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La distinction toujours! A response to Papert
LA DISTINCTION
TOUJOURS!
A RESPONSE
TO PAPERT
J. J. VONI?CHE Departement Barbara
de Psychologie,
White’s
interview
UniversitC de Geneve, CH 12 11 GenPve 4, Switrerland of Seymour
Aubrey
Papert
gives us another
instance
of the current confusion about computers. I would like to point out a few of the confusions in this interview, the identification of which leads to the formulation of certain
basic theses
concerning
COMPUTER This
interview
comes
computers.
SCIENCE
at a moment
AND
MARKETING
when different
companies
business have just launched a worldwide offensive especially the public of learning institutions. They well-worn
trick of cigarette
merchants.
The
difference
in the computer
on potential consumers, have done so using the is that where
free sample of cigarettes, you get here a 40% discount on your comparatively rather stingy! Thesis 1: The aim of research is not the promotion of business COMPUTERS This interview of a new school mankind,
AND
you got a
PC, which
is
operations.
LEARNING
is a landmark in the history of education: it marks the invention disease - computer assisted illiteracy. Since the beginning of
most probably,
the future
has been said to belong
successively
to early
risers, thrifty people, people with good spelling, with an encyclopedia, knowing Latin and/or Creek, foreign languages, mathematics, etc. No wonder that a mathematician now claims that the future belongs to those who can program in
L20go. Thesis 2: Computers spelling has.
have
nothing
COMPUTERS
more
AND
to do with
learning
than
good
CREATIVITY
Papert says that, with his computer system, unlike the other brands (Logo washes whiter), children program their computers with the consequence that, by so doing, they reach electronically the most advanced levels of thinking in the most creative way. Unfortunately for Papert, kids from Texas, Scotland, Senegal or Argentina draw the same square-like flowers. This is not a universal of thinking, as any decent salesman for the computer lobby would induce you to believe, but merely the result of the tremendous limitations of the machine. Logo is like the Kama-Sutra: there are so many positions, and no more.
Commentary interview
on B. Y. White
with Seymour
Papert,
(1985) Vol.
Thinking
about learning
3, No. 3, pp. 287-292. 315
about thinking:
An
J. J. Vonkhe
316
Thesis 3: Computers limit the creativity programs. Hence, they program children COMPUTERS
AND
of children to the limits of their and not the reverse.
own
PROBLEM-SOLVING
The interview with Papert promotes the idea that children who live on computer diets are better at problem-solving than others. Once again, we have here another example of the pedagogical panacea. When I was a child, educators had brainwashed parents into believing that Latin and Greek were more formative than any other subject matter. Later on, Latin and Greek ceased to be the best preparation for preppies. Math became the sign of excellence: set theory and all that jazz would bring you French-speaking part of Switzerland, confess), Goethe’s
to distinction. When I moved I discovered (to my amazement
that German was the selector mother tongue was the evidence
intelligence,
and the Open
Sesame
to the I must
of the elite. A correct command of a discriminating mind, the proof
to a better
living.
Now, to be bright,
a child
must speak computer language. Thesis 4: Computerese is the Lingua fYanca of the elite without even slightest evidence in its favour and in spite of a bit of evidence against it. COMPUTERS Poor old Piaget!
How many crimes
AND
of of
the
PIAGET
have been
perpetrated
in thy name
in the
educational field? This interview uses Piaget’s name as a warrant. Of Piaget’s theory nothing remains. Papert reproduces, fifteen or so years later, Bruner’s operation: any time
Piaget did not understand that anything can be taught to anyone at by anyone equipped wibh the necessary tool, Bruner’s psychological
acumen, or Papert’s Logo. Thesis 5: Lop magic is real magic. Not only does it solve your problems problem-solving but, in addition, it solves them with Piaget as a father-figure absolves
you for not having
the slightest
theory
of cognitive
with and
development.
