Illiteracy

For 35 years, the PBS television show "Sesame Street" has been teaching children to read.

That means teaching them what sounds letters make and how those letters join together to make words. But it means much more than only that -- not just letters making words, but words making sentences, and sentences making stories and statements.

Literacy involves a great deal more than just phonics. "Sesame Street" has a long history of understanding that, which is why this recent news about the program's "new" emphasis on healthy eating is rather disappointing:

Cookie Monster ... will cut down on his favourite food as part of an anti-obesity drive.

The blue-furred muppet who used to sing "C is for Cookie" will now tell viewers that "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food."

Each episode of the show's new series will begin with a "health tip" about healthy foods and physical activity.

A Sesame Street representative said the popular character would be "broadening his eating habits" in the future.

If you're not familiar with Cookie Monster, he's a muppet with an unhealthy obsession with cookies. He completely lacks self control when it comes to his favorite food and often gets himself into trouble because he'll do just about anything for a cookie.

For the past three decades the Cookie Monster has been the monstrous embodiment of gluttony. He has, in other words, always taught children about healthy eating habits.

"Sesame Street" works as educational television because it teaches in a variety of ways -- not just through clumsily didactic lectures. It presents characters like Cookie Monster or his neighbor, Oscar the Grouch, and shows those characters making choices. Some of those choices are good, some of them are bad. Part of learning to read, part of being literate, is learning to understand such stories -- learning to recognize that not every character in every story is a "role model" worthy of emulation.

This aspect of literacy is in poor shape in our illiterately literal culture. Too many people -- adults and not just children -- have mastered phonics, but they don't know how to read, or to hear a story, or watch a play or a movie.

"Sesame Street" used to trust its young viewers to understand stories, and they did. Generations of children grew up watching Cookie Monster without the confused notion that by featuring such a character the show was somehow advocating gluttony. The lesson may not have been dullwittedly straightforward, but it's not like they were asking kids to read "Pale Fire."

Now, apparently, "Sesame Street" has decided that any lesson not expressed in simple, declarative sentences is too subtle to be effective. And so, in order to fight childhood obesity, they're promoting childhood illiteracy.

Next up, we'll probably hear that "Highlights" magazine, in an effort to teach children their manners, is getting rid of the character of "Goofus," changing the cast of its popular feature to "Gallant and Also Gallant."

Mr. Gradgrind, call your office.

Comments

[Keith]

Alas, with the Literalists in control, there's no room for ambiguity and inference. And since art is inference and ambiguity, writ large, it's more Left Behind style clumsiness for all of us.

[Andy]

That is so utterly depressing. You articulated this beautifully.

[animus]

Now, apparently, "Sesame Street" has decided that any lesson not expressed in simple, declarative sentences is too subtle to be effective.

Or perhaps they have decided such lessons are too subtle for the adults controlling their budget...

[julia]

Oh, that's so sad.

Let's just bowdlerize all the friendly, cuddly, fallible id-figures so the kids can wait to recognize all those less-than-perfect traits that they share (according to the TV) with absolutely no-one in the world except villains so when they're old enough to watch MTV they'll be starved for identification.

Just spiffy.

Do you suppose there's anyone running the Department of Education who has ever actually raised a child, as opposed to giving really strict instructions to the housekeeper?

I'd be a lot more comfortable to have the housekeeper making these decisions. She's probably met a few kids.

[Steve]

Props for the Goofus and Gallant reference.

[Susan]

Cripes, is nothing sacred?

My brother has a really cool old Cookie Monster game in which the Cookie Monster spins and opens and closes his mouth and you try to shoot cookies (not broccoli!!!) in.

[Anna in Cairo]

Oh God. this is really depressing. Why do these people think kids are such morons? They have obviously never met a single kid.

[Charles Sperling]

The Chinese have a curse: "May you live in interesting times."

Your closing allusion to Mr. Gradgrind (who employed a couple named M'Choakumchild to teach the local children) made me think that the Western equivalent could be: "May you live in Hard Times for These Times."

In regards to "Sesame Street," perhaps another of Dickens's creations, the Circumlocution Office of *Little Dorrit,* has taken over programming and folks have forgotten that trying to show "How NOT to Do It," they're overlooking the fact that they already did it unconsciously. And better than they ever could consciously.

Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and prism!

[cjmr's husband]

Remember, "C is for Cookie" is now a protest song, as long as you shout the "that's good enough for me" line.

Kinda like how Congress says the Pledge of Allegiance.

[Fernmonkey]

As the dear old Daily Mail would say, it's Political Correctness Gone Mad.

[Edward Liu]

Howdy,

This is probably the closest thing I've seen to an argument against changing Cookie Monster that doesn't boil down to, "OMG TEH PC PALICE ARE TAKIGNOVER AGAIN WTF??!???!!!"

