Opening Sesame

TV That Inspires Learning around the World Khokha, the star of Alam Simsim, the Egyptian version of Sesame Street, is tenacious.

Visiting a library, the inquisitive, pink Muppet with a cheery, chatty voice, asks the librarian for books that will help her chose a future profession. Beginning with texts about engineers, pilots, and architects, the stack becomes so heavy and rises so high in Khokha’s arms that she can hardly stand. Hungry to explore life’s possibilities, she requests one more manual—on bodybuilding.

The scene smacks of Sesame Street’s characteristically clever and lighthearted wit, but in Egypt, where some 60 percent of the females are illiterate, Khokha has some serious lessons to teach. The groundbreaking character provides young girls in Egypt with an entirely new view of their own potential. [caption id="attachment_9050" align="alignleft" width="200" caption="A Muppet from Alam Simsim (photo © 2002 Marwan El Touny/Cairo)"][/caption] It may seem counterintuitive to ascribe political motivations to the goofy, furry puppets onSesame Street. Yet the program emerged in the late 1960s amid cultural and political turbulence in the United States, when the civil rights movement and the war on poverty brought hot-button issues such as homelessness and inner-city squalor to the national consciousness. During this time, several studies showed that children who were less well-prepared when they entered school tended to fall farther and farther behind as they moved through the grades. Poor children, who had fewer early educational opportunities than their more privileged counterparts, faced the greatest risk.

Then a team of educators, under the leadership of renowned psychologist and HGSE professor emeritus Gerald S. Lesser, seized on television as an equalizing force. As the decade turned, televisions were just as likely to illuminate living rooms in housing projects of Detroit as they were in Beverly Hills mansions. Advertisers had already capitalized on television’s capacity to deliver persuasive and memorable messages. Sesame Workshop, then known as the Children’s Television Workshop, broke new ground by packing a basic skills curriculum, founded on new and ongoing cognitive research, into lively ad-like segments. Subsequent studies showed that young children who frequently viewed the program were better prepared for school and had more developed math, vocabulary, and reading skills than children who did not, regardless of family income. Sesame Street’s multiracial cast of characters living harmoniously in a single neighborhood also aimed to teach young children about the importance of diversity, community, and tolerance. Indeed, Sesame Street had launched its own brand of social revolution.

Since the Sesame Workshop broadcast its first international program in Brazil 30 years ago, it has adapted and revised its model for individualized programming in more than 20 different countries.

That revolution now continues throughout the world. Since the Sesame Workshop broadcast its first international program in Brazil 30 years ago, it has adapted and revised its model for individualized programming in more than 20 different countries. Each country’s or region’s production reflects the culture, customs, and educational needs of its people. The productions also confront some of the most pressing social issues of the time.

In Egypt, for instance, the character of Khokha directly challenges the inequitable position of girls and women in the country. This fall, in South Africa, the program introduces Kami, a shy, mustard-colored, orphan Muppet whose name means acceptance in the Tswana language. Healthy, affectionate Kami is also HIV-positive. Her hopes that children will want to play with her address the country’s AIDS crisis and AIDS education—a goal of the program’s South African government sponsors. On the Israeli-Palestinian segment, Dafi, an Israeli puppet with pigtails, and Haneen, Dafi’s Palestinian complement, would, until the recent Intifada, occasionally enjoy lunch together—as long as the meal did not include onions. The two characters’ mutual distaste for the food sent a carefully constructed message: if Palestinian and Israeli children share similar likes and dislikes, then maybe understanding and friendship can grow between them.

Education’s New Leading Role  Just five years ago, only 44 percent of Egyptian girls attended school; male attendance was about 20 percent higher. Under the leadership of Suzanne Mubarak, Egypt’s first lady since 1981, however, educating children—girls in particular—has become a national priority. With $21 billion in aid since 1979 from the U. S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the primary funder for the Egyptian Sesame Street, Alam Simsim, the country has built nearly 2,000 schools, many of them in poor, rural areas. Enrollment of children of both sexes has risen dramatically in recent years, and the gender enrollment gap has dropped to 10 percent.

When Alam Simsim premiered in 2000, the Egyptian populace was ripe for a program dedicated to children’s education. “Nine months after the show started, its popularity blew out of proportion,” says producer Amr Koura, who sometimes appears on the program with his two young children. “Right now, it is the number-one show watched by families in Egypt.” A study conducted by MEMRB International, a Cyprus-based market research organization, found that the majority of Egyptian children watch or know of Alam Simsim.