CONCLUSIONS We observe in this interview two operations that are well-known in the educational and scientific spheres. The first one is the exploitation of the human need for distinction, “class ” , “elitism” or whatever one wants to call it. In order to sell more and more computers and to find funding for more research in computer science, a sub-class of computer scientists who are not especially good at creating innovations and breakthroughs in their field invade the field of field of investigation) and “discover” education (traditionally a poor, inferior that computer-assisted education “improves” tremendously the cognitive skills of confusing the special attention given to the subjects of such children, experiments with the fact that computers were used with those kids, forgetting everything about the Pygmalion and Hawthorne effects. is the creation of an everIndeed, the net effect of such a “discovery” increasing gap between those who can afford those who cannot. Side effects are numerous.
computer assisted education Let us mention only three:
and the
La distinction reinforcement fragility
of the State
of information
and the military
stored
in this
317
toujours
way;
industrial the
complex;
elimination
the increasing of ‘I’hird
World
countries from the game. The second operation is more typical of cybernetics. For years now, cyberneticians have promised us “singing morrows” and have put them off to ever newer matianas. This operation deserves to be examined in detail, since a good deal of the interview
is based on it. It starts off by asserting
that, except
for
some trivial details of engineering, a program is equivalent to a functioning machine. Then, the flux diagram of programming is equated to the program itself. Finally, the mere possibility of writing a flux diagram for a potential program has been
for a non-existing computer brings the machine into existence. This repeatedly the case, with Utley’s conditional reflex machine, Rosen-
blatt’s perceptron, and Simon’s general problem solver in the 60s. The fundamental thesis of cybernetics is the statement that there exists an exceptional number of striking analogies between the ways in which men and machines function. equally well-known
Indeed, it would be foolish to deny these analogies. But it is that analogies are neither logically nor practically identities.
The distinction between these Consequently, the public at large
two concepts is not made in cybernetics. becomes the victim of the personal emotional
dimension of the cybernetician, and of his brilliant way of presenting ideas deprived of any consistency, substance, or validity. The current success of cybernetics owes a lot to the omission of the conditional mode.
TOUJOURS!
A RESPONSE
TO PAPERT
J. J. VONI?CHE Departement Barbara
de Psychologie,
White’s
interview
UniversitC de Geneve, CH 12 11 GenPve 4, Switrerland of Seymour
Aubrey
Papert
gives us another
instance
of the current confusion about computers. I would like to point out a few of the confusions in this interview, the identification of which leads to the formulation of certain
basic theses
concerning
COMPUTER This
interview
comes
computers.
SCIENCE
at a moment
AND
MARKETING
when different
companies
business have just launched a worldwide offensive especially the public of learning institutions. They well-worn
trick of cigarette
merchants.
The
difference
in the computer
on potential consumers, have done so using the is that where
free sample of cigarettes, you get here a 40% discount on your comparatively rather stingy! Thesis 1: The aim of research is not the promotion of business COMPUTERS This interview of a new school mankind,
AND
you got a
PC, which
is
operations.
LEARNING
is a landmark in the history of education: it marks the invention disease - computer assisted illiteracy. Since the beginning of
most probably,
the future
has been said to belong
successively
to early
risers, thrifty people, people with good spelling, with an encyclopedia, knowing Latin and/or Creek, foreign languages, mathematics, etc. No wonder that a mathematician now claims that the future belongs to those who can program in
L20go. Thesis 2: Computers spelling has.
have
nothing
COMPUTERS
more
AND
to do with
learning
than
good
CREATIVITY
Papert says that, with his computer system, unlike the other brands (Logo washes whiter), children program their computers with the consequence that, by so doing, they reach electronically the most advanced levels of thinking in the most creative way. Unfortunately for Papert, kids from Texas, Scotland, Senegal or Argentina draw the same square-like flowers. This is not a universal of thinking, as any decent salesman for the computer lobby would induce you to believe, but merely the result of the tremendous limitations of the machine. Logo is like the Kama-Sutra: there are so many positions, and no more.
