An Experiment Gone Right: Sesame Street at 40

Forty years ago today, a man named Gordon introduced us to Sesame Street. As NPR’s Robert Smith reported, the New York-based program was, like the city itself, very different then. The creators took their cues from the late-night sketch comedy show Laugh-In (not exactly the place you’d expect to look for educational programming), producing a variety show of sorts for children.

But what’s most striking about that first episode is not the state of the neighborhood, but the fact that this show – with its strange flow between segments, repetitive choruses and lengthy pieces about where milk comes from (complete with a droney-Nick Drake rip-off) – broke new ground by embracing media as a tool for teaching.

I am among the many in my generation who can thank the show for advancing my counting and alphabet skills as a child. When the program released a handful of those early episodes on DVD a few years back, I eagerly purchased a copy and played it for visiting friends, all of us remembering that we had grown up on Sesame Street.

The show has been wildly successful over its 40-year lifespan – winning numerous awards and the title of “longest-running children’s show” in television history. It put people of color in front of the camera. It’s a show that dared to bring real and complex issues – birth, death, race – to children.

Four decades ago, public television was new and exciting. There was room (and money) for experimentation. President Johnson had signed the Public Broadcasting Act only two years earlier. And though we often think about public broadcasting for its excellence in journalism, educational programming is equally important. It lays the foundation for critical thinking and media literacy for the next generation and helps children develop the skills they need to grow up into wise news and information consumers. As our media continue to fragment and audiences disperse, the greater our need becomes to develop those skills at a younger age.

As Time’s James Poniewozik reflected on the show:

…I like to think that, in some small way, Sesame also taught kids to be smarter media consumers, and that this was as valuable a service as teaching the alphabet. By spoofing TV, the show didn't just captivate kids; it also taught by example that a news show or an entertainment show has its own rules and conventions—it taught kids that shows are shows, performed by people for cameras, and not reality. It deflated the pomposity of news anchors for kids, and showed them by referencing the traditions of commercial TV ("brought to you by the number 8," etc.) that TV is in the business of selling you things.

The value of educational programming that’s not interrupted every ten minutes for commercial breaks for sugary cereal cannot be understated. But while the middle-aged program has certainly invested well throughout its career and enjoys some financial security, the show is not immune to the problems within our public media system. Earlier this year, Sesame Workshop laid off a fifth of its staff.

Today, we live in a radically different media environment. We Tweet and Facebook and download headlines on mobile phones. Kids don’t just have stuffed animals; They plug into computers and care for them in cyberspace. Media that are willing to take risks and experiment with new educational methods are as critical today as they were when I was a kid. If we have anything to learn from Sesame Street, it’s that we need media that don’t always play it safe. And we need a public media system that’s able to fully support experimentation.