Sesame Street: A Model for Children's Programming

Television has acquired many nicknames since it became a common household appliance. Some of the more popular ones include “boob tube” and “idiot box”. One must wonder how it has come to be known by such bereft pseudonyms. One explanation would be that, though it entertains millions daily, it has also cut into time that had, prior to its inception, been allotted specifically for educational purposes. Television, in its early years, had lacked programming that focused on educating younger children. It did have programs that were aimed at children, or the entire family, i.e., The Howdy Doody Show (1947-1960) and The Mickey Mouse Club (1955-1959), but these shows lacked the educational content that would help develop young children's minds. This trend, however, came to a halt on November 10, 1969 when PBS broadcast the first episode of a show titled Sesame Street. Sesame Street was the first program that was successfully aimed at the development of young children’s’ minds. Their main goal was to teach children about spelling, counting, and what was right and wrong. Sesame Street also taught children about what it was like to live in the American inner-city, and that it was a good thing to have friends that were different from themselves. Sesame Street, for quite a while, was the only program that had these goals in mind, and successfully got the relayed the message to children everywhere. The model for children’s programming had forever changed after its inception, and has now led to the creation of many more programs aimed at children’s education, i.e., Blues Clues, Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood, Teletubbies and Mr. Dress-Up.

The role of Sesame Street in educating young children and teaching them what was right from wrong had sparked nationwide debates. Among two of the more prominent articles highlighting such debates were Educational Television is Not an Oxymoron (Children and Television) by Daniel R. Anderson and Sunny Days on Sesame Street? Multiculturalism and Resistance Postmodernism by Ute Sartorius Kraidy. Daniel Anderson’s article rebuttals the argument made by Jane Healy that contrary to her research, programs like Sesame Street do provide, along with basic learning skills, both short-term & long-term benefits and greater language development. Ute Kraidy’s article states that Sesame Street “plays an important role in shaping society’s construction of multiculturalism”.

Sesame Street, the program that set the standard for all modern children’s educational programming, has sparked the question, ‘is it the ideal children’s program?’. One can say that it is not because of questionable research indicating it shortens attention spans and that not all children are able to comprehend all of its lessons, and that it is only comprehendible to those children whose cognitive development is on par with the specific segments directed at them. On the other hand, Sesame Street can be seen as the ideal program aimed at preschool children because of the lessons intent for the children, and the methods in which they are relayed.

When analyzing Sesame Street based on the articles by Kraidy and Anderson, one can see that it teaches children to tolerate people from all walks of life, teaches good manners & values, and it is an excellent educational tool when preparing children for school. Sesame Street is the ideal children’s educational program for preschool children.

Television, not popular for its depiction of minorities throughout its broadcast history, particularly in the 1950s and 1960s, has had one program that has worked tirelessly to teach children tolerance and acceptance towards people different from themselves. Sesame Street has, perhaps, the most vastly construed cast of characters on all of television. Though not everyone is always on every episode, one can never look too far to see that this program is, and always has been, an outspoken advocate of equal opportunity & treatment of all peoples, regardless of race, religion, ethnicity or disability. The community on the show has always had a diverse cast. It began with an African-American couple (Susan and Gordon), and later added a Mexican-American family (Maria and Luis and their daughter Gabriela). More recently, Sesame Street has added a Caucasian woman, an Asian-American man, a blind man and a mute woman; characters are constantly surrounded by Muppets (Kraidy, Pg. 17). By using such a mixed cast, Sesame Street is an ideal children’s educational program in terms of teaching children about tolerance towards others, regardless of their superficial image.

Through its diversity, Sesame Street has been able to adjust to different markets around the world and help bridge gaps between other cultures, and allow for children in war-torn regions to not fall for the propaganda by their governments or governing bodies. For example, with the excruciating tension and constant violence that erupts daily in the Middle East, Sesame Street has been a stable in teaching children from both Israel and Palestine that they should not dislike each other, nor should they subject the other to stereotypes, and that they can actually be friends and settle disputes by using words, not weapons (Kraidy, p. 12).

