This week, as a Tough Pigs experiment and as a personal challenge, I have decided to watch every episode of Sesame Street in its entirety, and report on my harrowing experience to you. I haven’t watched Sesame Street for a few years, so this is my first exposure to “Elmo’s World.” Pray for me.
Hey, hasn’t Gordon gotten fat! Sorry to start on such a personal note, cause I love the guy, but still. He’s also doing a lot of unnecessary takes to the camera, really hamming it up. Elmo, Zoe and Telly meet up with an Australian “alphabet explorer,” who’s looking for a Dotted Dinging D here in “the wilds of Sesame Street.” We hear some didgeridoo as the monsters volunteer to help track the D. Okay, fine. Then there are a bunch of inserts, all very modern looking and well-directed, but I’m starting to get mesmerised. So many jump cuts. I can’t look away.
One of the themes for this episode is “imagination,” and Big Bird imagines an elephant dancing — and then he’s joined by a Muppet elephant in a pink tutu, dancing. Great elephant puppet, but isn’t the point of imagination supposed to be that we don’t see the elephant? Maria shows us some computer-animated clouds, and asks what we imagine we see — but then she informs us that we see elephants, and the clouds promptly morph into elephants. Huh.
Then there’s a song about exploring, with a bunch of kids “investigating” — which mainly seems to consist of swimming and then looking through a magnifying glass at nothing at all — while an offscreen adult implores them to “Explore! Examine it carefully! Go explore! Satisfy your curiosity!” It’s starting to get relentless. “We get to learn about the things we see! Come on and explore with me!” No! I don’t want to! Just leave me alone!
Phew. Then there’s a new segment, “Ernie’s Show and Tell,” where a little girl, Sydney, shows Ernie a picture that she drew. He asks her to describe the picture. She shows him herself, her brother, and Ernie playing. Ernie is delighted: “Oh, thank you! You drew me on a sliding board!” Ernie sees that she drew a bright sunny day, the swing set, and the slide. I actually just read a great book called How to Talk So Kids Will Learn, by Adele Faber and Elaine Mazlish, and they recommend praising kids’ work in precisely this way. You don’t have to tell the kid, “This is great, this is bad.” Just describe what you see. If that’s what the child was trying to convey, then she will praise herself for accomplishing her goal. As the adult, you don’t have to make her feel like she needs your judgement for everything.
Ernie is describing everything, and not making judgements. I noticed recently that Faber and Mazlish have a daily column on the Sesame Workshop Parents’ website, and now I see their influence on the show itself. Sydney is clearly so happy to have Ernie describe her picture. She’s thrilled. This is my favorite segment so far.
Meanwhile, I’m finding the quest for the Dinging D somewhat uninvolving. To tell you the truth, I couldn’t care less if they find the Dinging D or not. Things perk up when Gina arrives — and look! She’s wearing a fab powder-blue lab coat and has just finished giving Barkley a checkup. I don’t remember Gina being a vet! Gosh, they grow up so fast. Gina suggests to the monsters that they try to lure the D by making D sounds, so they stand around and go: “Duh. Duh. Duh.” [Insert obvious joke here.]
It works. They find the D. The explorer is thrilled. Elmo goes off to feed his goldfish. Fast-forward through a long “alphabet jungle” cartoon which saps my will to live.
But then it’s “Elmo’s World!” Elmo is taking care of his goldfish, Dorothy, in a make-believe bedroom made of magic crayon lines. Today, Elmo wants to learn about Teeth. First, he asks his friend Mr. Noodle for help. He looks through his shade — but it’s not Mr. Noodle! “It’s Mr. Noodle’s brother, Mr. Noodle!”
I have to admit that I’m finding this charming. Mr. Noodle is a silly clown-mime type in a brown suit, who messes up all of Elmo’s tooth-brushing instructions. Elmo and some off-screen kids encourage Mr. Noodle to keep trying, and he finally brushes his teeth properly. Then some live kids appear to explain tooth-brushing again to Dorothy the goldfish.
The relationship between the kids and Mr. Noodle is really interesting: In this world, Elmo and the kids know all the answers. This is exactly the opposite of that crummy “Explore! Explore!” song. That was an adult telling kids what to do, but not really giving them an actual topic to be interested in. I got the same feeling from Gina suggesting the “D sound” trick to the monsters. “Elmo’s World” gets it just right; the kids are the ones who can figure things out, and Elmo is giving us interesting questions to guide us through the research process.
“Now Elmo will ask a baby!” He interviews a live baby, then notices that the baby doesn’t have any teeth. Then he sees that Dorothy doesn’t have any teeth! “That makes Elmo wonder — what has teeth and what doesn’t have teeth? Let’s find out.” Do birthday cakes have teeth? (Off-screen kids: No!) Do birds have teeth? (Kids: No, they have beaks!)
Wow. It’s obvious to me that they did a ton of research on how to teach kids critical thinking skills in a way that actually engages them. Then Elmo gets a funny video e-mail (from the Count!) about toothbrushing. Elmo learns from a TV show on the Teeth Channel. Then he talks to the Wisdom Tooth to learn even more about teeth, and imagines himself as a cute red beaver, a shark and an elephant.
This comes as a complete surprise to me, but I was mostly bored by Sesame today, except for Ernie’s Show and Tell, and I was charmed and amused by “Elmo’s World.” Sesame was all about adults having the answers and giving kids instructions. “Elmo’s World” is all about kids getting interested in a topic, asking questions, making observations and drawing conclusions. Say what you like about The Red Menace (and I have, I have), “Elmo’s World” gets the pedagogy right. From now on, if you got a problem with Elmo, then you got a problem with me. I got that monster’s back.
by Danny Horn
