Even so, the long-running Sesame Street remains the gold standard for educational television, said Rosemarie Truglio, Ph.D., senior vice president of curriculum and content at Sesame Workshop, because its programming is backed by copious amounts of research.

Truglio spoke at the Lincoln Center campus on Jan. 24 in a wide-ranging conversation with William Baker, Ph.D., the Claudio Acquaviva Chair at the Graduate School of Education (GSE). She said that, behind the scenes, the show—which is aired in 150 countries including Afghanistan—is constantly changing.

Sesame Street is unique among educational shows because of its devotion to a whole child curriculum that addresses all aspects of child development, rather than a single topic like science or literacy, she said. To accomplish those ends, each season is followed by rigorous research that is then shared with the public and incorporated into future programming. In the last 48 years, approximately a thousand studies have been conducted and used to continuously update the show from season-to-season—often to the consternation of parents who were once viewers themselves.

“Parents call and say and ‘Why are you changing my Sesame Street?’ I’m sorry, but that was your Sesame Street. What’s on the air right now is your child’s Sesame Street. So what I want to know is, does your child like watching it?” she said.

Because “appointment viewing” has vanished and more children watch shows on devices like iPads, Truglio said the Workshop’s biggest challenge is helping parents to discern which shows are truly educational, and ideally steer their children to that show.

The show addressed a literacy concern in early childhood education known as the “30 million word gap,” a phenomenon where children from low-income families have been found to enter kindergarten with a vastly smaller vocabulary than middle-class children.

“With vocabulary, you need repetition to really own that word. You also need to see repetition across different contexts. That was nice for us, because we could talk about the vocabulary word at the beginning of the show, have the word of the day with a celebrity, and [have]a character named Murray out on the streets of New York City introducing the word of the day,” Truglio said.

She said that kindergarten teachers have expressed the desire for children to develop “executive function skills,” the ability to listen, be excited about learning, follow directions, and regulate their emotions. To help children develop these skills and understand the difference between impulsive versus reflective behaviors, the Sesame Workshop has taken some bold steps involving the show’s most impulsive character, Cookie Monster.

“When our writers said, ‘we’re going to teach Cookie Monster self-regulation skills,’ I thought ‘Oh my goodness, this is going to be the end of my career,” Truglio joked.

After consulting with renowned psychologist Walter Mischel, they went ahead, she said, because refining self-regulation skills is something we continue to do into adulthood, and there’s no one-size-fits-all strategy. Even Cookie Monster’s inevitable failure to resist eating a cookie is a valuable lesson.

“Mischel told me, ‘I want him to fail because kids need to learn how to persevere. They need to know not to give up. They need to know that if this one strategy doesn’t work, there’s another strategy and yet another strategy,’” she said.

Truglio’s appearance was part of a series of lectures celebrating the GSE’s centennial anniversary.

The event was the culmination of the Bronx Children Museum’s Dream Big! after-school arts enrichment program—which is currently housed inside a school bus because the museum has no permanent home.

This summer’s theme, “Celebrate the Music in You and Me,” honored Capers, an acclaimed jazz musician who earned bachelor’s and master’s degrees from The Juilliard School despite losing her sight at age 6, for her work with nearly 100 Bronx children. Bronx Borough President Ruben Diaz Jr. was also in attendance.

Sotomayor, a Bronx native, told parents, children, and museum supporters that she still considers herself “a kid at heart,” because she likes to have fun, to learn, and because she still has dreams.

“Children’s dreams are our dreams for the future … and the children’s museum is the home that’s going to give them a place where they can learn,” she said. She added that that the Bronx is the only borough without a permanent home for its children’s museum.

“That injustice has to be righted,” she said.

She said Capers, who has done performances with some of the greatest jazz musicians of our time, is a perfect role model for children.

“She’s also a loving person, and one who gives completely of her heart and her prodigious talent,” she said.

As part of the program, held in the McGinley Ballroom at the Rose Hill campus, the children joined Capers for a performance of “We Got The Whole World Remix.” Capers called the day a remarkable one.

“I love doing what I can do to help the children’s museum,” she said. “And to think that have two of my Bronx sisters—Sonia Sotomayor and Sonia Manzano—with me today is just wonderful.”

Manzano was honored for her 44 years of educating children as the character Maria on Sesame Street. Sotomayor read aloud a letter from President Obama congratulating the Emmy award winner on the occasion of her recent retirement from the show. Sotomayor promised Manzano that she would make sure her goddaughter watched reruns of the show featuring Manzano’s character.
“Your 44 years of service to children is known worldwide. You are known for the heart you gave that show, and the spirit you imbued in it, teaching kids about different people, and how much the same we are,” she said.

Manzano joked that when she was a child, her Bronx family would gather around the kitchen table to tell sad tales of poverty in Puerto Rico, but would then bring out guitars and sing songs about how much they missed its wonderful island breezes.

“I was always confused about whether it was a good place or a bad place. But I think the music certainly put them on a higher ground,” she said.

Manzano told the children that sometimes it’s actually good to dream small.

“If you got a C on a test, you can try for a B minus. That’s a little dream that you can accomplish. If you like to shoot hoops and you get four in a row, why not try for five,” she said.

“That way you practice winning, and when the Big Dream comes along, when you decide what that is, it’ll be a piece of cake.

“You’ll already know what winning feels like.”