Teaching With TV

Bert and Ernie, Sesame Street's beloved buddies, helped teach children how to get along.

Today, many parents take for granted that TV shows for children can teach them life skills and educational fundamentals like counting, reading, math and science. But this type of children's TV programming didn't always exist, and it may never have become popular without the pioneering work of shows like, "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" and "Sesame Street."

Both of these shows borrowed elements from a generation of local kids' TV programming that sprouted up around the nation and was experimental in nature. Local children’s programming dabbled with puppets and animation, various types of humor and hosts that portrayed everything from teachers to clowns. From this dynamic, if uneven, programming field, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and “Sesame Street” attempted something more. These pioneering shows drew on the mesmerizing power of television to educate young children in everything from social graces to the fundamentals of reading and math.

However, when these programs debuted on the air in the late 1960s, many had given up on the great hope that the medium of television could be cultivated for educational purposes at all.

The Great Hope For a New Medium

In the mid-1940s, when television was young, the box of light that delivered moving pictures into America’s living rooms held the promise of a new and better future in which the middle and lower classes would have more access to cultural and educational experiences. But by the mid-1950s, as more than half of American homes had at least one television, the promise of this new medium was dimming. In 1955, the term “idiot box,” a pejorative nickname for television, first debuted in the nation’s lexicon, and, by and large, network programming was entertainment-based and light on intellectual fare. Decent children’s programming was scattershot, filled with advertisements and increasingly violent. Local kids’ programming, such as “Wallace and Ladmo” in Phoenix, Arizona, and “Bozo The Clown” in Washington D.C., filled some of the void, but still there wasn’t any nationally broadcast educational programming that would help elevate preschoolers.

Angry that the great promise of television was falling flat, parent groups and activists lobbied Congress to mandate better programming for children. Even the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) Chairman Newton N. Minnow got a jab in on commercial television when in 1961 he implored the National Association of Broadcasters to improve television programming for the youngest Americans. In general, his clarion call fell on deaf ears.

The Puppet Connection

But a small show that debuted on National Educational Television (NET) in 1968 heralded a sea change in the way Americans thought of TV programming for youth. When “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” aired, it featured a soft-spoken Presbyterian minister, Fred Rogers, who encouraged children to express their emotions and creativity. Rogers also brought along many of the puppet characters he’d developed in his years with “The Children’s Corner,” an unscripted local kids’ TV show that aired in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Fred Rogers was a pioneer in using puppets in educational television.

“[Rogers] considered this his ministry,” says Margaret Mary Kimmel, professor emerita in the University of Pittsburgh’s school of Information Services and a consultant on reading and books for the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” show. Kimmel says Rogers was committed to making each child who viewed the show feel as if he or she were being addressed personally. And even as the program served to uplift viewers, Rogers didn’t steer clear of messy subjects like divorce and death. Kimmel notes Rogers had the training needed for the job.  “As a minister you talk about tough things with people,” she says.

Rogers got top-notch training in child development, too. While in seminary school at the University of Pittsburgh, Rogers took classes at the Arsenal & Family Children’s Center, a non-profit founded by famed pediatrician Dr. Benjamin Spock as a training site for medical students to observe normal child behavior.

“Fred took his puppets and he went over there and he played and observed,” says Kimmel. She recalls Rogers telling her about a little girl who he observed was using a puppet to help her process a scolding she’d received.  The idea that puppets could be used to relieve children’s fears and anxieties became central to Rogers’ future programming.

Read more about the educational philosophy behind "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood."

‘Sesame’ Success

In 1970, The Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) replaced NET, and another fledgling show was grabbing headlines as a vehicle for educational development  aimed at the pre-school crowd. But “Sesame Street” -- the brainchild of TV producer Joan Ganz Cooney and Lloyd Morrisett, vice president of the Carnegie Foundation -- was a different animal from its predecessors. “Sesame Street” was meant to target children who didn’t have the benefit of Head Start, a non-profit early childhood education program for at-risk children.

The show was federally funded, so it could run without the interruption of commercials, but it also had to prove that it could truly teach youngsters their ABCs, if the program had any hope of continued funding.

Extensive research went into each segment of the show to determine if an animated short film or a puppet segment was the best vehicle to teach the alphabet to youngsters. This type of documented research helped bolster the case that “Sesame Street” was successful in teaching children educational fundamentals, and it strengthened the case for continued funding, too. Early on, this sort of testing also proved what types of humor can hold a child’s attention.

“The cartoons and puppets went over great, but the studio segments -- the segments with the people in them -- those segments completely bombed. The adults thought they were very funny, but it went over the kids’ heads,” says Robert W. Morrow,  author of ‘Sesame Street and the Reform of Children’s television.’”

“‘Sesame Street’ is measurably educational; It is systematically educational,” says Morrow, who contends that this model proved to naysayers that kids’ television can truly fulfill its mission to deliver early education to children in an engaging way.

Read more about the educational philosophy behind "Sesame Street."

Today, PBS has built on the fundamentals of these pioneering programs and continues to air TV content that has strong curricular goals. Programs such as “Curious George” and “Dinosaur Train” entertain and challenge kids to learn the fundamental principles of engineering, math, science and reading. It’s a legacy of learning, built with the passion of educators and parents, which “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” and “Sesame Street” leaves to us.

Related PBS Video

Fred Rogers on "The Children's Corner"

Unlike his scripted work on “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” Fred Rogers and Josey Carey provided off-the-cuff skits on their show, "The Children’s Corner."

Mr. Rogers: It's You I Like

Mr. Rogers often broached serious subjects on his show. In this unscripted clip, Rogers introduces his young audience to Jeff Erlanger, a wheelchair-bound youngster who explains how he deals with feelings of sadness. Together, Rogers and Erlanger sing “It’s You I Like.”