Convivial Constructionism: Recovering the Influence of Ivan Illich on Seymour Papert and Constructionist Learning Theory

• In Event: Explorations in the Assimilation of Radical Critiques

Abstract

I seek to show the overlap between educational technologist Seymour Papert’s and philosopher Ivan Illich’s critiques of schooling and education. The uptake of Papert’s ideas in mainstream technology education has resulted in the assimilation of his critiques of schooling and education, including those based on Illich’s ideas of deschooling and conviviality. In the process of institutionalizing Papert’s ideas many of the implications of Illich’s work that Papert and Papert’s collaborators found so meaningful are deradicalized. I seek to recover these radical implications through close readings of Papert’s critiques of education and schooling that build on Illich. I end by turning to Illich and Verne (1981) to help make suggestions for more convivial instantiations of Papert’s ideas.

Author

• Michael L. Lachney, Michigan State University
  Presenting Author