Educational goals of Sesame Street facts for kids
Sesame Street is a famous children's TV show that started in 1969. It was special because it was the first show to have a detailed plan for teaching kids. It had clear goals for what it wanted children to learn. These goals came from careful research and studies. The first plan for the show's lessons was made in 1968.
Sesame Street helps kids learn in two main ways: with their minds (cognitive skills) and with their feelings (affective skills). At first, the show's creators focused on teaching thinking skills. They believed this would help kids feel more confident. They wanted to get young children ready for school, especially those from families with less money. The show used methods like showing good examples, repeating lessons, and humor to reach its goals. They also changed the show to keep kids interested and to make it more fun. They even added humor, cultural references, and famous people to encourage older kids and parents to watch together.
After the first season, Sesame Street started to focus more directly on feelings and social skills. They taught about getting along with others, accepting differences, and solving problems without fighting. In the 1980s, the show used real-life events from the cast and crew. For example, they talked about the death of Will Lee (who played Mr. Hooper) and the pregnancy of Sonia Manzano (who played Maria). Later, Sesame Street even helped kids understand big events like the September 11 attacks and Hurricane Katrina.
The show also worked hard to reach many families. In its first season, it had a special plan to promote the show to families in low-income areas. This was because these families often didn't watch educational TV. Later, the show created learning materials for preschools.
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Why Sesame Street Was Made
Malcolm Gladwell, a well-known author, said that Sesame Street was based on a simple but powerful idea: if you can keep children's attention, you can teach them. Gerald S. Lesser, who led the team behind the show, explained that for TV to teach effectively, it needed to grab and hold a child's attention. Sesame Street was the first children's show that carefully planned each part of its episodes. They made small but important changes to keep kids watching.
Sesame Street was one of the few children's shows with a detailed learning plan and specific goals. The show's goals came from two types of research. One type was "formative research," which helped improve the show as it was being made. The other was "summative evaluations," done by the Educational Testing Service (ETS). These studies measured how well the show taught kids during its first two seasons. The first learning plan was created in 1968 during five meetings. Experts in education and child development worked with the show's creative team. They made long lists of goals, which were later grouped into four main areas: understanding symbols, thinking skills, the physical world, and the social world.
Learning Goals for the Mind
In his 1974 book, Children and Television: Lessons from Sesame Street, Gerald Lesser wrote that a main goal of the show was to "prepare children for school." The creators knew that children who weren't ready for school often struggled. So, they wanted to give young viewers a desire to learn. Other goals included teaching basic skills and helping children learn what and how to think. The show focused on skills for children aged three to five years old. They didn't teach skills kids already knew or skills that were too hard for them.
The creators of Sesame Street knew that TV was great for showing examples (modeling). They understood that children often copy what they see on screen. So, many parts of the show directly showed good ways to talk and communicate. They also showed positive behaviors without directly saying, "This is how you should act." One of these behaviors was being curious and enjoying learning. If something funny got in the way of the lesson or showed bad behavior, they removed it. For example, Muppet performer Fran Brill said that early on, puppets might bang their heads or fall. But research showed this wasn't a good example, so they changed it. The Muppet Roosevelt Franklin was even removed because some community leaders felt he showed negative stereotypes.
Sesame Street's creators believed that young children could easily get sidetracked by small details. They thought kids might not focus on the most important parts of what they saw. So, they made sure to highlight "what the child is expected to learn." They removed things that were not important or distracting, but still kept the show interesting, even when watched many times. The show had to be very appealing because kids watch it at home where there are many distractions. They found that how much kids liked the show and how much they understood was complicated. They learned that young children probably didn't pay attention to things that were too advanced for them. The show's researchers found that by carefully making the show's parts, children would talk and interact more. This helped answer critics who worried that children were too passive while watching TV.
Repeating things was a common method on Sesame Street. The creators knew that repetition helped young children practice new skills. It also helped them connect new ideas to things they already knew. They noticed that children enjoyed some parts more after watching them several times. This allowed kids to guess what would happen next. Repetition made it easier to teach difficult ideas or situations that a child might not understand from just one viewing. It also let children explore different parts of a topic. In the early years, the show often repeated the same part many times in one episode. In the first ten seasons, one out of every six parts was a repeat. The show also learned that changing small details while keeping the same format was also a good way to use repetition.
TV historian Robert W. Morrow pointed to the "often repeated alphabet recitation segment" as an example of repetition. For instance, in a short film, actor James Earl Jones said the alphabet. He made long pauses before each letter, which appeared on the screen just before he said it. Some advisors thought Jones might scare young viewers, but children loved his segments. The producers found that kids who had seen the segment a few times would say the letter before Jones did. Jones then confirmed or corrected them. The producers saw this as a way to make TV more interactive. They called it "the James Earl Jones effect."
