How Joan Ganz Cooney and her collaborators built a model for children’s media that outlasted the medium it was created for
“There is no substitute for trying it, and evaluating its effects.”
— The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education, 1966
The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education introduced a new way of working: researchers, educators, writers, producers, and children came together to shape what to teach, how to teach it, and how to know whether it worked. Sixty years later, we revisit this seminal report with a new weekly series, The Blueprint Outlasted the Medium: The Potential Uses of Television in Preschool Education, Sixty Years Later.
This week, our contributors return to that model and the enduring idea that the best children’s media is built through cross-disciplinary collaboration, grounded in research, and shaped by children themselves.
These five essays explore why that approach remains such a powerful place to begin.
Christopher Cerf | Rosemarie Truglio, PhD | Jennifer Carolan | Kim Foulds, PhD | Halcyon Person
