Seymour Papert (1928–2016) Father of Educational Computing

COMMENT OBITUARY Seymour Papert (1928–2016) Father of educational computing.

n the mid-1960s, when few people had the mathematics that he saw children spon- even seen a computer, Seymour Papert taneously engaged in at Papert’s Logo lab at was making it possible for children to MIT that on his flight home, he sketched the Iuse and program them. He spent his career Dynabook, the prototype for what became inventing the tools, toys, software and the personal computer. In 1989, Australian projects that popularized the view of com- schools seeking to realize Papert’s ideas began BILL PIECE/LIFE/GETTY puters as incubators of knowledge. providing a laptop to every student. In 2000, Papert wrote three seminal books on Maine governor Angus King proposed pro- using the computer to supercharge learning, viding a laptop for every 7th and 8th grader aimed at academics, teachers and parents — (typically 12–14-year-olds). Papert spent two Mindstorms: Computers, Children, and Pow- years making the case across the state, causing erful Ideas (1980), The Children’s Machine: popular opinion to override legislative resist- Rethinking School in the Age of the Computer ance. The programme remains in place today. (1993) and The Connected Family: Bridg- Papert was also an inspiration behind the One ing the Digital Generation Gap (1996). Few Laptop per Child initiative that has reached academics of Papert’s stature have spent as millions of children in the developing world. much time as he did working in real schools. A 1971 paper co-authored by Papert, He delighted in the theories, ingenuity and ‘Twenty Things to Do with a Computer’ (see playfulness of children. Tinkering or pro- go.nature.com/2buuwe), marks the birth of gramming with them was the cause of many shareable — a poem, program, model or idea. the modern ‘maker movement’. It describes missed meetings. In 1963, artificial-intelligence (AI) pioneer a world in which children would create by Papert, who died on 31 July, was born on Marvin Minsky invited Papert to join him at programming inventions and experiments leap day 1928 in Pretoria, South Africa. His the Massachusetts Institute of Technology outside of a PC. In the mid-1980s, Papert father was an entomologist. Before he was (MIT) in Cambridge. Papert was soon pro- and his colleagues made that world a real- two, he became enamoured by automotive moted to co-direct Minsky’s Artificial Intel- ity with the first programmable robotics gears that were lying around his home, which ligence Laboratory. The pair co-authored the system for children, LEGO TC Logo. The became the basis for early maths and science 1969 book Perceptrons; their mathematical name of LEGO’s current line of robotics sets experiences. As an educator, he sought to help analyses of how neuron-like networks com- — Mindstorms — is a hat-tip to Papert. In each learner to find his or her ‘gears’: objects prised of individual agents could model the 1989, LEGO endowed a permanent chair at or experiences they could mess about with, brain had a great impact on AI research. the MIT Media Lab in his name. intuiting powerful ideas along the way. Papert In 1985, Papert became a founding faculty Although critical of institutional schooling, believed that what gears could not do for all, member of the MIT Media Laboratory, Papert’s research took place in schools, often the computer, the Proteus of machines, might. where he led research groups on epistemol- with under-served populations of students. Papert was repelled by apartheid. He ran ogy and learning and the future of learning. In 1986, he was invited to help Costa Rica afoul of the authorities by organizing classes Thinking about thinking and the freedom reinvent its educational system, and from for local black servants while in school. His to achieve one’s potential were the leitmotifs 1999 to 2002, Papert led an alternative, high- anti-apartheid activities as a young adult of his life. He wanted to create “a mathematics tech, project-based learning environment branded him a dissident and prohibited children can love rather than inventing tricks inside a prison for teenagers. him from travelling outside South Africa. to teach them a mathematics they hate”. Papert dared educators to grow, invent He earned a bachelor’s degree in philosophy In the late 1960s, Papert was among the and lead in a system prone to compliance (1949) and a PhD (1952) in mathematics creators of Logo, the first programming lan- and standardization. He argued that educa- at the University of the Witwatersrand in guage for children. One element that made tion is a natural process that blossoms in the Johannesburg. Logo accessible was the turtle, which acted absence of coercion. Without a passport, in 1954 he made his as the programmer’s avatar. As mathematical In Papert’s eyes, the computer was an way to the University of Cambridge, UK, instructions were given to the turtle to move object to think with. He built a bridge where he earned a second doctorate, in 1959, about in space, the creature dragged a pen between progressive educational tradi- for work on the lattices of logic and topology. to draw a trail. Such drawings created turtle tions and the Internet age to maintain the From 1959 to 1963, Papert worked at the Uni- geometry, a context in which linear measure- viability of schooling, and to ensure the versity of Geneva with the Swiss philosopher ment, arithmetic, integers, angle measure, democratization of powerful ideas. ■ and psychologist Jean Piaget. Their collabo- motion and foundational concepts from alge- ration led to great insights into how children bra, geometry and even calculus were made Gary S. Stager is the co-author of Invent learn to think mathematically. Papert built concrete and understandable. Mathematics To Learn — Making, Tinkering, and on Piaget’s theory of constructivism with a became playful, personal, expressive, relevant Engineering in the Classroom, and learning theory of his own: construction- and purposeful. curator of the online Papert archive, ism. It proposed that the best way to ensure In 1968, Alan Kay, now known as the dailypapert.com. He worked with Seymour that knowledge is built in the learner is designer of what became the Macintosh Papert from 1986 to 2006. through the active construction of something graphical user interface, was so impressed by e-mail: [email protected]