Cookie!!!!!

Cookie!!!!!

Sesame Street is about to become lame:

"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.

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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.

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'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.