The Seeds That Seymour Sowed
(I wrote this essay as the Foreword to the new edition of Seymour Papert’s classic book Mindstorms.)
In re-reading Mindstorms today, 40 years after its publication, I had two conflicting reactions.
On one hand, so many of Seymour’s ideas that were seen as radical in 1980 are now part of the education mainstream.
On the other hand, so many of Seymour’s dreams remain unrealized and unfulfilled.
How is it that Seymour’s ideas can be so aligned with today’s realities but still so disconnected from them?
To make sense of this seeming contradiction, it’s helpful to transport yourself back to 1980, when Mindstorms was published. The first personal computers had been developed just a few years earlier. No one had mobile phones or tablets or even laptops. The Web didn’t exist, and few people had heard of the Internet. So it was truly radical to predict, as Seymour did then, that millions and millions of children around the world would soon be interacting with digital technologies every day, as they do now.
Even more radical were the ways in which Seymour imagined children using computers. In the small community of researchers who in 1980 were beginning to think about the use of computers in K-12 education, most focused on “computer-aided instruction,” in which computers played the role of a traditional teacher: delivering information and instruction to students, conducting quizzes to measure what the students had learned, then adapting subsequent instruction based on student responses.
In Mindstorms, Seymour offered a radically different vision. For Seymour, computers were not a replacement for the teacher but a new medium that children could use for making things and expressing themselves. In one of many memorable turns-of-phrase in Mindstorms, Seymour rejected the computer-aided instruction approach in which “the computer is being used to program the child” and argued for an alternative approach in which “the child programs the computer.”
Seymour’s ideas about educational technologies have had a growing influence in the decades since the publication of Mindstorms. Schools everywhere are now adding makerspaces and coding classes, offering students opportunities that few could have imagined in 1980. Seymour’s work should be seen as the intellectual inspiration for the Maker Movement and the Coding Movement.
Yet if Seymour were alive today, I have no doubt that he would be very frustrated with the ways that making and coding are being introduced in schools. Seymour would view most of the current initiatives as “technocentric” (a term that Seymour popularized). That is, the initiatives focus too much on helping children develop technical skills: how to use a 3-D printer, how to define an algorithm, how to write efficient computer code.
For Seymour, technical skills were never the goal. In the Introduction to Mindstorms, he wrote: “my central focus is not on the machine but on the mind.” Seymour was certainly interested in machines and new technologies, but only insofar as they could support learning or lead to new insights about learning.
A significant portion of Mindstorms focuses on Logo, the first programming language designed specifically for children. But at the core of Mindstorms are Seymour’s ideas about education and learning, not technical issues. In the book, he lays the intellectual foundation for an educational theory that he later named “constructionism.” The theory builds on the work of Jean Piaget, the great child-development pioneer, who Seymour had collaborated with in the early 1960’s. Piaget’s great insight was that knowledge is not delivered from teacher to learner; rather, children are constantly constructing knowledge through their everyday interactions with people and objects around them. Seymour’s constructionism theory adds a second type of construction, arguing that children construct knowledge most effectively when they are actively engaged in constructing things in the world. As children construct things in the world, they construct new ideas and theories in their minds, which motivates them to construct new things in the world, and on and on.
Seymour saw rich learning opportunities in all different types of “construction” activities: building sand castles on the beach, writing stories in a diary, drawing pictures in a sketchbook. Why was Seymour so interested in computational technologies? Because he recognized that computational technologies can greatly expand the range of what and how children create. With computers, children can create things that move, interact, and change over time, such as animations, simulations, and interactive games. In the process, children can gain new insights into the workings of dynamic systems in the world around them — including the workings of their own minds. In addition, computers enable children to modify, duplicate, document, and share their creations in ways they never could before, providing new ways for them to explore and understand the creative process.
It continually frustrated Seymour that people seemed to hear only part of his message, often focusing on the technology at the expense of the ideas. In an article that Seymour wrote 20 years after the publication of Mindstorms, he lamented that the three parts of the book’s subtitle — Children, Computers, and Powerful Ideas — had not been equally appreciated: “Most of the many educators who found inspiration and affirmation in the book (as well as those who hated it) discussed it as if it were about children and computers, as if the third term was there as a sound bite, the kind of shibboleth that pervades the discourse of technology in education. I did not mean it to be that: I actually thought I was writing a book about ideas!”
Of course, proponents of today’s learn-to-code initiatives would argue that they too are interested in ideas, not just technical skills. Many of them frame their work around the idea of “computational thinking” — aiming to introduce children to problem-solving strategies that come from the field of computer science but are applicable across many other domains. Learning problem-solving strategies is certainly valuable. But Seymour had a bigger, broader vision. He wanted to support children not only in developing their thinking but also in developing their voice.
Seymour saw the computer not just as a problem-solving tool but as an expressive medium. He believed that learning to program was analogous to learning to write, providing children with new ways of organizing and expressing their ideas. Seymour wanted to help all children, from all backgrounds, have opportunities to express and share their ideas, so that they could be full and active participants in society.
