Sesame street empathy

Sesame Workshop Takes A Crack At Kindness : NPR Ed : NPR

E Is For Empathy: Sesame Workshop Takes A Crack At Kindness : NPR Ed A new survey from Sesame Workshop found that parents and teachers worry a lot about kindness — what it looks like, how to cultivate it and why there isn't enough of it in the world.

Preschool

October 17, 20164:53 AM ET

Heard on Morning Edition

E Is For Empathy: Sesame Workshop Takes A Crack At Kindness

Actor Mark Ruffalo and Murray the Muppet talk about empathy. Sesame Street via You Tube hide caption

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Sesame Street via You Tube

Actor Mark Ruffalo and Murray the Muppet talk about empathy.

Sesame Street via You Tube

Parents and teachers are worried.

They believe that today's kids are growing up in an unkind world and that learning to be kind is even more important than getting good grades. But, when it comes to defining "kind," parents and teachers don't always agree.

That's according to a new survey of some 2,000 parents and 500 teachers from the educational nonprofit behind Sesame Street, Sesame Workshop.

Kindness is well-trod territory for Sesame. Here's actor Mark Ruffalo trying to teach a Muppet named Murray about a very big word: empathy.

Sesame Street YouTube

The folks at Sesame Workshop worried that too much of the world doesn't understand empathy — or doesn't try hard enough to feel other people's pain.

"We ... were concerned what the long-term impact of that would be on children and society as children grow older," said Jeffrey D. Dunn, CEO of Sesame Workshop. "This survey confirms our concerns. It is time to have a national conversation about kindness."

Indeed, a whopping 86 percent of teachers (and 70 percent of parents) admitted to worrying often that the world is an unkind place for children.

And they want to do something about it, says Jennifer Kotler Clarke, who is in charge of research and evaluation at Sesame Workshop.

"Both parents and educators overwhelmingly felt that being kind was more important than having high academic achievement," says Kotler Clarke.

But kindness can mean different things to different people, and here's where the results get complicated. And more interesting.

Kotler Clarke says, for the survey, they used several words to represent kindness, including empathy — but also helping, thoughtful and manners. As a result, "parents generally felt that their children were kind, but less-so helpful and thoughtful. "

How can a child be kind without being helpful or thoughtful? By being polite. It turns out that manners were very important to parents. When given a choice between having manners and having empathy and asked, "Which of these is more important for your child to be right now?" 58 percent chose manners compared with just 41 percent who chose empathy.

Kotler Clarke suggests that some parents may assume that teaching a child manners is a good way of building empathy. But, she says, "There's really no great evidence around that. In fact, bullies are very good at having manners around adults."

On this point, teachers broke with parents, overwhelmingly preferring empathy (63 percent) over manners (37 percent). And teachers can see the disconnect in their classrooms. Thirty-four percent say, of the children they teach, that all or most of their parents are raising kids to be empathetic and kind, while just 30 percent say all or most parents are raising children with values consistent with their teachers'.

As part of the survey's release, Sesame Workshop linked to a number of outside resources, for parents and teachers looking for practical ways to help cultivate empathy in kids.

In one guide from Harvard's Making Caring Common Project, researchers recommend grown-ups tune into kids' emotional and physical needs, hold regular family meetings and engage in community service.

Because the vast majority of parents and teachers agreed: It's important to be kind not just to your own family but to everyone else, too.

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Sesame Street's Elmo Teaches Kids Empathy

"The whole idea of the show, is that, if we can give kids these skills... then we feel like we're helping to create the next generation of empathetic adults."

Liz Raftery

Aug. 7, 2018

Walking onto the set of Sesame Streetin the Astoria neighborhood of Queens, New York is like entering a portal that takes you straight back to childhood. The earliest memories for multiple generations of children include watching beloved characters like Big Bird, Elmo and Grover with rapt attention.

But in addition to the standard early childhood learning skills -- ABCs, 123s and the like -- the most important lesson Sesame Street is teaching youngsters is so subtle that even their parents might not pick up on it: empathy for those who look, sound and behave differently than them.

