge, to have a person like a teacher
stand up in front of a bunch of people, who sit there and listen. what I'd
much rather be doing is creating a learning experience for all of you that
would let you experience a different kind of learning--a different feel for
a learning experience. Can't do it, so I have to stand up here and talk."

Most of the K-12 teachers in our class snorted at this. Despite Papert's
protestations, and with concern about overuse of any single method of
teaching and learning, most of us thought that his lecture was a fine and
appropriate way for Papert to help the people in this group to learn about
children and computers. 

2. The presider introduced Papert this way: "There are few people like Dr.
Papert, knowledgeable about computer technology, how people learn, how
children grow, and family life. He has also retained his capacity to play,
to explore, to discover, and to enjoy."

A few minutes later, when Papert is unable to operate the computer, I was
startled by how quickly he gave up when he had a minor problem with the
computer that had with his Connected Family Web page. Almost immediately he
said, "Well, typical . . . let's turn it off again." After a woman came out
and fixed the problem, Papert again had trouble (he didn't seem to
understand how to scroll in one of the page's frames). Like before, he gave
up immediately: "I'm sorry . . . can I get it? . . . I think we'll have to
abandon these live demonstrations." The woman comes back, but Papert won't
use the machine: "Ha . . . let's turn this off . . . let's turn this off,
and pretend. I think we can imagine what . . . what . . . what we would see."

Is this someone with the capacity to play and to explore, someone fluent
with technology (he also got wrapped up in his microphone cord, and a few
minutes later knocked it off and spoke for a while without
amplification)--instead he seemed to be quite intimidated by all the
technology around him.

I admire Papert's writings. Was this really him at the 92nd Street Y?

B. Brucklacher


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Barry Brucklacher, Ph.D.    Retan Center 202C
Associate Professor           Mansfield University
Education Department        Mansfield, PA  16933
Phone: 717-662-4573          Fax: 717-662-4364
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