However, there is a dark side to Postman. A skeleton in the closet, bodies buried in the garden, schoolchildren caged in the basement. A shameful past people having only a passing familiarity with his work miss entirely and those who know it well prefer to forget. Because Postman committed one of the few unforgivable sins left in America. No, he didn't appeal to reason in a political debate or show his boobies at the Superbowl.
The dude harshed on the Muppets.
Along with baseball, apple pie, bank bailouts, and stochastic invasions, Sesame Street is an American institution. Since 1969, it has been proffering daily PBS programming featuring colorful happy smiling singsong instruction of the nation's youth in the rudiments of math, spelling, and social interaction. Fighting the good fight, giving kids a leg up on the education curve, helping them learn their ABCs and 123s while scarfing down Frosted Sugar Bombs in front of the teev. The show is wildly popular among parents, educators, and children alike, in no small part to Jim Henson's Muppets. Kermit, Big Bird, Cookie Monster, Oscar the Grouch, Elmo, and all the others got their start there and have since become household names.
Questioning the virtue of Sesame Street would be like punching Mr. Rogers in the throat. Yet, that is exactly what Postman did. He devotes a chapter in Amusing Ourselves to Death to the program, turning his unforgiving critical acumen on the Muppets and their mission statement. Postman doesn't doubt the show's good intentions, but his central thesis that television is poorly suited for information exchange applies equally to PBS as it does to CNN. Television can entertain, but it cannot educate. Pretending otherwise is not only foolish, it is dangerous.
The primary concern here is less a compromise of the subject matter than it is the creation of inappropriate expectations. The clarion cry of supporters is that Sesame Street teaches children to love school. In fact, it does just the opposite. As Postman explains:
We now know that "Sesame Street" encourages children to love school only if school is like "Sesame Street." Which is to say, we now know that "Sesame Street" undermines what the traditional idea of schooling represents. ... If we are to blame "Sesame Street" for anything, it is for the pretense that it is any ally of the classroom. That, after all, has been its chief claim on foundation and public money. As a television show, and a good one, "Sesame Street" does not encourage children to love school or anything about school. It encourages them to love television.Postman's critique has far-reaching implications. Our public school failings are not the fault of NCLB or the NEA or MTV or the Internet or single mothers or crack; they are the fault of Sesame Street. An expectation of education-as-entertainment simply cannot be supported in the long term to any meaningful end. If learning to count is an event worthy of a happy vampire, then addition and subtraction must be at least worth a juggling clown. Long division surely deserves cake and a party. Algebra Red Bull and a skateboard. By the time matriculation rolls around, we're going to be promising that doing calculus is just like having a crazy stripper girlfriend in a vain attempt at piquing student interest.
Counterpoint: School is hard. It's not hard in the Calvinist sense, where if you're not one of the elect you're condemned to eternal hellfire no matter what you do. It's hard like learning a musical instrument is hard. Something that's going to take dedication and work to get good at. But it isn't unachievable. Lot's of people do it. (Heck, Sid Vicious learned to play the bass. Sort of.) Succeed and have a real accomplishment worthy of pride. However, fail to put in the effort and you'll suck. Forever.
That is the lesson we should be teaching our children. And, yes, there's going to be people who are naturally better at it than you. Life isn't fair. (Although I would point out the "born genius" myth is just that -- a myth. Richard Feynman often gets the label, which conveniently overlooks the early chapters in Gleick's biography with Feynman's face pressed into a book while the rest of the Far Rockaway boys were out playing stickball and feeling up girls.) And, yes, you might be bad at it. But that's different than quitting. That's different than demanding the curriculum be dumbed down. Your little princess needs a stiffer upper lip; your little man needs to man up.
Nobody is saying it's easy. These days, I can't imagine graduating American public school with anything like a competitive education when the only thing Americans seem to value anymore are stockbrokers and athletes. It's made worse when mommy is working three jobs because daddy's humvee got blowed up in Mosul and Citigroup sent her accounting position to Bangladesh. But that's not the fault of the American school system; that's the fault of America. We've stopped giving a damn about your child's future. It's not right, it's not good, it's not nice. But it's the way it is.
And it won't be fixed by merry felt minions instilling the subliminal message that school is playtime and the moment it isn't then something is wrong.
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