Things We Can Learn About Serious Games from Sesame Street

Recently I saw an A&E Teacher’s segment from the Biography channel on the late 1960’s genesis of Sesame Street. I was struck by the similarities between Sesame Street and serious games. Both deal with existing entertainment media that some folks try to appropriate for educational purposes. Both have had periods of “trial and error” to get it right and learn what they best can teach in a limited textual (non-paper) domain. And, both have encountered criticisms and concerns from the “experts.”

I was also struck by the willingness of the early Sesame Street creation team to depart from the experts’ advice when faced with results from their own research. Someone told them not to mix fantasy with reality, so their first show had adults and children doing things like reciting the alphabet. They tested the show in Philadelphia with 100 test families paid $100 to watch. The families reacted negatively to almost all parts of the show. But, the families almost universally loved Jim Henson’s Burt and Ernie puppets. Then the team said, “OK, we’ll mix fantasy and reality,” and incorporated the puppets throughout the show. The rest is broadcast history as Sesame Street went on to become the most successful children’s television show ever.

Some other things I noticed when comparing instructional gaming and Sesame Street:

- Both tend to be most successful in traditional education efforts when focusing on young children. Sesame Street focuses on the alphabet and counting to 20 or so. Some of the most successful commercial gaming products that focus on traditional education likewise keep it simple and focus on teaching youngsters (think of the early Math Blaster and Reader Rabbit titles).

- In due course, the Sesame Street writers ventured out to craft episodes designed to teach kids “warm and fuzzy” concepts, such as the benefits of sharing, empathy, and accepting death and birth as part of the natural order of life. Increasingly, serious game makers are realizing that videogames are perhaps the best medium for instilling “fuzzy” lessons like this in students. Teamwork can easily be practiced within a MMOG; consequences to choices can be easily realized in a good RPG.

- Like any good videogame, Sesame Street takes a lot of hours from a lot of people to do right. The producers indicated most folks unfamiliar with production make the faulty assumption that putting on puppets and throwing together a show remain easy to do. In fact, hour after hour after hour is spent writing, re-writing, rehearsing, and re-shooting the show. It looks easy on screen because of the hours of effort behind the scenes the viewer never sees. Likewise, good games are good because of the time and effort that has gone into making them.

It’s nice to see an educational show get praise and huzzahs for its success. Let’s hope it doesn’t take another 30 years or so for educational games to receive similar adulation.

 

Update:
Felicia over at Library Development Services at the South Carolina State Library’s blog, LibraryTrax, takes me to task for not mentioning that one of Sesame Street’s strongest contributions was to show that education is fun, a point well taken.