Down with "Sesame Street"!

Sesame Street is 40 years old; it debuted on this day in 1969. I was too grown-up by then to watch the show, but my students were then being born and Sesame Street, in its supposedly fun and radical way, aimed to teach them to read and think: "edu-tainment," they called it.

I began teaching freshman composition in 1986; most of my students had been born 1968-69. Freshman comp isn't fun for anybody, but students just a few years younger than my first ones appeared to have attention spans accustomed to Sesame Street's rat-a-tat pacing (modeled on network TV's Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In), and their primary concern in the classroom was entertainment. Their ideal instructors would have been singers, guitarists, bongo-players and tap-dancers, and guest stars such as Bill Cosby. Their ideal teacher was most concerned not with communication but with students' personal comfort levels and self-esteem. Over a span of about five years these ideas rose to epidemic levels. The students spoke in quips or in the disingenuous tones of children's public-television programming -- and to this day, dialogue on PBS kids' shows can drive me nuts.

I don't complain because the students in my college classroom couldn't write; most people can't and don't want to write. It worried me more that most couldn't think, except about games and sports teams.

I don't celebrate Sesame Street.

What Your Cr.Wrt . Prof. is Thinking

-Wish I'd written that.
-This is freaking amazing.
-I just won't tell the class that no experienced writer would ever even TRY to write four essays (or a portfolio of poems) in 16 weeks.
-Man, the difference between the first draft and the third, like night and day!
-You're showing your depths and I really like that.
-I bow to your greater experience.
-I'm really sorry that you had to suffer _________. But it may help to write about it.
-LOL
-I know of something you've just got to read!
-I know where this might be published!

A Goldmine Yahoo Group

This Yahoo group, Creative Writing Opps, posts calls for submissions, contest information and teaching jobs for writers of poetry, fiction, and creative nonfiction. Check it out. Thanks to Alison Carrick for the tip.