Says Sesame Workshop's Charlotte Cole, “If you’re learning to count by counting apples, and you’ve never seen an apple, you’re just not going to absorb it as readily as you would if you were counting mangoes, and mangoes are indigenous to your country. It’s that simple.”

As a result, Koura himself has become something of a celebrity. During a visit to remote northern Egypt, a woman flush with excitement rushed to greet him. She had seen Koura in three segments in which he plays hide-and-seek with his daughter, teaches her how to ride a bike, and pushes her on a swing. “At first, I couldn’t understand why these segments would mean so much to her,” he recalls. The woman explained that after her son had watched the segments, he asked his father if they could spend more time together. “The woman told me, ‘You changed my son’s relationship with his father.’”

That kind of feedback, says Koura, is as critical as high viewership numbers, and it has become commonplace. He says the show’s writers designed Khokha to spark intellectual curiosity and ambition in young Egyptian girls. Through her actions, she tells them to “dream big.” When Koura films segments on location in rural areas of Egypt, little girls bombard him with questions about their favorite Muppet. When he asks them what they would like to be when they grow up, the girls often say, “A doctor, just like Khokha,” or “An astronaut, just like Khokha.”

Viewers of Alam Simsim send between 200 and 300 letters to the production offices every day, and although the program’s female characters contrast with traditional societal views, not one of the letters has chastised the program for its depiction of girls and women. “The younger generations hold new perspectives on gender roles,” says Koura. “We tailor the program for them.”

Sesame Street Hits the Road As vice president for education and research for the Sesame Workshop, it is up to Charlotte Cole, Ed.D.’93, to ensure that Alam Simsim’s emphasis on girls’ education reflects local demands—not American cultural ideals. The same holds true for the introduction of an HIV-positive character in South Africa, and any other aspects of the 20 international Sesame Street productions.

Cole oversees the research and content development of all international broadcasts. ForAlam Simsim, Egyptian education experts wrote more than 100 pages in reports on the state of health care, girls’ education, language, religion, and family life in Egypt. Then the experts fielded questions from Alam Simsim’s writers and producers. During the production process, Alam Simsim’s local director of research completed several other smaller studies with children in order to determine their literacy and numeracy skills, as well as their understanding of certain life skills, such as health practices. All of the settings, characters, and scripts in every Sesame Street production incorporate such findings. Each season brings new research, new data, and children’s programming that evolve with the times.

Accessible—and Relevant—Curricula  The exhaustive research that shapes each program simply makes curriculum more culturally relevant and, therefore, more accessible, says Cole. “If you’re learning to count by counting apples, and you’ve never seen an apple, you’re just not going to absorb it as readily as you would if you were counting mangoes, and mangoes are indigenous to your country. It’s that simple,” she says. According to David Kleeman, executive director of the American Center for Children and Media, no other children’s program holds so strong a commitment to reflecting the changing cultural and political realities of children. “The idea of constant research and evaluation acknowledges that childhood is dynamic, and that every child grows up in a different time, with different needs,” he says. “Sesame Street really stands alone in children’s media.”

Whereas Israeli and Palestinian characters interacted with one another in earlier seasons, in July the producers decided that such meetings were no longer plausible, given the waves of violence in the Middle East.

When it comes to the goal of teaching tolerance and acceptance of diversity, the Middle East provides an often unforgiving testing ground. The Sesame Workshop proposed the idea of an Israeli-Palestinian coproduction in 1994 on the heels of the Oslo Peace Accord. At the time, Palestinian producers insisted that their characters needed their own street. So, the Israeli characters lived on Rechov Sumsum, a street with an ice-cream parlor and a view of the Mediterranean, and the Palestinian characters lived on Shara’a Simsim, a street with an Arab candy store and the West Bank in the background. Whereas Israeli and Palestinian characters interacted with one another in earlier seasons, in July the producers decided that such meetings were no longer plausible, given the waves of violence in the Middle East. So they changed the name of the program from Sesame Street toSesame Stories. Sesame Stories, known in Hebrew as Sippuray Sumum and in Arabic as Hikayat Sijsim, will portray literature and folklore from each region while still promoting messages of respect and understanding. But the characters, at least for now, will stay in their own neighborhoods.