That being said, though, I'm still finding it difficult to work up a whole lot of concern over this. If I had to bet money on a crew to do this without insulting the intelligence of kids everywhere, the people at the Children's Television Workshop and the staff of Sesame Street will get my bet over nearly anybody else making entertainment for kids. The only other creative teams who can compete are Pixar, and maybe the people doing the "Teen Titans" cartoon on a good day.

As long as they don't enter a George Lucas/Steven Spielberg retrofitting frenzy and start editing carrots and rutabagas into the older sketches, I can live with whatever changes they're talking about.

On the other hand, has anybody ever seen or been a kid who used Cookie Monster to justify their dietary behavior?

-- Ed

[Jesse]

The end of "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food" does bode well:, according to a fairly critical article:

Cookie Monster appears to be happy with the new "sometimes food" song, because at the end he warbles: "Is sometimes now?"

"Yes," he's told.

[Murph]

Maybe it's the Atkin's Diet Mafia. Some big bruiser monsters came around and threatened Cookie and his handlers if they didn't get him off the carbs.

D

[Scott Parkerson]

Oh, _that_ explains the weird new season of Sesame Street to me.

My one year old daughter and I watch the show together sometimes and I've noticed that the recent shows aired in the past week are suddenly very conscious about exercise and healthy-eating. Even during "Elmo's World", they talked about exercise. This is not a bad thing in and of itself, but the changes are somewhat ham-fisted, as if suddenly the producers and writers at CTW woke up and felt that they HAD TO DO SOMETHING NOW.

Of course, all this matters not one whit to my daughter, who gets plenty of exercise crawling at breakneck speed around the house. She's more interested in dancing to the songs, anyways.

[Bill S]

Oh great, another fond childhood memory being ruined. To this day, I can't look at a cookie with growling, "COOOO-KIES!!!" (Does anybody else do that?)

[Mr Ripley]

Brilliant, Fred. I was trying to articulate something like that earlier today. My wife said yesterday, "But doesn't everyone understand that Cookie Monster exemplfies the impulse-control problems that we all have to deal with, from the age of three until about, uh, sixty?" We need identificatory figures, not just role-models. Sesame Street has long had to deal with protests from those who maintain the elitist idea that the masses become what they behold. Sometimes the CTW/SSW resists, as when they were told to clean up Cookie's grammar. Other times they caved, as when they eliminated Roosevelt Franklin (guilty of showing up his teachers) or issued a press release about Ernie and Bert's sexual orientation.
Ed Champion has an interview.
Yes, Bill S, everyone does that.

[Mnemosyne]

I suspect animus may be right -- it may have been a decision mandated by the Dept. of Education rather than one made by the show itself, which would help explain the shoehorning in of the message.

Adults always assume kids are much dumber than they really are. You'd think they might remember being kids themselves and remember the pride of figuring things out on their own. Not anymore.

[cjmr]

Oh great, another fond childhood memory being ruined. To this day, I can't look at a cookie with growling, "COOOO-KIES!!!" (Does anybody else do that?)

My husband. Especially in grocery stores.

[eristick]

It's incredible to me how many adults, despite having once been children, can't get it through their heads that kids are not less intelligent than adults, they simply are just less experienced. [sigh]

[galnoir]

The Daily Show called this one a few years ago: "C" is for Chubby: Is Cookie Monster to blame for childhood obesity?

[Abby]

I was a Sesame Street watcher in the late 70's and early 80's. I seem to recall that even then, there was an episode where cookie monster chose to pass on the cookies and eat some vegetables. But yes, this is sad.

[Brad]

Sesame Street has long had to deal with protests from those who maintain the elitist idea that the masses become what they behold.

Comic writer Steve Gerber ("Howard the Duck") also wrote for kids' TV. Of his dealings with Broadcast Standards and Practices (B.S. and Pee) he said they seemed to be operating from the premise that children are mindlessly imitative and inherently violent. He termed this chimera "Manson the Monkey."

[Scott]

I just want Sesame Street to bring back Bart the Bourbon Bat ("B is for Burbon") and Ayn the Aardvark ("A is for A and DON'T YOU FORGET IT!!").

[R. Mildred]

The cookie monster got slightly warped for me by the Parking Lot Is Full comic that had grand dragon Cookie monster of KKK singing "C is for caucasian, that's good enough for me..."

Which was so utterly wrong on so many levels that I now find myself singing it softly when ever I'm cooking or doing any other act that causes my brain to momentarily disengage

[Ron A. Zajac]

I came up with a cartoon about 15 years ago. I was, and still am, a lousy cartoon artist, but the captions (if I may say so myself) were a hoot:

"Goofus seeks revolutionary overthrow of the State."

"Galant campaigns for and wins the Presidency."

-raz