Sunny day, sweeping the clouds away,
On my way to where the air is sweet,
Can you tell me how to get,
How to get to Sesame Street?
These familiar lyrics have cheerfully tripped off the tongues of three generations of children. In a special evening, Joan Ganz Cooney, the extraordinary and influential innovator of education methodology for young children, comes to the Smithsonian to receive the John P.McGovern Behavioral Science Award. Cooney, co-founder, in 1968 of the Children’s Television Workshop (renamed Sesame Workshop in 2000), is the creator of the preschool educational TV series Sesame Street. The show began as an experiment and was the first preschool program to integrate education and entertainment and to feature a multi-cultural cast. It has been broadcast daily in the U.S. since 1969 on the more than 300 stations of the Public Broadcasting Service, and has been seen by millions of children in more than 140 other countries.
Under Cooney’s direction, Sesame Workshop programs have been awarded over 91 Emmys, and Cooney herself has been a recipient of the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the nation’s highest civilian honor. On the occasion of the show’s 35th anniversary, she shares her observations on the evolution of Sesame Street and its significance as a source of education—and delight—for children.
underneath the file name (just above the picture). Spammers need not apply.
") are described as follows: