Tammy over at Just Enough, and Nothing More is discussing the real world and how homeschooling relates. I have spent some time pondering what the real world is, how public school prepares and/or creates that world and what it all has to do with homeschooling for some time now.
I have not come to any pithy conclusions worthy of discussion. Hence an entry about Sesame Street.
Yesterday, I read a blurb in Time magazine about how Sesame Street DVD’s now carry a warning label for their preschool audience. The old episodes “may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” The issue is that Oscar the Grouch is too grouchy and Cookie Monster eats too many cookies. May the world always have such grave problems. Amy’s Humble Musings
Amy’s entry is not about Sesame Street, but that is where my mind stuck for the evening. Are preschoolers different today than they were in the 60s when Sesame Street first aired? Was their child development philosophy so flawed that it now must carry warnings that it is no longer appropriate for children? How did the children raised on these philosophically incorrect episodes ever survive in the real world?
Where is the horror? In the dilapidated old buildings? Characters that are not quite so cheerful as we have come to know them? A monster whose diet is made up solely of cookies? Maybe it was that imaginary friend of Big Bird’s.
It took awhile to find, but here is a great clip from an early episode. (Unfortunately, posting video messes with the template). It does not show the characters we have all come to know and love, but it does show a marked difference from Sesame Street as I see it today. In fact, I would be hard pressed to think of anything remotely like it in any children’s show.
Children’s shows today are fast-paced, colorful and revved up like a three year old with an espresso. In this clip, everything is slow and relaxed. The voice is calm and even the music is soothing as we take a reflective journey to find out where our milk comes from. I have no idea why I laughed so hard through the whole thing. It was funnier the second time. Please tell me someone had the same reaction. I haven’t seen any of the episodes in their entirety. I am merely amused by the whole thing. But I have to agree with Virginia Heffernan of the New York Times Magazine,
Nothing in the children’s entertainment of today, candy-colored animation hopped up on computer tricks, can prepare young or old for this frightening glimpse of simpler times.
Absolutely nothing will prepare them for this. Sitting still and watching muted images slowly move by with measured and soothing tones of a male narrator. That just is not something you will find in today’s children’s programming.
[tags]television, Sesame Street, TV[/tags]
What kept going through my head is a line from the Jimmy Neutron movie, where Jimmy’s mom asks rhetorically, “Do you know how many times I’ve told you that?” Jimmy responds something like, “Nine. Exactly nine. Repetition is good for a developing mind!”
Holy cow! (Hahaha!) Was that ever a tedious video. Six and a half minutes of cow-shots and repetitive voiceover… And I even like cows and farming!!
I thought I could easily handle the clip, since one of my boys’ favorite shows is Discovery’s How It’s Made, but I found myself thinking that they’d stretched 2, maybe 2.5 minutes of good footage into that 6.5 minute segment.
Also, when the farmer squirted ~gasp!~ raw milk into his child’s mouth, I kept thinking about the anti-raw-milk police that has kept our nation’s milk pasteurized and homogenized. That bit would never make it into today’s Sesame Street.
My husband’s response was, “Yeah, that is pretty funny. But I’m not sitting through six minutes of it.”
It was definitely different. It must have changed by the mid 70s when I was watching it. I remember liking Sesame Street.
And we wonder why we have a culture filled with kids who can’t be still long enough to hear a story or draw a picture?
We start them out on “high entertainment” from birth (einstein videos anyone?) and it only pushes harder and faster the older they get.
Lest anyone think I’m critiquing too badly—we’ve done it ourselves in our home and we’ve seen the negative results. I’m not anti-tv, I’m just for using smart discretion on what is profitable and what is not for helping our children learn.
Sitting a baby in front of the tube to watch an hour of some slick shot, fast paced, colorful “learning” video is a good once in awhile thing, but not a necessity. Singing, reading books, and playing and snuggling are so much better.
But…..I’m preachin’ to the choir here!
Good back up singers are always greatly appreciated, Lindsey! I’m not anti-tv, either, but I do think we need to realize its proper place. It still baffles me that average television viewing cuts in half (from 4hrs a day to 2 hrs a day) when school starts.
Our toddlers are watching that much television?
That clip! Classic!
On the same thread of topic – my kids do not even know who Mickey Mouse and Donald Duck are.
Crazy.
I completely agree – it’s a bit repulsive these days – what they have on for children to watch. My mom has been very careful as to what silliness she lets us watched. Most of it necessary, and not as “educational” as they say.
Great post Mrs H (if I may say).
Oh I am having a big Holiday Bundle giveaway at my blog, and I’d like to invite you to stop by!
Have a wonderful, excellent, God-filled day!
Love,
Jocelyn
I remember watching SS when I was young, in fact I’m sure that is how I won the vocabulary/spelling bee one year. “Wow! how did you know what agua meant?” hehe
We have TV in this hotel room for another 2 weeks (don’t get me started)… one day we happened upon SS, did you notice the huge Ying Yang symbol when the show starts? Big Red Flag.
I’ve seen the trash out on TV and film. Insanely fast-paced and empty-headed drivel, that’s what it is. The joke lines are not funny, the educational content is not, and the entertainment factor is mind-numbing. LOL, and these are the people in control of American children’s culture?
P.S. Back then, you had time to THINK; now, it’s all about instananeous absorption of propaganda.
I loved Seasme Street when I was a kid. My kids loved them too when they were at the pre-school age. I’m glad that Seasme Street is changing its content to keep up with the times. I was bored stiff before the end of the “Milking” clip. I’m sure the kids of today would not be able to sit still and enjoy such a long and repititive clip either.
I know they wouldn’t be able to sit through it. But I do not know that that is a good thing. Do we want to enforce ADD-type attention spans on our kids? Or would we like them to be able to sit still for six minutes?