When Joan Ganz Cooney began her study, I don’t think she could have imagined that the path she started down would one day become the longest street in the world. Her 1966 report is much more than a treasured heirloom in the Sesame family. In many ways, it’s our sacred text: the starting point from […]
Monthly Archives: December 2019
A Timely Experiment in Television and Education
December 10, 2019
In the spring of 1966, Joan Cooney completed her landmark study of television and early education for the Carnegie Corporation. It was entitled The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education. The 1960s created a climate for social change and encouraged people to seek it. Television had become the medium with the greatest reach but […]
A Letter from Joan Ganz Cooney
December 9, 2019
You may have heard that television programming in the 1960s was called a “vast wasteland.” by then-FCC Chairman Newton Minow. From the beginning, Lloyd Morrisett and I were both convinced that television – which was capturing the attention of children as nothing else was – did have the power to educate as well as to […]
The Report that Started It All
December 6, 2019
The Joan Ganz Cooney Center at Sesame Workshop is thrilled to present a newly reformatted version of Sesame Street co-founder Joan Ganz Cooney’s still-relevant 1966 report to the Carnegie Corporation of New York. The Potential Uses of Television for Preschool Education made a convincing case for the power of television to prepare children, particularly in underserved communities, to […]
The Power of an Idea
December 18, 2019
In the annals of American philanthropy, the most successful endeavors usually come out of a confluence of vision, expertise, and financial support. This is the case in the development of the world’s most beloved educational television program, Sesame Street. It was Joan Ganz Cooney who came up with the revolutionary idea to harness the power […]