Humor was used on Sesame Street to get young viewers' attention. It also encouraged parents and older siblings to watch with the younger child, which is called "coviewing." Jim Henson's characters and humor were key to creating a show that appealed to both younger and older viewers. Lesser even said that educational TV "completely depended on the effective use of humor." He also stated that for comedy to teach effectively, it had to match the lesson being taught. Some critics complained that slapstick comedy was too violent for children's TV. However, the show found it was the most effective type of comedy they used and was "a favorite with preschoolers." Morrow noted that the only violence on Sesame Street was "slapstick punctuation," used only in cartoons and short films.
Another way the show encouraged co-viewing was by including cultural references that only adults would understand. Famous people that adults and older children knew also appeared on the show. By 2009, over 500 celebrities had been on Sesame Street.
Learning Goals for Feelings
At first, Sesame Street's creators taught about feelings indirectly. They thought that focusing on learning and thinking skills would naturally make children feel more confident. They also showed different races by having both black and white actors. But after the first season, critics pushed the show to talk about feelings more openly. This happened after a lot of research and planning. The show then focused on social skills, accepting differences, and solving problems without fighting. This made Sesame Street a place where children felt strong and understood.
According to Michael Davis, Sesame Street's lessons started to focus more directly on feelings in the 1980s. The show began to "expand its young viewers' world." Davis said that these goals were inspired by the real experiences of the writers, cast, and crew. For example, in 1982, the show talked about grief after the death of Will Lee, who played Mr. Hooper. In 1985, Sesame Street discussed adoption when Gordon and Susan adopted Miles. They showed how adoption affected parenting and family life, including how Miles' arrival changed Big Bird and other Muppets. The Associated Press reported that the show's producers, after much research, decided not to mention Miles' biological parents. This was because child development experts thought it might scare young children.
For the 1988 and 1989 seasons, the show covered love, marriage, and having a baby. The characters Luis and Maria fell in love, got married, and had a child named Gabi. Sonia Manzano, the actress who played Maria, was actually pregnant. Her real-life experience gave the writers the idea. Research was done before writing any scripts to understand what preschoolers knew about love, marriage, and family. The show's research team found that there wasn't much information on these topics for children at the time. Studies done after the episodes about Maria's pregnancy aired showed that children understood pregnancy better after watching them.
Sesame Street also helped kids deal with real-life disasters. For example, they aired an episode in early 2002 after the September 11 attacks. They also made four episodes after Hurricane Katrina in 2005. These episodes were used in the show's community programs.
Writer Emily Perl Kingsley was very good at showing the show's goals for tolerance, diversity, and inclusion. She especially focused on people with disabilities. Kingsley helped make sure people with disabilities were included in the show. For example, she hired the Little Theater of the Deaf to appear on Sesame Street. She also helped add Deaf actress Linda Bove to the cast. Kingsley's son Jason, who had Down syndrome, also appeared on the show several times. Kingsley said that Sesame Street has done a better job than any other show in TV history at including people with disabilities regularly and comfortably.
Reaching Out to Families
Sesame Street wanted to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds. But the creators knew that to be truly successful, they needed all children to watch, no matter their background. Still, their main goal was to appeal to inner-city families. These groups didn't usually watch educational shows on public television. As Lesser said, "If the series did not work for poor children, the entire project would fail."
The show spent 8% of its first budget on advertising. They promoted the show to educators and the TV industry. They knew they needed a special effort to reach their target communities because traditional advertising didn't work well with them. To spread the word in inner cities, they hired Evelyn Davis from the Urban League. She became the head of the show's Community Educational Services (CES) division.
After Sesame Street became popular in its first season, the CES started creating educational materials for preschools instead of just promoting the show. The child-care community became a main focus for the CES. Early efforts included mobile viewing units that showed the program in inner cities, in Appalachia, in Native American communities, and in migrant worker camps. In the early 1980s, the CES created the Sesame Street Preschool Education Program (PEP). Its goal was to help preschools use the show as a learning tool. This program combined TV viewing with books, hands-on activities, and other media.
The show's outreach programs also provided materials for children and adults who didn't speak English. Instead of just translating English materials, they created "versions." This meant making new materials that shared the same messages but were right for different cultures and languages. Starting in 2006, the show expanded its outreach by making PBS specials and DVDs. These focused on how military deployments affect soldiers' families. The show's outreach also helped families of prisoners, and focused on health, wellness, and safety.
In 2013, the Sesame Workshop started "Sesame Street in Communities." This part of their outreach helped families dealing with tough issues. It worked with caregivers and community groups. It offered hundreds of videos, storybooks, games, and other resources in both English and Spanish. Topics included early reading and math, healthy eating, divorce, exercise, understanding emotions, grief, and food insecurity. It received most of its money from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and other groups. In 2017, "Sesame Street in Communities" planned to grow from three pilot sites to over 35 more communities. They aimed to work with over 11,000 service providers and reach 4.5 million children under age 6 and their families.
