Seymour Papert dies at age 88, leaving lasting legacy in education
Source: Faith DeAmbrose
Renowned educator, scholar, author, theorist and mathematician Seymour Papert died in Blue Hill on July 31 of complications stemming from bladder and kidney infections. He was 88 years old.
A longtime resident of Deer Isle and of East Blue Hill, Papert was “a man that actually changed the world,” said his wife of 24 years, Suzanne Massie, on August 3. “Not many people get to change the world.”
Papert is credited with numerous advancements in artificial intelligence, educational technologies and child development. He penned a book with Marvin Minsky in 1969 called Perceptrons, which is widely considered to be a seminal work in the study of artificial intelligence.
In 2001, Newsweek named him “one of the nation’s 10 top innovators in education.”
Papert was struck by a motorcycle in 2006 while attending a conference in Vietnam. He suffered a traumatic brain injury, which left him unable to speak and forced him to relearn basic functionalities. Over the last decade, friend and fellow AI scholar Rick Greenblatt used some of Papert’s theories to aid his ongoing cognitive rehabilitation, showing the strength of those theories. For years, said Massie, Greenblatt would Skype with Papert and progress was made.
He was also assisted by caregivers Vicki Dulong and Mikk Wardwell for almost a decade.
Papert leaves behind a lasting legacy, including being the namesake of Papert’s Principle, which states: “Some of the most crucial steps in mental growth are based not simply on acquiring new skills, but on acquiring new administrative ways to use what one already knows.”
A man that spent much of his time teaching, Papert could often be found visiting local schools, working with troubled children, as well as sharing his knowledge as a visiting professor at the University of Maine in Orono. Before the accident, Massie said, he would teach. After the accident he would attend classes to watch. He had a strong connection to UMaine professor George Markowsky, she added.
Personally, Papert loved learning, as well as reading poetry, cooking and reciting Shakespearean sonnets. “He was an amazing person with tremendous curiosity” said Massie. “We had many happy years together and traveled all over the world. And when the accident occurred, Seymour was in the middle of other projects” including the writing of another book about mathematics. He said to her of the book: “We are foolish to try to force children to learn mathematics; we must give them mathematics that they can love.”
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