As a mom and now grandmother, I have always turned to “Sesame Street” to provide fun and meaningful ways to make conceptual connections for our family’s young children. To my happy surprise, I found a well researched article written by Lisa Guernsey in Newsweek’s June 1 issue.
"Sesame Street": The Show That Counts, documents the history, research, and struggles of this landmark early childhood program. Writes Ms. Guernsey, “No show has affected the way we think about education, parenting, childhood development, and cultural diversity, both in the United States and abroad.” Why?
Forty years ago, scientists were just discovering that young brains can be affected by early experiences. Ms. Ganz Cooley is quoted, “Educators were virtually ignoring the intellect of preschool children.” The founders of Sesame Street felt that, “Children will eat up the ABCs before kindergarten, especially if a wacky puppet ate up alphabet-shaped cookies.” In 1969, young children were exposed to counting from one to ten, learning letters, colors, letter sound connections etc.
I remember visiting early childhood classrooms and seeing no alphabet, letters, or children’s names. In fact, children were given a symbol like a moon or star etc. instead of seeing their name. The notion was that a child’s name was too abstract. Many times over the years, I have heard many teachers and administrators say to me that children in poverty cannot learn this “abstract” concept because they have low self esteem. How sad.
Our nation owes a lot to “Sesame Street” and Lisa Guernsey for this excellent article. Thank you.
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