And what would Seymour think about today’s widespread excitement about introducing artificial intelligence (AI) in K-12 education? In chapter 7 of Mindstorms, Seymour described how AI research was an important source of inspiration for his work in education and learning. Again, Seymour’s writings in 1980 seem prescient. But, again, I believe that Seymour would be very frustrated with the approach of today’s AI-in-education efforts. Seymour was interested in applying ideas from AI to engage children in thinking about their own thinking — and learning about their own learning. Most of today’s AI-in-education initiatives have a very different set of goals, focusing on the use of machine intelligence, rather than the understanding of human intelligence.
So what has limited the spread of Seymour’s ideas? Why haven’t his ideas had an even bigger influence? One challenge is the general resistance to change in educational systems. But there are also challenges in the ways that Seymour’s ideas have been communicated, supported, and interpreted. For instance, Seymour often used examples from mathematics and computer science, leading some people to interpret his ideas too narrowly, even though Seymour intended his ideas to apply across all disciplines. And Seymour often highlighted examples of what children can create and learn on their own, leading some people to try to implement his ideas without paying enough attention to the role of teachers, parents, and peers in the learning process.
When I think about the spread of Seymour’s ideas, I like to think of Seymour planting ideas much as a farmer plants seeds. Some were mathematical ideas, some were pedagogical ideas, some were technological ideas, some were epistemological ideas. Some of Seymour’s ideas spread like wildflowers around the world. Some took root in a few places, but not in others. Some of his seeds still lie dormant in the ground.
I’m part of a community of researchers and educators who continue to believe deeply in Seymour’s ideas and vision. We’re dedicated to nurturing the seeds that Seymour sowed, and trying to provide the right conditions for them to grow. I worked closely with Seymour for many years, first as an MIT graduate student and then as a faculty colleague. My research today continues to be deeply influenced by Seymour’s ideas, and I continue to explore ways to support his ideas in different learning contexts. As a framework for my work, I developed a set of four guiding principles that are all inspired by Seymour’s ideas:
Projects. Seymour provocatively argued for “projects over problems.” Of course, Seymour understood the importance of problem solving. But he believed that people learn to solve problems (and learn new concepts and strategies) most effectively while they are actively engaged in meaningful projects. Too often, schools start by teaching concepts to students, and only then give students a chance to work on projects. Seymour argued that it is best for children to learn new ideas through working on projects, not before working on projects.
Passion. In the Preface to Mindstorms, Seymour described how his childhood fascination with gears provided him a way to explore important mathematical concepts. For me, the most important and memorable line in the Preface is when Seymour wrote: “I fell in love with the gears.” Seymour understood the importance of learners building on their interests and passions. He knew that people will work longer and harder, and make deeper connections to ideas, when they’re working on projects that they’re passionate about. Seymour once said: “Education has very little to do with explanation, it has to do with engagement, with falling in love with the material.”
Peers. In the final chapter of Mindstorms, titled “Images of the Learning Society,” Seymour wrote about the Brazilian samba schools, where people come together to create music and dance routines for the annual carnival festival. What intrigued Seymour most was the way that samba schools bring together people of all different ages and all different levels of experience. Children and adults, novices and experts, all working together, learning with and from one another. For Seymour, this type of peer-based learning was at the core of a Learning Society. Seymour, like Piaget before him, is sometimes criticized for focusing too much on the individual learner. But his writings on samba schools shows another side of Seymour. The technologies of the Mindstorms era weren’t quite ready for the type of peer-based online collaboration that we see today, but Seymour recognized the importance of the social dimension of learning.
Play. Often, people associate play with laughter and fun. But for Seymour, play meant more than that. It involved experimenting, taking risks, testing the boundaries, and iteratively adapting when things go wrong. Seymour sometimes referred to this process as “hard fun.” He recognized that children don’t want things to be easy: they’re willing to work very hard on things that they find meaningful. And Seymour didn’t just encourage play and hard fun for others; he lived it himself. He was always playing with ideas, wrestling with ideas, experimenting with ideas. I never met anyone who was, at once, so playful and so serious about ideas.
Seymour was not just a mathematician, educator, philosopher, and computer scientist. He was also an activist. From his teenage years in the 1940’s, when he battled apartheid in his native South Africa, Seymour was always looking to bring about change. When he initiated new educational projects, he often exclaimed “Now is the time!” He was a person of big ideas who wanted big changes. In Mindstorms and other writings, he advocated for revolutionary changes in the ways we think about children, learning, and education. In the 40 years since Mindstorms, the changes have been more evolutionary than revolutionary. Many of Seymour’s dreams have been unfulfilled.
But I believe that the environment is becoming more fertile for many of the seeds that Seymour sowed. There is a growing recognition that educational systems are not meeting the needs of today’s fast-changing society. More educational reformers are advocating changes that are aligned with Seymour’s ideas, providing children with more opportunities to explore, experiment, and express themselves, so that they can develop as creative thinkers. The changes are evolutionary, not revolutionary, but the long-term trends are heading in the direction of Seymour’s vision.
As you read Mindstorms, don’t get distracted by the details of the 1980-era technologies that are described in the book. Rather, think about the ways that Seymour’s ideas can be integrated into today’s discussions about educational strategies and policies. And think about what you might do to nurture the seeds that Seymour sowed.