Likewise, the Palestinian producers can no longer travel to Tel Aviv for meetings, so the producers now meet near London or in New York, or communicate via e-mail and telephone. Despite the new format, Israeli producers want to broadcast a new season of shows as soon as possible, hoping the cheery Muppets will help counteract the images of violence and hatred in the media. The Palestinian producers, however, do not hold the same perspective. “Children in Palestine today will not appreciate, understand, absorb, and react in a positive way to the goals we want to accomplish,” Daoud Kuttab, the Palestinian executive producer of Hikayat Sijsim, told the New York Times this past summer. “You’re telling them to be tolerant of Israelis when Israeli tanks are outside their homes.”

Creative Compromises In one story, reported by the New York Times, a Palestinian girl who lives in a refugee camp finds a tin can on the street and decides to plant a rose in it. When she succeeds in nurturing the flower, other refugees follow her lead, and together they plant a garden. Israeli producers objected to the girl picking up the tin can because Israeli children have been taught not to retrieve stray objects lest they contain bombs. The producers collectively decided to change the object to a clear water bottle.

“It’s slow going over there,” Cole says. “We’re determined to help children see one another as humans, as people who have needs that are similar to their own; as children who have families, grandparents; as children who go to school.”

Takalani Sesame, the South African production, also bears the burden of creating a lively, engaging program that helps children cope with life-altering—and life-threatening—circumstances. Takalani Sesame’s characters speak each of South Africa’s 11 official languages in an effort to instill national pride in the country’s post-Apartheid children. “Our research team had many deep discussions about how to reach the largest audience,” says Salie Abrahams, Ed.M.’91, Ed.D.’95, former director of research forTakalani Sesame and a native of South Africa. The researchers decided that Takalani Sesame should be broadcast in English, but its characters must also speak Zulu, Swazi, Tsonga, Afrikaans, and so on. “We want to start our children with the idea of being proud of their country. We want them to be proud as individuals, proud of their communities, and proud of their languages—even their accents,” says Abrahams. Because many children in South Africa do not have access to television, Takalani Sesame circulates its lessons by radio and through outreach programs as well.

On Takalani Sesame, a segment designed to foster acceptance might depict a jubilant entourage of youngsters and Muppets, some of whom are known to have HIV, playing together.

Janice Fuld, Ed.M.’00, a senior researcher for theSesame Street programs in Egypt, Germany, Holland, and South Africa, recently met an HIV-positive woman in Johannesburg who has agreed to appear on an episode ofTakalani Sesame with her two children, one of whom is also HIV-positive. The woman, a vibrant community activist, had become a role model in her community for other HIV-positive people. “When she first told people that she was HIV-positive,” Fuld says, “they said, ‘You can’t have HIV. You’re too healthy.’” From this encounter and others, the Takalani Sesame research team saw the need to confront the stereotype that people with HIV must be sickly, thin, and unable to participate in the community. “One way that the team has decided to do this is by developing an intelligent, upbeat Muppet that is HIV-positive and healthy,” Fuld says.

In a country in which 4.7 million, or one in nine, people are HIV-positive, and a substantial number of children have lost a parent to AIDS, every generation must learn to cope with illness and loss. Takalani Sesame’s research team strives to find age-appropriate ways to explore these tough issues—without losing the show’s fun-loving spirit. Children on the program might draw pictures or hum songs that remind them of loved ones they have lost. Or a segment designed to foster acceptance might depict a jubilant entourage of youngsters and Muppets, some of whom are known to have HIV, playing together. “We’re working on segments that show children that you can’t become infected by hugging, holding hands, or playing together,” says Fuld. “We’re focusing on the positive side of things.”

Sesame Street, in any translation, has mastered the art of injecting humor, kindness, wonderment, and a downright good time into learning about any subject. It imagines a world of endless avenues to explore, where the curious and compassionate among us reap the greatest rewards. There, a bright yellow, eight-foot bird befriends a Snuffalupagus who is invisible to adults; a grouchy trash-can dweller cannot hide his deeply sentimental nature; alphabet letters take wild adventures; worms journey to the moon. As these characters explore the rocky terrain of wars, epidemics, and social change, they carry a powerful message that despite its many painful challenges, life is ready and waiting to reveal a sweeter side. In the end, perhaps the beloved program’s most potent educational tool lies in its hopefulness about the human spirit.