Sesame Street, the longest-running children’s show in American television history that revolutionized educational TV programming, turned 50 this year. Not many people realize the role Harvard Graduate School of Education played in creating this iconic show. Harvard psychologist Gerald Lesser chaired the board of advisers of the Children’s Television Workshop for 28 years, which created Sesame Street. The partnership between Harvard and the show is continued to this day.
I took two Sesame Street courses – Informal Learning Children and Field Experience in 21st Century Early-Childhood Learning – with Joe Blatt, faculty director of Ed.M in Technology, Innovation, and Education. These courses opened my eyes to the influence of media exposure on children’s development and learning. I realized how the catchy songs, characters, and narrative design and structure are supported by years of research driven by a longstanding partnership with HGSE.
Every session of Informal Learning in Children was packed with guest speakers from Sesame Workshop and other organizations such as Guard Up, lectures from Joe, and group work. It was so valuable to learn about the project proposal process and to work with a small group to put the theories into action by developing an informal learning product. My group managed to put together a complete 40-page proposal with objectives, key attributes of target audience, formative evaluation, outreach design, and plans for impact evaluation and pitched our ideas on the last day of class!
I had the opportunity to take Field Experience in 21st Century Early-Childhood Learning in the spring. I gained a deeper understanding of Sesame Workshop and the breadth of the work they do, as well as about topics such as family and community engagement and digital inequality and development trajectories in low-income and minority children. I was able to apply everything I learned in class through the project on Health Communication and Promotion, working directly with mentors at Sesame Workshop. Joe was there to support us throughout the process and pushed us to be bold and creative. My group gave a pitch to leaders at Sesame at the end of the semester which was an experience I have never dreamed of.
I attended HGSE’s Sesame at 50 event: Celebrating 50 years of Sesame Street. It was a perfect combination of rich educational content on Sesame’s history, as well as its partnership with HGSE, yet so playful and fun to watch with muppets and musical performances.
I am so grateful for Joe’s devotion in preparing graduates to take on key roles in educational media and for maintaining the strong partnership between HGSE and Sesame Workshop. Joe is such a great professor, both in terms of content knowledge and in creating a warm, welcoming, productive classroom culture.
There is no one-size-fits-all with technology and it is constantly changing and evolving which is why I find this field fascinating. It important to continue to design, produce, and evaluate technology-based resources that support teaching and learning especially today. The show not only helps children grow smarter, stronger, and kinder but leaves lasting lifelong lessons that many remember well into adulthood. My work with Sesame Workshop through HGSE has been an experience of a lifetime that I will never forget.
Author
Melina Kim is an Ed.M candidate in Technology, Innovation & Education at HGSE and a Master of Bioethics candidate at Harvard Medical School. Her academic pursuits focus on morally challenging aspects of healthcare and issues in the biomedical sciences, as well as researching and designing technologies and media that promote powerful educational tools and engaged learning.
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