Tribute to Uncle Seymour

Apologies to those who have already heard my thoughts on Seymour Papert in presentations and speeches I have made at various conferences over the last few years because I am repeating them here.

This morning I took a couple of 'roamers' along to the junior school discovery time. Surprise, surprise within 10 minutes the 5 and 6 year olds were into the 10 and 11 years olds' geometry headspace. "Can you make this go forward? I wonder how long this room is? if 90 degrees makes him turn left will 180 degrees make him turn right around?"

I spent a lot of time with Ethan who was very determined to programme the roamer to head away from him, turn 180 degrees and come back. It took him six minutes of trial and error. Six minutes of solid thinking, the sort of arduous thinking that builds the human brain.

The logo legacy left by Seymour Papert remains unrivalled as a tool for letting children operate at mental levels well beyond their developmental range in a way not possible without this technological assistance.

Lots of jargon in this posting but the links should help clarify, best way to understand what I am trying to describe is to pop on into school any Friday morning between 9 and 10:30 am. Our little logo programmers will be happy to show you their roamer mastery.

Thank you for these gifts to the children of the world Seymour and all the best for your recovery.