Misleading Education Shows

            In Amusing Ourselves to Death, I chose to summarize chapter ten, “Teaching as an Amusing Activity.”  The chapter begins by discussing that in 1969 a new television show called “Sesame Street” began to air for an educational show targeting young children for ages four to six years of age.  At the beginning of the chapter, the author tries to claim that Sesame Street is a good form of education for kids that have not yet started elementary school.  They believed it would benefit the kids by teaching them basic skills like counting or pronouncing the alphabet.  Later in the chapter they prove that this claim was invalid in the fact that studies have proven that “Sesame Street does not encourage children to love school or anything about school.  It encourages them to love television” (154).”

            After reading this information, I wouldn’t have had a clue that shows like Sesame Street indeed had no positive impact on young children.  I could remember as a kid watching shows like Blue’s Clues and others and now realizing this had no impact on my actual learning.  Many parents think like I did, in the fact that Sesame Street is a healthy show to watch for children.  But to find out in actuality it has a negative impact in the way that it creates a form of addiction to watching television for these young kids. Although, parents should not rely on children shows like Sesame Street and Blue’s Clues to teach their children basic elementary skills but rather take the time to read to them and or teach them things through themselves.