September 3, 2015

Children’s shows a serious matter

A maxim variously attributed to everyone from Aristotle to the Jesuit priest Francis Xavier goes: “Give me a child until the age of seven and I will give you the man.” The kernel of this theory is that childhood is a time when everyone’s interests and values are being set in a way that will influence the rest of their lives.
This helps explain why so much effort is being put into ensuring television programmes aimed at children are of high quality rather than simply a way of keeping them amused. One of the earliest international examples of this theory in practice was Sesame Street, which since its debut in the United States in 1969 has sought to be educational and entertaining in equal measure.

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