We should think about what we mean by literacy. If you say, "He's a very literate person," what you really mean is that he knows a lot, thinks a lot, has a certain frame of mind that comes through reading and knowing about various subjects.The major route open to literacy has been through reading and writing text. But we're seeing new media offer richer ways to explore knowledge and communicate, through sound and pictures.
Seymour PapertNothing enrages me more than when people criticize my criticism of school by telling me that schools are not just places to learn maths and spelling, they are places where children learn a vaguely defined thing called socialization...I think schools generally do an effective and terribly damaging job of teaching children to be infantile, dependent, intellectually dishonest, passive and disrespectful to their own developmental capacities.
Seymour PapertWe imagine a school in which students and teachers excitedly and joyfully stretch themselves to their limits in pursuit of projects built on their own visions … not one that that merely succeeds in making apathetic students satisfy minimal standards.
Seymour PapertWe should think about what we mean by literacy. If you say, "He's a very literate person," what you really mean is that he knows a lot, thinks a lot, has a certain frame of mind that comes through reading and knowing about various subjects.The major route open to literacy has been through reading and writing text. But we're seeing new media offer richer ways to explore knowledge and communicate, through sound and pictures.
Seymour PapertOften 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.
Seymour PapertI think Disney is a very interesting company, and it does have an extremely powerful means for projecting a certain way of thinking.
Seymour PapertEducators who have said, "We don't like that, so we'll continue to teach as if it's not happening," are just aggravating the gap between what happens in schools and what happens in the real world. Because of their personalities, or for cultural reasons, some kids might better express themselves through moving images and sound.
Seymour Papert