Illiteracy

For 35 years, the PBS television show "Sesame Street" has been teaching children to read.

That means teaching them what sounds letters make and how those letters join together to make words. But it means much more than only that — not just letters making words, but words making sentences, and sentences making stories and statements.

Literacy involves a great deal more than just phonics. "Sesame Street" has a long history of understanding that, which is why this recent news about the program's "new" emphasis on healthy eating is rather disappointing:

Cookie Monster … will cut down on his favourite food as part of an anti-obesity drive.

The blue-furred muppet who used to sing "C is for Cookie" will now tell viewers that "A Cookie is a Sometimes Food."

Each episode of the show's new series will begin with a "health tip" about healthy foods and physical activity.

A Sesame Street representative said the popular character would be "broadening his eating habits" in the future.

If you're not familiar with Cookie Monster, he's a muppet with an unhealthy obsession with cookies. He completely lacks self control when it comes to his favorite food and often gets himself into trouble because he'll do just about anything for a cookie.

For the past three decades the Cookie Monster has been the monstrous embodiment of gluttony. He has, in other words, always taught children about healthy eating habits.

"Sesame Street" works as educational television because it teaches in a variety of ways — not just through clumsily didactic lectures. It presents characters like Cookie Monster or his neighbor, Oscar the Grouch, and shows those characters making choices. Some of those choices are good, some of them are bad. Part of learning to read, part of being literate, is learning to understand such stories — learning to recognize that not every character in every story is a "role model" worthy of emulation.

This aspect of literacy is in poor shape in our illiterately literal culture. Too many people — adults and not just children — have mastered phonics, but they don't know how to read, or to hear a story, or watch a play or a movie.

"Sesame Street" used to trust its young viewers to understand stories, and they did. Generations of children grew up watching Cookie Monster without the confused notion that by featuring such a character the show was somehow advocating gluttony. The lesson may not have been dullwittedly straightforward, but it's not like they were asking kids to read "Pale Fire."

Now, apparently, "Sesame Street" has decided that any lesson not expressed in simple, declarative sentences is too subtle to be effective. And so, in order to fight childhood obesity, they're promoting childhood illiteracy.

Next up, we'll probably hear that "Highlights" magazine, in an effort to teach children their manners, is getting rid of the character of "Goofus," changing the cast of its popular feature to "Gallant and Also Gallant."

Mr. Gradgrind, call your office.