Educational Television Is Not an Oxymoron – Daniel R. Anderson

Anderson’s “Educational Television Is Not an Oxymoron” talks about the effects
of educational television on child development. He addresses both sides of the
controversial issue of whether it helps or hinders a child’s cognitive and
social development.

The reading uses Sesame Street as the primary example for comparison of whether
or not educational television is beneficial to children. A Children’s
Television Act was put in place for the purpose of creating television in which
it was designed to benefit children by teaching them valuable information and
skills. However, with that being said there were critics who argued that
children programming is not affect.

Critics of children’s television program viewed “educational television” as an
oxymoron claiming that it does not help, but instead hinders a child’s
development. They expressed that educational television produces shortened
attention span, made children intellectually passive, delayed development, and
produces frantic behaviour.

Anderson furthers his analysis by providing examples of some of the cases
against Sesame Street. He mentioned Jane Healy in which she provides one of the
strongest attacks on Sesame Street. She goes as far as saying that language
skills and the ability to follow or produced extended arguments are
deteriorating. She also argues that educational television fails to provide
children with the appropriate experiences they need in order for the brain to
develop properly in the early years of development.

While some say that educational television, such as Sesame Street, causes
shorter attention spans and lack of thought development. There are also others
who oppose to this saying that it is beneficial to children and especially
those in disadvantage circumstances.

Anderson addresses the flaws of some of the claims made by the critics of Sesame
Street. Critics claimed that after watching the child television program
children exhibited shorter attention spans and appeared to have frantic
behaviour where they would count and recite the alphabet. The core claims made
against Sesame Street posed problems because empirical studies fail to support
the claims that were made. For example the claim of how young children’s
attention to Sesame Street is involuntary or due too primarily to the
occurrence of salient features is untrue because the most obvious component of
attention to television is simply looking at the television screen.

Overall, Anderson acknowledges the fact that television probably has no
consistent effects. But he believes that educational television is beneficial
to children resulting in better graces and other positive outcomes in, which he
linked to studies that were done in elementary schools in Sweden and the United
States. Sesame Street is one of the longest running children’s programs. It has
become the basis for which other children’s programs are created.