"Sesame Street has always had kind of a mission of diversity and inclusion," executive producer Ben Lehmann told TV Guide this spring. "Fostering empathy in young viewers, that's kind of the heart and soul of Sesame Street. ... The whole idea of the show, is that, if we can give kids these skills - whether they be around letters and numbers, which is our original mission, but also around empathy and giving preschoolers these skills around getting along with others, taking turns, learning when it's not your turn to speak but it's someone else's turn to speak, then we feel like we're helping to create the next generation of empathetic adults. "

Over the years, Sesame Street has featured several characters (humans and muppets alike) of various abilities, racial and ethnic backgrounds, and socioeconomic status. In 1971, at a time when Latinos were barely represented in pop culture, and overwhelmingly relegated to background roles as maids or other service workers, the show introduced Sonia Manzano's Maria Figueroa, a Puerto Rican teenager who went on to own the Fix-It Shop and later the Laundromat with her husband Luis Rodriguez (Emilio Delgado). In the 1990s, Tarah Lynne Schaeffer joined the cast as Tarah, who was wheelchair-bound due to an autoimmune disorder. Kami, an HIV-positive muppet, made her debut on the South African version of Sesame Street in 2002.

The most recent example of a Sesame Street character breaking new ground is Julia, a 4-year-old muppet who has autism. Julie was conceived by the show's Social Impact Department and introduced in a digital storybook as part of a 2015 autism initiative. She made her physical debut on the show two years later.

"The reception and feedback from people was tremendous," Lehmann says. "Autism is something that touches so many people. ... We've gotten so much feedback from parents who have children on the spectrum, how exciting this has been for them and something to share with their own kids."

As a character, Julia has many of the hallmarks of a child with autism. She rarely speaks, and when she does it's typically just a word or two, not a complete sentence. She flaps her arms when her emotions are heightened. In her premiere episode, she became overwhelmed upon hearing a siren and needed to pull away from the group to calm down.

"We've gotten a lot of letters from moms who say, 'This has happened to my kids, and I'm so proud that you guys just addressed it head-on,'" Lehmann says of the siren scene. "They especially liked that moment. It felt very real to them."

Stacey Gordon, the puppeteer who performs Julia, is herself the mother of an autistic son. However, the motivation behind incorporating Julia into Sesame Street goes beyond providing a character that autistic children and their parents can relate to. The inclusion of Julia also harkens back to Sesame Street's core mission: teaching children how to respect, get along with, and relate to people who are different from them.

Contrary to popular belief, research shows that empathy does not, in fact, come naturally to children -- especially children who are young enough to be in Sesame Street's target viewing audience, roughly 3 to 5, ages marked by a tendency towards self-centeredness. We're often told that prejudices and bullying behaviors are learned by children rather than ingrained in them, but while that may be true to an extent, children can actually be quite prone to isolating and even displaying combative behaviors towards peers who are different from them.

"Empathy can be taught," says Dr. Michele Borba, an educational psychologist and the author of UnSelfie: Why Empathetic Kids Succeed in Our All-About-Me World. "That said, there's one little disadvantage to younger children, and that is keeping in mind that empathy is 'We, not me.' That's what it really is, stepping into the shoes of somebody. Young children are egocentric by nature, and they're supposed to be. They're trying to make sense of their own world, and so a lot of things are related to 'Me, not you,' and 'What do I get from it?' But that said, our job as parents is to [guide] them beyond 'Me.' Exposing children to differences, like Sesame Street, is one of the ways to do it."

The best way to teach children empathy is by modeling or role-playing. ("Children are copycats," Borba says. "Kids learn empathy better by seeing it, not hearing about it.") Like any skill, empathy has to be practiced in order to be nurtured.

Which is where Sesame Street comes in. On the show, Julia's best friend is Elmo, who often remarks on the ways she's not like other children, but notes how much fun they have playing together and inventing games like "boing tag."

"Elmo recognizes that kids have differences, but that doesn't mean they can't do things together," Lehmann says. "That's the heart of Elmo, obviously, is he's drawn to people because he likes them. Differences, similarities, that's all part of the dimensionality of making friends."

On Sesame Street, Elmo's approach is not to ignore Julia's quirks or pretend they don't exist, but rather to acknowledge them and then adapt to them. Children watching will see that Elmo and Julia might not necessarily be able to carry on a conversation the same way he does with other characters in the neighborhood, but that doesn't mean they can't still have fun together. In one segment, Elmo teaches Julia how to play Peek-a-Boo with their favorite stuffed toys and speaks directly into the camera, telling viewers, "There's lots of ways friends can play." Among her friends, Julia's autism is free from stigma.

"Elmo and all of the group are actually portraying inclusiveness," Borba says. "I love how Big Bird will say along the way, 'That's just how she is, so what difference does it make? Let's all play together.' Which is a wonderful thing... because they're actually showing children in real time and with real kids how to be inclusive, how to be caring, how to look around and see that somebody is all by themselves, and how to say, 'Well, come on in.' That's the same thing that the puppets are doing. Very often we tell kids to be kind, but we need to show them how. ... The right TV shows can really make a difference."

