Welcome to The Learning Barn ~ The Official Seymour Papert Website!

Seymour Papert Institute

300 Pleasant Street, P.O. Box 387, Blue Hill, Maine 04614

Seymour Papert is the founder of

The Learning Barn and Professor Emeritus, MIT Media Lab

Mission

The Learning Barn, Seymour Papert Institute provides a framework for creating a more sophisticated public awareness of what is now possible for children. It counters the powerful resistance felt by many people to large change in parenting and schooling, helps to mobilize for radical change in learning, supports new forms of learning and promotes Seymour Papert's theories, ideas and direct involvement in the educational process.

he good news is that during the past two months, Seymour has made slow but steady progress. He is now able to walk with a walker and recognizes people he knows. He is talking in increasingly complete and appropriate short sentences. His speech is still garbled but daily more words are emerging clearly and it is evident that he understands much more than he can now express.

His general health is good, he is eating well, smiles often and although some days are better than others, seems generally cheerful.

As always, he is intensely interested in numbers and geometric shapes. He very much enjoys and profits from seeing those he has worked with in the past and many are volunteering their time to work with him.

However, the future is still unclear and extreme patience is required from all of us as we have a very long way to go.

It is helpful and enjoyable for him to hear words of greeting and descriptions of work done with him from his friends, accompanied by photographs. Anyone who wishes to do this should record their remarks on a regular cassette tape, CD or DVD and send both pictures and tape, CD or DVD to: The Learning Barn, P.O. Box 387, Blue Hill, Maine 04614.

Report on Seymour's Condition

The History

s many of you know, Seymour Papert suffered a devastating accident on December 5, 2006 while attending, as keynote speaker, the 17th annual conference of the International Commission on Mathematical Instruction hosted by Hanoi Technology University in Vietnam.

The conference was extremely poorly organized and several times a day in order to reach the conference site, without being provided with any escort or protection of any kind, attendees were forced to cross a six lane highway clogged with thousands of motorcycles that swarm in the streets of the city unregulated by any traffic lights or police control.

On the last day before he was to leave, while accompanying his colleague, Uri Wilensky of Northwestern University to hear Wilensky's presentation, just as he was about to reach the safety of the sidewalk, Seymour was hit by a motorcyclist driving at high speed who was, according to the police, under the influence of "medicines."

Seymour was thrown onto the cement with great force, suffering severe brain injuries which left him in a coma and required two emergency brain operations at the French Hospital in Hanoi to save his life.

Ten days later, he was evacuated in an emergency air lift by the remarkable Swiss air rescue team REGA and flown across the world for 18 hours to reach Boston and Massachusetts General Hospital on December 16th, where he was rushed to their ICU unit still in a coma. There he languished through Christmas and New Year's and finally in early January was transferred to begin rehabilitation at Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor, Maine. He remained there until February 14th when he was transferred to Blue Hill Memorial Hospital where he is currently undergoing rehabilitation of several kinds.

Recovery from brain injuries is very slow and expected to take at least one year with no prognosis at this time as to how full his recovery may be.

Although they have officially admitted their negligence and responsibility for this accident, the Vietnamese Government has refused any help or compensation. Thousands of people are killed each year in the streets of the city. Hanoi is a dangerous place and should be strictly avoided for both conferences and tourism.

Seymour's Condition as of March 4, 2007

From now on The Learning Barn ~ Seymour Papert Institute will be posting regular bulletins about Seymour's condition for his many friends the world over.

This page was last updated: 3/11/2008

Scroll down the page to find recent updates on Seymour's condition

Seymour's Condition as of April 18, 2007

eymour continues to battle as strongly and courageously as always. However over the past month we have had two very discouraging setbacks. On March 23 following a low temperature Seymour came down with septicemia (a very serious and potentially deadly infection of the blood). He was rushed by helicopter to the Critical Care Unit of Eastern Maine Hospital in Bangor where he was treated with strong antibiotics which saved his life.

The doctors were able to kill the infection but Seymour must remain on a regime of antibiotic infusions four times a day until May 10. He spent two weeks in the hospital in and then was transferred to a Rehab center on April 9th. There he did fine for four days until, on the night of Friday April 13, he developed breathing difficulties and was rushed by ambulance to the hospital where he had to be operated immediately to replace a defective heart valve which had been attacked by the sepsis bacteria.

The good news is that he came through the operation extremely well. Surgeons said they had never seen a heart so strong and in such good condition of anyone his age - or for that matter many years younger. He has been making an amazingly steady recovery and is expected to be in the hospital for about three weeks undergoing rehabilitation. Doctors say that once he is free of the infection his brain recovery should continue as it had before with his making steady improvements in his physical and cognitive skills.

