Not Just for Children
Sat., June 11, 11:59 AM
I was looking at some old computer files this morning, and I found the following article, which I wrote before I started blogging. I think perhaps I wrote it for my student when I was a reading tutor. (That would explain the style.) Anyhow, I still like it, and maybe you will too.
“Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away…” Those words introduced Sesame Street more than thirty years ago, and you can still hear them several times a day on Public Television.
I didn’t let my children watch television unless I watched with them, so I watched Sesame Street too. The program teaches children letters and numbers. It shows them words that are on signs, like DANGER and STOP. I could continue to teach the same lessons when we were doing something else.
It was interesting for grown-ups as well as for children. You never know where you can learn something. I learned to count in Spanish. I loved the songs and the little jokes. Children absorb as much as they are able to. It is good to make a children’s television show more complicated. My children are now adults, but they still enjoy Sesame Street.
This week I am watching Sesame Street again, all by myself. On the news I heard that part of this week’s lesson is hurricanes. There was a big hurricane on Sesame Street. Everyone got ready for the storm. They taped windows and got flashlights and bottled water. Big Bird, who is like a six-year-old, stayed overnight in someone else’s apartment. When the lights went out, they played games with the flashlights.
Next morning the storm was over. The street was a mess! Everyone started to clean up. Big Bird went back to his nest, but the wind had blown it away. He was very sad. “My nest,” he kept saying, “my home.”
For the rest of the week the people on Sesame Street will clean up and work together to rebuild Big Bird’s home. I still love that show!
