Sesame Street Premiere

The first episode of Sesame Street, which aired November 10th, 1969, reflects societal concerns towards youth at that time. Throughout the episode, there are moments where one can apply aspects from Jean Piaget’s cognitive developmental theory to the techniques that Sesame Street uses to “educate” children.

The lesson on differences is played out by a cartoon triangle and square, showing not everyone can be the same, and that’s okay. This is also important when looking at how Sesame Street educates children. By giving these shapes human thoughts and characteristics, it plays into the animistic thought process of a child in their preoperational stage, according to Piaget.

The importance of sharing is taught throughout the scene where Bob is reading the last newspaper he purchases for himself, as he still gives out a page to each person that surrounds him based on their interests. These lessons add to the underlying goal of this episode, which is to create a basic foundation for teaching children how to become more productive and well rounded citizens.

Another concern that stood out to me was in Man from the Alphabet. The bad guys stole all the newspapers in hopes that if no one knows what’s going on in the world then they would “take over.” This echoed ideas of “fake news” into my mind, where certain people in power have a similar stance towards the media.

To get across these ideas, Sesame Street uses assimilation to help introduce new information into already existing information. For instance, in the “D” skit, they show images of a dog, duck, and dinosaur to explain that the letter D is used for each word. This helps kids to understand the alphabet by associating a letter with something they likely already know. The “2” skit also uses this formula.

Each skit teaches a new lesson and jumps from one idea to the next, to form cognitive schemes and ultimately create building blocks to be used in their everyday lives.