Television: Friend or Foe?

Before my son was born, I was adamant that there would be no television for him until at least age 2. Ha! That went out the window as soon as we accidentally discovered that breakfast in front of the television meant eating instead of yelling and throwing food. I felt guilty at first, thinking I was being a bad mother. But then I heard my then-18-month-old use the word “humongous” correctly. And I realized that television, when used wisely, can be a useful and effective teaching tool.

I consider myself fortunate to live in an age where there are so many wonderful choices of educational television. I grew up with Sesame Street, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, The Electric Company, and Schoolhouse Rock, but my son also has Word World, Super Why, Word Girl, Sid the Science Kid, Dinosaur Train, Curious George, Fireman Sam, Handy Manny, Arthur, Wild Kratts, The Berenstain Bears, and dozens of other well-produced shows that teach everything from reading, numbers, and shapes to sharing, table manners, and safety. I work hard to teach my son his letters, colors, numbers, and shapes, but he learns them much more quickly when he sees a puppet turning into a yellow triangle and singing a song about having three angles and three sides.

Because of shows like Sesame Street and Word Girl, my 2-1/2 year old son knows words like “gigantic,” “fragile,” “scrumptious,” and “hypothesis.” Because of shows like Sid the Science Kid and Curious George, he knows how a vending machine works, why rain falls from the sky, how many legs a spider has, and what plants need to grow. Because of shows like Wild Kratts and Dinosaur Train, he knows that some animals eat plants and some eat other animals, and that some animals fly, some swim, some walk, and some crawl. Because of Arthur and the Berenstain Bears, he knows that sometimes you share toys by taking turns and sometimes by playing together. Because of Fireman Sam and Handy Manny, he knows that there are some things that you need to be very careful of because they’re hot or sharp or heavy or breakable.

Even with all these wonderful things that he’s learned, I’d still think of television as an enemy if he preferred to sit around on the couch staring at the TV instead of playing. But because of the television shows he’s seen, he is now even more creative in his playing. After watching an episode of Dinosaur Train, he’ll build a dinosaur out of Legos and tell me it has a long neck because it’s a T-Rex, or wings because it’s a pteranodon. After watching Curious George, he’ll pretend to make a kite out of paper and make it fly. After watching Fireman Sam, he’ll drive his fire truck around the room saving cats out of trees and rescuing people stuck on roofs.

So I think the answer to the question of whether television is friend or foe is that it is what you make of it. Because we watch together and talk about what we see, television has made my son more literate, more educated, and more creative. And as long as I continue to be careful about what he watches, television will continue to be not only a friend, but a teacher. I look forward to introducing him to shows like Nova, How It’s Made, and Mythbusters, so he’ll learn physics and engineering. In a few years, shows like Chopped and America’s Test Kitchen will teach him that cooking is fun and exciting. Blue Planet will introduce him to marine biology and National Geographic Wild will teach him geography and zoology. Hopefully all these shows will continue to pique his curiosity and encourage him to learn more and explore the world around him. As Dr. Scott the Paleontologist always says at the end of Dinosaur Train: “Remember, get outside, get into nature, and make your own discoveries!”

The Hidden Wit of Sesame Street

I came into the world at around the same time that Sesame Street did, so it is definitely one of the television shows I remember most strongly from my childhood. I remember Big Bird and Oscar and Grover and Telly and Herry Monster and the Count and Snuffelufagus and Gordon and Maria and Luis and Susan and Bob and Mr. Hooper. There was no Elmo or Zoe or Abby or Prairie Dawn or Murray and his little lamb. There was no Chris or Alan or Leela or Mr. Noodle. There were plenty of celebrity guest appearances, and that has certainly not changed. I suspect there were spoofs of current adult TV shows as well, but I didn’t notice them back then. But then, there are a lot of things I notice and appreciate now that I didn’t back then.

The TV show spoofs are brilliant in that they are educational for kids but absolutely hilarious for adults. For example, the other day they spoofed the HBO series, “True Blood” in a sketch called “True Mud”. A broody-looking muppet with dark hair flopping over his eyes slinks into a diner and tells the blond waitress he wants some “True Mud”. The other diners gasp and wonder aloud if he’s a…Grouch. Because only a Grouch would want true mud. Sookie (the waitress) defends him and brings him a baked potato. He pushes it away and she realizes it’s not true mud, it’s a “true spud”. A cow wanders in and offers him some of her “true cud”; a farmer gives him a broken watch, calling it a “true dud”; finally, Sookie brings out a bathtub and announces that she mixed together some dirt and water and made him a whole bunch of true mud. He jumps in, followed by Sookie and the cow. Kids love the repeated rhymes, not to mention the image of a fully clothed man – er, muppet – jumping into a tub full of mud with a cow. But adults can laugh at the sketch on a whole different level. I won’t even get into the levels of adult hilarity in a spoof like “Dancing with Triangles”, complete with muppet versions of Tom, Carrie-Ann, Len, and Bruno.

Similarly, the celebrities who appear on the show are just ordinary people to the kids. Only an adult who recognizes Ryan Reynolds as People Magazine’s Sexiest Man Alive 2010 can appreciate the humor of seeing him wearing a large blue letter A costume and declaring in his best announcer/superhero voice that words that begin with the letter A can answer any question and solve any problem. Likewise, to kids, Savion Glover is just some guy teaching the words “forward” and “backward” by dancing back and forth; to adults he’s an amazing tap dancer who could probably also teach the kids “wall” and “ceiling” by dancing on those, too. Little cameos by people like Jennifer Garner teaching the word “galoshes” or Alton Brown explaining that a recipe is a list of the steps of how to make something or Yo-Yo Ma demonstrating how to play the cello are fun for kids but appreciated in a completely different way by those of us who know who they are.

It’s no surprise that Sesame Street has earned dozens of Emmy Awards over the years. It’s a brilliantly creative show that kids can enjoy as well as learn from, and parents can enjoy watching with their kids. And now that I’m a parent, I can understand even more why parents find it so enjoyable! It’s even worth putting up with an overdose of Elmo.