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It’s Time To Apply The Sesame Street Solution
Let the record reflect that I have been 36-year fan of “Sesame Street,” which turns 50 this year, and was recently feted at the Kennedy Center Honors. My affection and high regard for “Sesame Street” goes back to 1983, the birth year of our first child, and continued on through the births and growing up of two more children. The program, and I say this with no shame at all, lingers on in our house even today — years after our kids moved out — when I catch “Sesame Street” as a guilty pleasure. It is a bright and thought-provoking pool of light in the otherwise dreary shadows of today’s news cycles and political Strum und Drang.
In December 2nd’s “Washington Post’s” “Pop Culture” column, “A Friend to Everyone,” Hank Stuever offered a masterful and touching review of “Sesame Street’s” half-century of education and personal revelation. I recommend the column to anyone who has had even a tangential connection to what is far more than just a children’s puppet show. It is must reading for everyone who watched the program, because Stuever reminds us of just what it was that connected all of us — young and old — to that unique neighborhood where learning numbers and letters was fun, and where humans, characters, and emotions of every description were welcome.
Stuever interviewed Sesame Workshop President and CEO Jeffrey D. Dunn, who said:
