Big move for Big Bird, ‘Sesame Street’ gang/
SEATTLE—“Sesame Street” is taking its beloved brand of educational television into the highly profitable world of classroom curriculum—a move that experts say could open the door for other companies to move into the sensitive learning space with possible influence on children.
Sesame Workshop, the company behind Big Bird and Elmo, and McGraw-Hill Education, a billion-dollar for-profit company, announced their partnership on Thursday.
“Sesame Workshop can be trusted to do this in an ethical way, but the door opens for other companies to do it less ethically,” said Heather Kirkorian, a University of Wisconsin professor who studies the effects of media on young children.
The TV program and Sesame Workshop’s other educational pursuits have long been lauded for their record of helping kids learn, portraying diverse characters and offering sensitivity in addressing childhood experiences.
The instructional materials are on the market for children in preschool through fifth grade, and are expected to be used in classrooms as early as fall 2019.
Immense benefits
Dr. David Hill of the American Academy of Pediatrics, which urges parents to be cautious and selective about screen time for children, said that by age 3, kids can learn from a limited viewing of high-quality TV programs like “Sesame Street,” but that little research exists on such regular media use in the classroom.
Hill, a pediatrician, said a young child’s brain cannot distinguish between program- ming and advertising, which could raise questions about the precedent that “Sesame Street” is setting.
A much-discussed study in 2015 indicated that preschoolers exposed to the show gained immense benefits, which were compared to that of the Head Start program for low-income children, though the authors of that study later rebuked the idea that the show alone could or should replace any actual school program.
“Sesame Street” has been a household brand since debuting in 1969 on television. In recent years, it lost federal funding to produce the show and has partnered with HBO.
It has also achieved cult status for its celebrity appearances, and satirizing humor that serves as a hook for parents.