Commentary interview
on B. Y. White
with Seymour
Papert,
(1985) Vol.
Thinking
about learning
3, No. 3, pp. 287-292. 315
about thinking:
An
J. J. Vonkhe
316
Thesis 3: Computers limit the creativity programs. Hence, they program children COMPUTERS
AND
of children to the limits of their and not the reverse.
own
PROBLEM-SOLVING
The interview with Papert promotes the idea that children who live on computer diets are better at problem-solving than others. Once again, we have here another example of the pedagogical panacea. When I was a child, educators had brainwashed parents into believing that Latin and Greek were more formative than any other subject matter. Later on, Latin and Greek ceased to be the best preparation for preppies. Math became the sign of excellence: set theory and all that jazz would bring you French-speaking part of Switzerland, confess), Goethe’s
to distinction. When I moved I discovered (to my amazement
that German was the selector mother tongue was the evidence
intelligence,
and the Open
Sesame
to the I must
of the elite. A correct command of a discriminating mind, the proof
to a better
living.
Now, to be bright,
a child
must speak computer language. Thesis 4: Computerese is the Lingua fYanca of the elite without even slightest evidence in its favour and in spite of a bit of evidence against it. COMPUTERS Poor old Piaget!
How many crimes
AND
of of
the
PIAGET
have been
perpetrated
in thy name
in the
educational field? This interview uses Piaget’s name as a warrant. Of Piaget’s theory nothing remains. Papert reproduces, fifteen or so years later, Bruner’s operation: any time
Piaget did not understand that anything can be taught to anyone at by anyone equipped wibh the necessary tool, Bruner’s psychological
acumen, or Papert’s Logo. Thesis 5: Lop magic is real magic. Not only does it solve your problems problem-solving but, in addition, it solves them with Piaget as a father-figure absolves
you for not having
the slightest
theory
of cognitive
with and
development.
CONCLUSIONS We observe in this interview two operations that are well-known in the educational and scientific spheres. The first one is the exploitation of the human need for distinction, “class ” , “elitism” or whatever one wants to call it. In order to sell more and more computers and to find funding for more research in computer science, a sub-class of computer scientists who are not especially good at creating innovations and breakthroughs in their field invade the field of field of investigation) and “discover” education (traditionally a poor, inferior that computer-assisted education “improves” tremendously the cognitive skills of confusing the special attention given to the subjects of such children, experiments with the fact that computers were used with those kids, forgetting everything about the Pygmalion and Hawthorne effects. is the creation of an everIndeed, the net effect of such a “discovery” increasing gap between those who can afford those who cannot. Side effects are numerous.
computer assisted education Let us mention only three:
and the
La distinction reinforcement fragility
of the State
of information
and the military
stored
in this
317
toujours
way;
industrial the
complex;
elimination
the increasing of ‘I’hird
World
countries from the game. The second operation is more typical of cybernetics. For years now, cyberneticians have promised us “singing morrows” and have put them off to ever newer matianas. This operation deserves to be examined in detail, since a good deal of the interview
is based on it. It starts off by asserting
that, except
for
some trivial details of engineering, a program is equivalent to a functioning machine. Then, the flux diagram of programming is equated to the program itself. Finally, the mere possibility of writing a flux diagram for a potential program has been
for a non-existing computer brings the machine into existence. This repeatedly the case, with Utley’s conditional reflex machine, Rosen-
blatt’s perceptron, and Simon’s general problem solver in the 60s. The fundamental thesis of cybernetics is the statement that there exists an exceptional number of striking analogies between the ways in which men and machines function. equally well-known
Indeed, it would be foolish to deny these analogies. But it is that analogies are neither logically nor practically identities.
The distinction between these Consequently, the public at large
two concepts is not made in cybernetics. becomes the victim of the personal emotional
dimension of the cybernetician, and of his brilliant way of presenting ideas deprived of any consistency, substance, or validity. The current success of cybernetics owes a lot to the omission of the conditional mode.