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A report to Carnegie Corporation of New York — The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education by Joan Ganz Cooney — 1 — In 1966, Joan Ganz Cooney was a documentary producer at Channel 13 when Lloyd Morrisett, then Vice President at the Carnegie Corporation of New York, offered her an opportunity that would change the landscape of children’s media forever. The Carnegie Corporation provided funding for a three-month study during which Joan traveled the country to interview early learning experts and children’s television producers and filmmakers. Her report, The Potential Uses of Television for Preschool Education, became the blueprint for Sesame Street and Children’s Television Workshop, and today it drives our efforts at the Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop, a research and innovation lab she founded in 2007. We are grateful to Joan and Lloyd for their vision and leadership. We are pleased to share Joan’s original, unedited report and hope you will find both food for thought and inspiration within these pages. With special thanks to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. — 2 — Contents Preface ....................... 4 The Power of an Idea ............. 7 A Timely Experiment in ........... 6 Carrying a Vision Forward ......... 8 Television and Education A Blueprint for the Future ......... 9 The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education Introduction .................................................. 13 Section I — The Preschooler and Preschool Education .......... 13 Section II — Television and the Preschool Child ............... 18 Section III — What Leading Educators Think About a ............. 22 Television Series for Preschoolers Section IV — Recommendations for a Television Series .......... 26 A. General and Specific Aims 26 B. The Problem of Differences Among Three, 29 Four and Five-Year-Olds C. Format and Frequency 30 D. Ways Television Can Both Entertain and 31 Teach Young Children E. Some General Comments on Teaching 38 Children via Television Section V — Television for Parents ........................... 40 Section VI — Television and the Disadvantaged Child ........... 42 Section VII — Kits and Books ................................... 45 Addendum .................................................. 47 Photos from Sesame Workshop’s Archive ........................... 48 Preface You may have heard that We knew that it would also be important to attract the mothers who were often at home television programming in during the day, so they would enjoy the show and talk about it with their children. I was thrilled the 1960s was called a “vast when the show premiered on PBS in November 1969, and even more thrilled when the research wasteland” by then-FCC showed that children who had watched the show Chairman Newton Minow. gained critical kindergarten readiness skills over those who had not. I am proud that the show, From the beginning, Lloyd and the company that we founded, The Children’s Television Workshop, (renamed Sesame Workshop Morrisett and I were both in 2000), continues to make children all over the convinced that television— world smarter, stronger, and kinder today. which was capturing the During the 1960s, of course, family lives were quite different from what they are today. More attention of children as often than not, both parents work outside of the home, and young children have many more nothing else was—did have entertainment options than ever before. Children from lower-income families in particular need the power to educate as more support and guidance to catch up to the well as to entertain, and advantages that those from more affluent families enjoy. In 2007, I wanted the Joan Ganz we set out to prove it. Cooney Center to continue to ask the questions that drove the creation of the show, “How can children learn from emerging technologies?” It was back in 1966 when I wrote my original Smart phones and tablets are everywhere now, report, The Potential Uses of Television in and we know children are using them. How can Preschool Education. This study was supported we create content that is beneficial to young by Lloyd, Vice President at Carnegie Corporation, children? And what do producers need to know who found himself concerned by the very power about the varied ways family members engage and appeal that a television screen had over his with these devices separately—and together? own young daughter—at three years old, she would turn on the TV early in the morning and sit I am thrilled that Sesame Workshop has been able down to watch test patterns as she waited for to impact the lives of so many children around something to come on. She, like many other the world for the past 50 years, and it is my hope young children, had the capacity to memorize all that we can continue to make as great an impact the advertising jingles they heard. We asked the in new media as we have with television, and that question, “Could that fascination with television the Workshop is able to continue to educate and be transformed into something that could teach inspire producers, researchers, and policymakers them how to read?” So, a simple conversation who are helping to shape the lives of young over dinner with friends turned into an opportunity people today. to produce this report, a proposal to the Carnegie Corporation, that launched Sesame Street. Joan Ganz Cooney I gathered the smartest, most talented people I Co-founder could find to produce what I wanted to become a Sesame Workshop television program for children that could positively impact their lives—especially those young children who had no access to early preschool education. — 4 — Joan with the Muppets. — 5 — A Timely Experiment in Television and Education In the spring of 1966, Joan Cooney completed her landmark study of television and early education for the Carnegie Corporation. It was entitled The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education. The 1960s created a climate for social change and encouraged people to seek it. Television had become the medium with the greatest reach but offered little of benefit for children and was seen by many as “a vast wasteland.” The country had become sensitized to the problems of early education because of the failure of large numbers of children in urban communities and schools. New York City was a primary example, where a black child would come to school a few months Lloyd Morrisett leads a research behind in first grade and be a year and one-half meeting in 1968 behind by third grade. This was a common finding. Joan Cooney’s study was finished while the The Educational Policies Commission of the administration of President Lyndon Johnson was National Education Association proposed that pursuing one of the most ambitious policy all children should have the opportunity to go agendas in American history. President Johnson to school at public expense beginning at the age wanted to create the “Great Society”—to end of four. If the NEA’s recommendation had gone poverty, promote equality, improve education, into effect, about five million more 4- and rejuvenate cities and protect the environment. 5-year-olds would have been added to the school The study offered a possible way to use television rolls. The United States did not have the funds, to meet the national need for more and better the school rooms, nor the teachers to act on pre-school education, and it was the precursor this recommendation. to a complete proposal to test the idea. In 1968 Carnegie, the Ford Foundation, and the U. S. Office of Education joined together to provide the funds for the experiment in television and education that became Sesame Street. Lloyd Morrisett Co-founder and Chairman Emeritus of the Board, Sesame Workshop Vice President, Carnegie Corporation of New York, 1964-1969 — 6 — The Power of an Idea In the annals of American It was Joan Ganz Cooney who came up with the revolutionary idea to harness the power of philanthropy, the most television for good. Lloyd Morrisett, then vice president of programs at Carnegie Corporation successful endeavors usually of New York, was an expert in technology and early childhood education who saw the come out of a confluence transformational possibilities of Joan’s plan. of vision, expertise, and Alan Pifer, the Corporation’s president, together with the board, backed up their vision and financial support. This is the expertise with a $15,000 grant to produce a study of children’s television. With later collaboration case in the development of with the Ford Foundation, that study led to the creation of the Children’s Television Workshop the world’s most beloved (now Sesame Workshop). educational television Joan Ganz Cooney’s favorite expression, often program, Sesame Street. attributed to Tolstoy, is “All big ideas start as simple ones.” In the case of Sesame Street, the show’s extraordinary impact proves this principle. A simple idea became an international phenomenon that is still admired and presented throughout the world. Five decades on, it is enormously gratifying to reflect on the role Carnegie Corporation and Ford Foundation played in the creation of Sesame Street. We are proud of this investment, which continues to have a resounding impact on early childhood education at home and abroad. Vartan Gregorian President Carnegie Corporation — 7 — Carrying a Vision Forward When Joan Ganz Cooney Seeing massive potential where others saw mere diversion, Joan’s thinking was visionary—and as began her study, I don’t think the current CEO of Sesame Workshop, I well understand the size of the shoes that are mine she could have imagined to fill. The organization she and Lloyd Morrisett launched has, for half a century now, been on that the path she started a continuous, relentless, and highly successful down would one day become crusade to help kids get ready for school and for life. the longest street in the Today, by carrying forth that original vision to world.

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