Top Seymour Papert Quotes - Quotesmemo.com

Seymour Papert Biography

Seymour Aubrey Papert (/ˈpæpərt/; February 29, 1928 – July 31, 2016) was a South African-born American mathematician, computer scientist, and educator, who spent most of his career teaching and researching at MIT. He was one of the pioneers of artificial intelligence, and of the constructionist movement in education. He was co-inventor, with Wally Feurzeig and Cynthia Solomon, of the Logo programming language.

Read about Seymour Papert in Wikipedia

Random Authors

Seymour Papert Quotes

You can't think seriously about thinking without thinking about thinking about something.

Seriously, Think, Thinking

It's not what you know about the computer that's important, but your ability to do things with it. By studying French in an academic setting, you get to know a lot about it, but typically, you can't express yourself well or have an interesting conversation with it.

Computer, Important, Interesting Conversation, Study, Studying, Things

I think Disney is a very interesting company, and it does have an extremely powerful means for projecting a certain way of thinking.

Interesting, Mean, Powerful, Projecting, Thinking

I am convinced that the best learning takes place when the learner takes charge.

Charge, Convinced, Learner, Learners, Place

Rather than pushing children to think like adults, we might do better to remember that they are great learners and to try harder to be more like them.

Children, Harder, Pushing, Thinking, Trying

Often kids in a computer lab learn about word-processing, but if they want to write an essay, they write it by hand. This is exactly the opposite of what you want them to learn. They're approaching the computer as just another abstract school subject.

Approaching, Computer, Essay, Kids, School, Writing

A programming language is like a natural, human language in that it favors certain methaphors, images, and ways of thinking.

Favors, Images, Learning, Like, Methaphors, Thinking

The goal is to teach in such a way as to produce the most learning from the least teaching.

Goal, Teach, Teaching, Way

I do think that we'd do better if we just offered all the bureaucrats in the Department of Education very attractive early retirements. But whether you want to abolish the department is another matter. Maybe there's room for recruiting a lot of visionary people who would do very good things: develop new techniques, new ideas, foster innovative models, disseminate those ideas.

Ideas, Models, Retirement, Retirements, Things, Thinking

Until very recently, most knowledge was inaccessible to people who couldn't read text. But this is changing. The computer opens up other channels of gaining knowledge. If someone is blind, we now have very good machines that will read to him. If someone can't recognize letters, he also will have access to knowledge through sound and images.

Access, Images, Machines, People, Sound

The scandal of education is that every time you teach something, you deprive a [student] of the pleasure and benefit of discovery.

Benefit, Benefits, Discovery, Student, Teaching

The first thing to note is that pornography and many abductions occur apart from the use of computers, and that most child abuse happens within the family. So I think the extra degree of danger that computers pose doesn't justify the frenzy.

Abuse, Children, Frenzy, Note, Thinking

Undoubtedly, there are kids with intellectual deficiencies or neurological problems. But a lot of kids shunted into special education classes are deficient only in a willingness to conform to the school pattern. They are just honest, brave kids who say, "I just won't take that, and I don't believe in what you're doing. " If you give them an alternative to the usual classroom, they break free of a lot of inhibitions and bad associations, and they begin to learn.

Begin, Believe, Free, Kids, Say, School

Working with the computer gives rise to many opportunities to transcend asocial behavior, because it produces exciting and visually interesting things to share, whether it's by creating video games, computer art or sharing exciting Web sites.

Art, Games, Interesting, Opportunity, Web

Similarly, computer literacy courses tend to produce computer people who know a lot about computers or a piece of software but they don't help people become fluent with the machine.

Computer Literacy, Computers, Courses, Machines, People, Produce

Our goal in education should be to foster the ability to use the computer in everything you do, even if you don't have a specific piece of software for the job.

Computer, Everything, Goal, Jobs, Software, Use

What the gears cannot do the computer might. The computer is the Proteus of machines. Its essence is its universality, its power to simulate

Essence, Gears, Machines, Proteus, Simulate

You can't teach people everything they need to know. The best you can do is position them where they can find what they need to know when they need to know it.

Education, Know, Knowledge, People, Position, Teacher

For what is important when we give children a theorem to use is not that they should memorize it. What matters most is that by growing up with a few very powerful theorems one comes to appreciate how certain ideas can be used as tools to think with over a lifetime. One learns to enjoy and to respect the power of powerful ideas. One learns that the most powerful idea of all is the idea of powerful ideas.

Appreciate, Children, Growing Up, Ideas, Powerful, Theorems

The role of the teacher is to create the conditions for invention rather than provide ready-made knowledge.

Create, Education, Role, School, Teacher

1