“A survey of more than 600 Jewish and Arab Israeli as well as Palestinian children ages four through seven who had watched the show revealed that exposure was linked to an increase in the use of prosocial justifications (such as friendship) to resolve conflict (Machlis 1999). The study also showed that after viewing Sesame Street, children from all test groups tended to use more positive attributes to describe the other (Machlis 1999).”(Kraidy, p. 12)

Ute Kraidy gives a clear indication of the effect Sesame Street has had on the lives of children outside of the United States, and is profound evidence to promote the theory that not only does Sesame Street teach children their alphabet and numbers, but also teaches children about acceptance of other people, regardless of their walk-of-life.

Another example, which is explained in Kraidy’s Multiculturalism and Resistance Postmodernism is the reference to episode 3857, where Olivia sleeps over at Aisha’s house (Olivia being Caucasian and Aisha, African-American) (Kraidy p. 20). The point of the segment, as Kraidy explains, is for a child of another race and culture to observe different customs without acknowledging any stereotypes (Kraidy p. 20). Another point is to portray how children can play with each other and not consider race a factor. Sesame Street began airing at the end of the 1960s, a period beginning from the early 1950s, in which there was a lot of race-related rioting and a lot of hate crimes and racist policies geared towards minorities in the USA. Such actions throughout the nation caused an especial rift between blacks and whites in the southern United States. Sesame Street was first broadcast at the end of a civil rights movement that included such prominent figures as Malcolm X, Muhammed Ali and Martin Luther King Jr. Sesame Streets role through all of this was to show the human side and toss aside any stereotypes that whites had of blacks and vice versa, and to teach children that they could be friends with one another. When Olivia reciprocated the offer to Aisha to stay at her house, it indicated two way relationships are possible, and that both blacks and whites should/could treat each other equally and are happy to be friends.

Counter to the argument, Sesame Street does not portray cultures as specific to groups of people, but rather grouped all different kinds of people into one “homogenous society”. On Sesame Street, people of different ethnicities are void of their native accent (Kraidy, p. 18). Almost everything that the ethnic characters say on the show, with slight exceptions, are pronounced in a North American accent, while characters of no ethnicity, like Elmo the puppet speak in baby talk (Kraidy, p. 18). These depictions portray a construed reality by nullifying children of the experience of hearing someone speak with an accent (Kraidy, p. 18). When they enter school situations, they become unable to comprehend other peoples speech or may even become subject to singling out others based on accented pronunciation (Kraidy, p. 18).

On the pro-Sesame Street side of the debate, one can argue that it acts as a social unifier, by setting aside differences to allow the viewer to see that though everyone is different, they are also the same (Kraidy p. 18). On the segments where the second national language is taught (in this particular case Spanish for the American version) letters, numbers and simple household words are taught in Spanish to allow children to be better prepared in school (Kraidy, p. 19). It also allows the children to grasp the Hispanic accent, making it easier to communicate with Hispanics with heavier accents.

Sesame Street presents an image to children of how happy life can be when everyone is portrayed in equal respects, and is a leading educational program when it caters to racial, religious, ethnic and cultural tolerance.

Sesame Street, combined with additional parental influence, is an excellent tool for preparing children for school education. Sesame Street’s main educational focus is on teaching children phonics, vocabulary and numeration. Other modern children’s educational programs, like Blues Clues, have used that concept and applied it to other aspects of children’s lives. Blues Clues teaches skills and problem solving (Anderson, p. 6). Sesame Street’s tactics for such are to choose a letter and number “of the day”, and focus that particular episode on the chosen letter and number. This method is excellent because it gives a child an entire hour to learn different aspects of that particular choice-of-the-day. Sesame Street, after introducing the letter and number of the day teach children the pronunciation of the letter and how to spell simple words starting with that letter. It also teaches children how to count up to their number-of-the-day with everyday objects like apples and balls, and teach to add different numbers, which equal the number of the day. This helps prepare children for kindergarten by allowing them to comprehend such concepts, which further allow for increased mental growth. It must be noted though, that the child through watching Sesame Street alone cannot solely achieve such basic learning. Parents must play an active role in their child’s development by teaching them the same concepts, and reiterating these to them so the child may be able to comprehend problems that are more complex.