In recent seasons, Sesame Street has placed a particular emphasis on depicting kindness, prompted by a 2016 Sesame Workshop survey of parents and teachers in which 86 percent of teachers and nearly 70 percent of parents described the world as "an unkind place for my child. " Its 49th season, which will premiere later this year on HBO, will focus on different types of play.

The same survey posed the question, "Which is more important, having manners or having empathy?" Among parents, manners won in a landslide, 58 percent to empathy's 41. (One percent of respondents said they didn't know.)

"Empathy is timeless. The culture can either galvanize it or diminish it," Borba says. "I worry about the parents that think that it really doesn't matter."

But why is it important to raise empathetic children? For some, the answer is obvious. But according to Borba, the positive effects of fostering empathy in children go far beyond the simple desire to avoid bringing a selfish, uncaring person into the world.

"[Empathy] gives kids an enormous advantage. It gives all of us enormous advantage. It's the base of humanity," Borba tells TV Guide. "It helps children develop healthier relationships, get along better with others, have a more wide open view. They're better critical thinkers. It's just enormous."

In fact, empathy is an underrated factor in determining success later in life, perhaps more so than grades and test scores, according to Borba. It's frequently cited by business owners around the world as the No. 1 trait they're looking for in potential employees, she notes.

Perhaps the biggest challenge educators face is doing away with the labeling of empathy as a "soft skill." It's understandable that many parents would prioritize their children learning how to read, write and do basic math over being kind to one another. But as Lehmann notes, the creative minds behind Sesame Street don't believe those skill sets are mutually exclusive.

"Basically what we've done is we've created a pressure-cooker kind of society for our children, where kindness and empathy are kind of low on the scale of what really matters. It's all been about GPA, rank and score, from an early, early, age, starting at 2. We're all worried about our kids' [test] scores and that kind of a thing," Borba says. "You want to know what's going to help your child get along and be mentally healthy in the world? Empathy is at the top of the list. When it's all said and done, empathy is far more critical than we ever gave it credit for."

Empathy gives kids an enormous advantage. It gives all of us enormous advantage. It's the base of humanity.

While shows like Sesame Street are going above and beyond to teach kindness and empathy to a new generation, only some of the responsibility for doing so can fall on the shoulders of the muppets and their human counterparts. If the lessons children see on TV aren't reflected in the actions of their real-life caretakers and the other adults they see around them, they won't stick.

"I think adults are behaving very badly these days. Instead of seeing [adults] being models, [children] are seeing that bullying is OK, it's OK to name-call another person. All around," Borba laments. ... We need to tune it up in ourselves. We need to start watching and making sure we're a little more selective of what our children view."

"Parents who raise good kids, empathetic children, don't do so by accident. They're very intentional," she continues. "What you'll have is basically not just a smarter child that you're putting your time and effort into, but also a healthier, happier child. And that's what we all want together - a generation of healthy, happy kids who want to better the world."

The Muppets: Story, Characters, Highlights

The Muppets movie releases, in which Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear, Gonzo, Animal and other characters from the legendary TV show team up to save their theater from an oil magnate. Gazeta.Ru compiled a guide to what you need to know about the Muppets.

The world of the Muppets is inhabited by crazy puppets from the TV, mostly animals and birds, but there are also a few creatures whose identification causes general difficulty. If we take those listed above, then who is Gonzo, for example, they found out for a long time - it seems that he turned out to be an alien. nine0003

The first dolls created by Jim Henson appeared in the mid-1950s on the modest TV show Sam and Friends. In the 1960s, Kermit (the only character of the previous decade) became a resident of Sesame Street, and in 1976 he got his own show, which was called The Muppets Show. In the new film (already the eighth in a row), the heroes will have to defend the legacy of those years - the theater in which the Muppets recorded their weekly doomsday. By the way, Robert Altman had a similar plot in his latest film “Companions”: a radio show obsolete from the point of view of new media managers is trying to save itself by giving an epic power performance in the native walls, which are about to be run over by a bulldozer. nine0003

Muppet feature films

1979 The Muppets Movie

The Muppets Show was organized just like similar programs that were played on theater stages and consisted of an entertainer and various numbers: songs, comedy sketches, conversations with guests. Jason Segel (Marshall Erickson from How I Met Your Mother) and director of the comedy Forgetting Sarah Marshall (where Siegel wrote the script and starred) Nicholas Stoller were entrusted with writing the new Muppets. Siegel, a Muppet fan since childhood, also played the human brother of a new Muppet named Walter in the film. nine0003

The film turned out not only to be respectful of the original source, but to be exact, to be devotedly fanatical. But adjusted for the fact that since 2004 the Muppets have been owned by the Disney studio. Spectators and critics, grateful for the kind, bright and eternal that The Muppets resurrect, do not pay attention to the fact that the trademark madness of shaggy artists has lost its sharpness. And forget that, unlike Sesame Street, the Muppets show was largely aimed at adults. What is worth at least a pilot video for the future of the show, which was played at 1975: It was called "The Muppets Show: Sex and Violence" and was a parody of television of the time.

