Sesame Beginnings

Ok, so Sesame Street may be about as far from MySpace as Elmo is from dana boyd, but I came across something that perhaps not-so-obliquely piggybacks off Jude's post about MySpace yesterday. Read in the NYT today that Sesame Street has produced a new DVD targeted at children between 6-months and 2 years old, "Sesame Beginnings". Apparently this has gotten a Boston-based advocacy group all huffy and puffy, and they've come out publicly to criticize what they see as the psychedelic warlordism of fluffy muppets and the larger apocalypse of The Television's terrorizing hegemony.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not advocating that all you parents out there go run and get a TIVO-enabled, cable-ready, 40-inch TV just for your little tot- in fact, the work I'm doing with Sesame Street right now isn't persuading me very much that TV alone helps children's learning...- but I do think that there's something to be said about being overly rabid and paranoid. Can't people let kids just enjoy themselves anymore? Does everything have to be about a cause, or an issue that has to be advocated and debated over? I felt the same way with the furor over Teletubbies "corrupting" children and Rainbow Brite being demonic- hello?? And I'm sure Mr. Potato Head is a actually a diabolical vegetable-only fiend in disguise, bent on taking over the world and making spuds the official food of the universe.

Yes, there is something that's definitely not right when parents use television as a substitute for human interaction and stimulation, and in replacement of other activities like reading or playing outside; but when that happens, should we point the accusing finger at the box, or should we ask ourselves why these parents think that using the TV as a babysitter is acceptable in the first place? I don't think that all children's television is good- a purple dinosaur and floating gelatinous sparkies comes to mind- but I know wonderful parents who use TV as just another tool, like books, to bond with their children, and help them develop positively, on top of other things they do together like hiking, playing at the playground, going to museums, or simply just spending quiet, quality, media-free time at home. With the right scaffolding, some children's programs can help children learn language better and faster, and also introduce them to a world their sometimes sheltered lives cannot.

[steps down from soapbox]

Ok, having said that, a particular googly-eyed, ruby-clothed muppet still annoys the heck out of me. And even worse when he starts to sing...

...this made me realize something about the experts in Boston. They were more than a little Luddite in their opposition to "Sesame Beginnings," as if technology itself — a screen of any kind! — would harm children, who ought presumably to gaze only at sunsets, shake wooden rattles and cuddle corn-husk dolls. This seemed unrealistic, to say the least, and possibly even discriminatory, like the old anti-disco edict that decreed that good music could be played only on fancy guitars and expensive drum kits. The drum machine — like the television — strikes music snobs as lazy and unwholesome. Good parents don't rely on crutches like television, which delights babies without enough parental exertion. I didn't buy it."
- Virginia Heffernan, NYT