Sesame Street also trains children to maintain focus on the subject matter at hand. It has been proven that it actually helps children concentrate when performing tasks. Its format also allows children to better comprehend and better learn various concepts. Daniel Anderson states

“…early viewing of Sesame Street, as well as educational television, more generally, is associated with better school grades and other positive outcomes in elementary school in Sweden and in high school in the United States”. (Anderson, p. 5)

Poor children of African-American or Hispanic descent, who watch educational programming, were also shown to perform better on a variety of assessments of school readiness and vocabulary (Anderson, p. 5).

There is the counter argument that not all children are able to comprehend all the messages on Sesame Street. A child of 2 years may be able to comprehend what 1, 2, 3 is or what a, b, c is but may not be able to understand what sharing is or something else more complex. Jane Healy argues that programs like Sesame Street fail to provide a child with adequate brain development in his/her early years (Anderson, p. 2). She says that it creates neglect by children towards language, and creates a more retarded development (Anderson, p. 2). Apparently, children will only be able to comprehend what their cognitive development allows them to understand. For example, during a study done on the matter, it was learned that when the dialogue on the program was at a higher comprehension level, the attention of pre-schooling children declined (Anderson, p. 3). Anderson concludes “This could not happen unless the children were processing the language at the level of its meaning and were giving their attention to content they could follow” (Anderson, p. 3). This theory is true, but Sesame Street, through its progressively complex concepts allows children to increasingly develop their cognitive ability as well as allowing the show to reach a wider demographic.

Jane Healey claims that the underdevelopment of children’s cognitive abilities has led to shorter attention spans (Anderson, p. 3). Something she says has occurred because instead of focusing on the content to keep children interested, Sesame Street uses sudden change and movement to capture involuntary responses (Anderson, p. 3). The consequences to children, from these involuntary responses becomes, according to Jane Healey, “reduced abilities to sustain attention, reduced language development, reduces abilities to plan and sequence actions and intellectual passivity” (Anderson, p. 3). Jane Healey’s theory, according to Daniel Anderson, is wrong because visual change on Sesame Street is no more rapid than any other children’s educational program.

Sesame Street is, perhaps, the greatest educational tool for a child. So far, to much assertion, no theory has been able to pick this program apart and discredit it in anyway. The fact that children do better in their studies all the way through high school in its most popular market, the USA, only further solidifies Sesame Street as among the greatest tools a parent may have to prepare their child for an average to above average education career.

Sesame Street teaches children good morals and values. Neither article bluntly indicates that Sesame Street does not teach good morals and values. Such comprehension would undermine the entire concept of children’s educational programming. All children’s programs, whether they be Blues Clues, Teletubbies or Mr. Rogers Neighbourhood, are on the air because their main purpose is to teach right from wrong. Sesame Street, though, is by far the most influential program when it comes to teaching these morals and values to children.

In the screening of Sesame Street, episode 4048, the audience saw how Rosita, the Muppet, did not want to kiss the Frog Prince and turn him back into his true form because it was only beneficial to the Frog Prince and not her. She had made friends with him and wanted to continue to hop and play with him. After being persuaded by Telly and Baby Bear to do the right thing, she kisses him. Though she believes that she will gain nothing, and lose everything, the opposite happens and she gains a friend when the Frog Prince turns into an Elephant Prince. She still got to hop with her friends, which now include Telly, Baby Bear and the Elephant Prince, instead of the Frog Prince.

The moral of the story is that when a person does the right thing, nothing bad can come of it, and that it is better to do the right thing then to do nothing at all. It is a strong message to give to a child. Children who have developed the cognitive ability to comprehend such language and concepts will be able to learn from it, and hopefully practice that message in his/her everyday life.

Sesame Street, throughout its history has remained a constant in preschool children’s’ lives. It has provided parents with an alternative method to teaching valuable lessons to their kids. Though some argue that Sesame Street actually creates shorter attention spans, which may negatively affect children for the rest of their lives, an even wider majority of researchers agree that the positives vastly outweigh the negatives, and in such, Sesame Street provides enough cognitive development for young children to sustain such charges. It provides great entertainment for children, while simultaneously providing enough essential lessons in morals and values, spelling and counting, and tolerance and behaviour to dismiss any threats to its credibility. In effect, Sesame Street is the ideal children’s educational program for preschool children.