To remind you what the Muppets were like during their great years, Gazeta.Ru introduces characters from the Muppets world and recalls outstanding episodes of the original TV show featuring Sylvester Stallone, Twiggy, Rudolf Nureyev, Elton John and other great guests.

Kermit the Frog
The main star and permanent host of The Muppets Show appeared on screens back in 1955 - in the releases of Jim Henson's popular puppet creator Jim Henson's five-minute TV show Sam and Friends. Subsequently, Kermit worked as a correspondent for Sesame Street, made a successful solo career in advertising, and by the time the Muppets got their own show, he had become the most recognizable representative of the species. The frog, by the way, was not immediately recognized in him: at first there were suspicions that he was a lizard. At the beginning of the new film, he lives as a recluse in Hollywood. nine0003

Miss Piggy
The Muppet Show's prima donna is a pig convinced that she is destined to be a star. Charm and possession of karate techniques helped. In The Muppets Take Manhattan, Miss Piggy finally married Kermit and has believed they are married ever since. Kermit, however, claims that it was just a scene in the movie and that a "professional relationship" remains between the two, implying that they are both professionals. At the beginning of the new film, he lives in Paris, where he holds an unexpected position. nine0003

Fozzie Bear
A stand-up comedian with consistently bad jokes, each followed by his own trademark "waka-waka-waka!", became Kermit's best friend. But he could not immediately win over the audience: the creator of the character, Frank Oz, had to work on the character of the bear, whose failed attempts to achieve stage success sometimes caused not so much sympathy and laughter as indignation. At the beginning of the new film, he performs the rogue The Muppets Show at the very El Sleezo cafe where Kermit found him in the first feature film, The Muppets: The Movie (1979).

Gonzo
Also known as the Great Gonzo and Gonzo the Great. A hook-nosed daredevil in the first episode of The Muppets Show tried to eat a tire to the musical accompaniment - "Flight of the Bumblebee". Subsequently, he shot himself from a cannon, lost his arm trying to catch the cannonball, and performed many other risky tricks. At the beginning of the new film, he owns a good business (from which, by the way, he started many years ago).

Animal
Wild drummer of the rock band Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem has only one passion - to beat, which makes him a natural drummer. Easily enters into a rage, prone to bouts of violence, but completely harmless to others. At the beginning of the new film, he attends anger management meetings with a famous artist. nine0003

Statler and Waldorf
Two malevolent old men (Waldorf on the left, Statler on the right) who caustically comment on everything that happens in The Muppet Show, sitting in front of the TV or straight from the theater box. The classic pair of hosts would grace any broadcast, from the Oscars to the Olympics. In the "In the Gallery" series for Movies.com, Statler and Waldorf successfully acted as unkind film critics. In the new film, they are busy with their usual business.

Scooter
Group manager Dr. Teeth and The Electric Mayhem and Kermit's indispensable assistant; in charge of the show for working with guests, helps (as far as possible) to present the numbers and is generally busy with organizational activities - of course, the organization goes to hell all the time. At the beginning of the new movie, he works at Google and lectures at T.E.D.

Sam
The Blue Eagle is distinguished by patriotism and a retrograde view of the world. Serving as a parody of an American conservative, the character is constantly (and, of course, unsuccessfully) trying to get his colleagues on the show to behave decently and with dignity. At the beginning of the new film, he works as a TV announcer in the All Abominations of the Day program. nine0003

The song "Mana-Mana"
The Italian song from the 1968 film "Sweden: Hell and Heaven" (the movie tells about Swedish sexual culture and related problems, and in the corresponding episode the girls go to the sauna) has been covered more than once, including The Benny Hill Show. And not everyone remembers how the Muppets first performed "Mah Nà Mah Nà" back on Sesame Street in 1969. The now forgotten characters instead of the classic "doo-doo doo-doo-doo" reproduced close to the original "pa-ti pa-ti-pee". nine0003

looked and sounded like .
In the same 1969, the Muppets covered the song on The Ed Sullivan Show, but it became an absolute hit and calling card after it opened the first episode of the first season of The Muppets in 1976. It was then that the telephone receiver appeared in the finale and the exchange of remarks between the sarcastic old commentators Statler and Waldorf:

— By the way, what is “mana-mana”?
— By the way, who cares?