Because of these last two life threatening events the expenses of his care not covered by insurance are mounting astronomically. Therefore in response to so many of his friends and fans who have asked what they could do to help, we are creating a special fund to help with Seymour's care and recovery. If you should wish to donate you may send a check to The Seymour Papert Recovery Fund, P.O. Box 1569, Blue Hill, Maine 04614

or please visit http://seymourpapertrecoveryfund.org to make a gift via PayPal.

It will be enormously helpful and deeply appreciated.

Seymour's Condition as of May 14, 2007

here is better news this month. Seymour has miraculously come through his septicemia and heart valve operation. He finished his 42 day regime of anti-biotics on May 9 and was able to leave the hospital and be transferred to a special rehabilitation clinic where he is expected to stay for 6-8 weeks undergoing intensive physical therapy as well as occupational and speech therapies. He has lost a lot of weight but is not eating well. He is talking a great deal and although his speech is still garbled, individual words are coming clearer each day. But he has a long way to go and will have to undergo additional weeks of intensive speech therapy in another special facility. He is a fighter and we can only hope and pray that he will regain his facilities in time. All doctors can say that any recovery will take one year to eighteen months.

Seymour's Condition as of July 25, 2007

t is now almost eight months since Seymour’s terrible accident in Hanoi and four months since his bout with septicemia and subsequent complications and cardiac operation it caused. He has exhibited great courage and spirit during all this ordeal. Since May 10, he has been undergoing intensive rehabilitation at a center in Bangor. His faithful private caregiver and nurse has remained with him and because of her great patience and devotion played a key role in his climb back to health. In May he had lost 38 pounds and was very weak, He has now gained back 12 pounds, and by working hard on his muscle tone is now no longer dependent on a wheel chair, but able to walk without a walker by holding on to his nurse’s arm. He can now stand up without aid, go up and down modest sets of stairs, and get in and out of a car. These are great victories. Thanks to an outstanding speech therapist, his speech is becoming clearer and more organized. Although we still have a long way to go-- all doctors say it will take a year to eighteen months to achieve a recovery and we do not know at this time how complete it will eventually be. However, his thinking is active, he recognizes everyone, understands everything that is said to him, exhibits great concentration, plays solitaire and is beginning to play chess. These are all hopeful signs.

e face daunting financial problems as his insurance has not covered anything outside of immediate Blue Cross- Medicare hospital expenses-- nothing for all the other expenses necessary to giving him the best possible chance of recovery; these include the expert nursing care which has helped him so much, special intensive therapies, consultations with specialists. Despite the support, intervention and many requests from three important senators ( Maine’s Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins and Massachusetts’s John Kerry) to date. despite their promises, the Vietnamese government has done nothing at all to help defray the heavy expenses caused by their negligence during the conference in Hanoi. Many friends have generously supported the Seymour Papert Recovery Fund which has helped immensely. For any and all contributions we are and remain profoundly grateful.http://seymourpapertrecoveryfund.org

Seymour's Condition as of January 21, 2008

t has been several months since we have given news of Seymour’s recovery. The good news is that he has been improving steadily since his return home on July 25th after eight months of hospitalization. During these months his recovery from his brain injuries was complicated by his contracting life threatening septicemia in March 2007 which attacked a valve in his heart, necessitating an emergency heart operation. He was released from the hospital on May 10 and spent nine long weeks in a rehabilitation clinic. Since his return home he has been under 24 hour care by devoted care givers and is undergoing regular physical and speech therapy. All this coupled with his indomitable spirit and strength has accomplished miracles. He looks wonderful, is in good physical health and is back to his normal weight. He walks and climbs stairs almost unaided now recognizes and communicates with everyone with his wonderful sense of humor. Intently studies newspapers and books, enjoys watching television, plays chess, and beats almost everyone in checkers and dominoes. He is slowly getting back to the computer, enjoys watching videos of his lectures and seminars and is beginning to look at notes from his unfinished book. His thinking is clear but we are still facing some complicated speech problems and anticipate many more months of work will be necessary before we can know how completely these will be cleared up. Doctors say that eventual recovery from such serious brain injuries takes one to two full years and judge that because of the complications he suffered this time must be counted from May 2007. He will celebrate his 80th birthday on February 29 of this year and the good news is that doctors say he has the constitution of someone ten years younger. So we must all have patience, rejoice in how far he has come and keep the faith that he will be able once again to continue his work to benefit the minds and lives of the children of the world.