Joan Ganz Cooney understood that children’s media does not exist in isolation. Parents, caregivers, and teachers help children connect what happens on screen to the world around them. This week, our authors consider the role of the caring adult in a media landscape that is increasingly personalized, pervasive, and difficult to navigate—and how technology can support, rather than replace, human connection.
I am always struck by Joan Ganz Cooney’s remarkable prescience. Joan innately understood that reaching children in their early years would have the greatest impact on their long-term outcomes. Moreover, she had a hunch that learning would be deeper if a parent or caregiver watched alongside a child—that the learning would continue off-screen. That’s why she enlisted Jim Henson and his Muppets and included celebrities and musicians, humor, and parodies in a deliberate (and successful!) attempt to appeal to adults as well as children.
Today, research shows she was right: a child’s brain develops faster in the first five years than at any other time, and a child learns through engagement with a caring adult.
The media landscape of today looks very different than it did in November 1969 when Sesame Street debuted, but Mrs. Cooney’s early insights continue to shape everything we do. With a focus on the critical early years and engaging a child’s circle of care, we continue to evolve to meet children wherever they are as media and technology change.
And in an age of AI, those connections between children and adults are more important than ever. Mrs. Cooney’s early insights laid the foundation for Sesame Street to become a catalyst for uniquely human engagement between adult and child; today that same engagement is the foundation children need to grow up in an increasingly digital world.
As we look ahead to the next 60 years, we’re keeping Joan Ganz Cooney’s founding vision at the center—while technology will keep changing, what will never change is a child’s need for engagement with a caring adult. Our task is to make sure that everything we create advances the uniquely human bonds within families, neighborhoods, and communities that no technology can replace.
Sherrie Westin is President and CEO of Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street, and serves on its Board of Trustees. Westin leads the organization’s efforts to deliver research-driven early learning to children in more than 190 countries through mass media and community programs designed to meet the most pressing needs of children today.