The song is so addictive that in one of the sketches Kermit complained to his psychotherapist that Snows (pink singers) appear every time he says the word "phenomenon" (the English phenomena is consonant with mahna mahna). At the end of the new Muppets, the line "mana-mana" seems to be sung by all the celebrities who appear in the film. nine0003

By the way, here is the Italian original .

Season 1. Episode 19
The aristocratic horror movie star Vincent Price is visiting the Muppets, so the theater is full of all sorts of evil spirits, and mystical incidents intervene in the plot. Price's companion and assistant turns out to be Uncle Dead, an imposing blue dragon-like monster (in the new film he starts on the side of evil), who in a past life was an actor in Shakespeare's theater. They try to eat Kermit. At the climax of the show, the frog turns into a vampire and bites the guest. nine0003

Season 1. Episode 21
British model, actress and singer Twiggy becomes a guest of The Muppet Show. During an impromptu press conference, the Muppets, disguised as reporters, pounce on the star with questions like, "How can such a beautiful girl have only one nose?" Twiggy also tells a bedtime story to Gonzo and the dog Mappy, and in the news release portrays a resident of London, who tells the host in detail how she just ate a diesel tractor. nine0003

Season 2. Episode 13
Rudolf Nureyev comes to visit the Muppets. Retrograde Sam makes everyone change into tuxedos, but the great ballet dancer is dressed simply, and Sam, not recognizing Nureyev, at first does not let him on the threshold. At the climax of the show, a fragment of the ballet "Swine Lake" ("Swine Lake", consonant with the English name of the production "Swan Lake") is performed. The great ballet dancer is paired, of course, with a gigantic version of Miss Piggy. In the finale, Nuriev dances a step dance. nine0003

Season 2. Episode 14
The next guest of the show after Nureyev is Elton John. Decency eagle Sam tells the British singer from the doorway that he has "dressed himself like a stolen car." Kermit takes it upon himself to prove to retrograde Sam that popular musicians (such as Mozart) have always looked pretty extravagant. In the finale, the defeated Sam is forced to perform a number in an outfit even wilder than those in which Elton appeared. In the finale, the Muppets take a cue from the eccentric, and the guest unexpectedly enters the stage in an elegant gray suit. nine0003

Season 2 Episode 23
The Muppets kidnap Monty Python co-founder and star John Cleese. The kidnapping and other elements of this episode are borrowed from the writers of the script for the new film. So, for example, Cleese is not very happy with his stay on the show as a star guest: for starters, he is brought against his will, bound hand and foot. He complains that there are too many pigs and monsters around. Plus, trying to help, tears off the limbs of Gonzo, who already lost his arm, catching a cannonball. nine0003

Season 3. Episode 7
Shock rocker Alice Cooper once again transforms The Muppet Show into a world of monsters (which the Muppets are already considered by many) and magic. Everyone turns into everyone and into the devil knows what. Cooper turns out to be an agent of the Devil, who offers the Muppets "incredible wealth and worldwide fame" in exchange for souls. While everyone decides whether the game is worth the candle, Gonzo throughout the episode is trying to find a pen to sign a contract. The contract turns out to be nothing compared to the special effects bill that appears in the finale. nine0003

Season 3. Episode 20
Answering a question about his state of health, the guest of the show, Sylvester Stallone, reports that he is "happy as an oyster." Immediately, extremely dissatisfied oysters appear, and the wording has to be adjusted. At some point, the enterprising Scooter shows the fans to the dressing room. Stallone is boxing with a punching bag, which turns out to be alive and talking, but she doesn't mind.

Season 4. Episode 13
Dizzy Gillespie himself plays the trumpet for the Muppets. Unfortunately, the performance coincides with a visit from the noise control inspector, who is referring to complaints from the townspeople that they seem to be bothered by loud instruments, especially brass. Kermit passes off the great trumpeter as a violinist named Izzy Gillespie and does his best to distract the inspector while Dizzy puffs out the legendary cheeks. By the way, in this episode, the place of old Statler in the box is taken by Waldorf's wife Astoria. She looks, however, like Statler in a wig and dress. nine0003

Season 4. Episode 14
The action turns into film noir. Kermit plays a private detective who follows Liza Minnelli's character. The show in which she is the soloist is terrorized by a killer. The first victim is the director. The director's killer is searched for by a patrolman - the bear Fozzie, but the suspects are dying one by one. Only Kermit and Lisa can solve the riddle. Kermit looks great in a gray coat and hat. Dialogues are inimitable:

- This man was killed to keep him silent.
- No, he choked on a fish bone. nine0021 - But he shouted: "Poison!"
- Yes, I guess that's the French word for fish.