Keynote Address
Dr. Charlotte Cole, VP for International Education, Research and Outreach, Sesame Street Workshop
June 11, 2008 at the Chicago Children's Museum Opening Reception
The World's Longest Street: How Sesame Street is Working to Meet a Diversity of Children's Needs Across the Globe
For nearly four decades, Sesame Workshop has brought the joy of learning to the world's youngest citizens through locally-produced co-productions of the preschool television series, Sesame Street. With their own puppet characters and sets, these multi-media projects are specifically designed to forward educational messages that reflect the cultural, linguistic and developmental contexts of the children making up their various audiences. This address will describe the process by which these adaptations are developed in-country by local production teams and will highlight examples of content from some of the nearly thirty indigenously produced versions of Sesame Street's television, radio, on-line and other media projects. The challenges of providing a diverse array of educational messages - from gender equity in Egypt, to HIV/AIDS education in South Africa - will be at the heart of the presentation. The talk will conclude with an outline of what research says about the impact of Sesame Street's international work.
Dr. Cole, Vice President for International Education, Research and Outreach, oversees the research, curriculum development and community outreach for Sesame Workshop's international co-productions, including adaptations of the well-known pre-school program, Sesame Street. Working with educators and production teams throughout the world, she has most recently been engaged in projects in Bangladesh, Colombia, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Israel, Jordan, Mexico, Northern Ireland, Russia, South Africa and West Bank/Gaza. Prior to joining the Workshop, Dr. Cole worked as a Senior Researcher at Joslin Diabetes Center in Boston on a longitudinal study of families of children with acute and chronic illness funded by the National Institutes of Health. She has also served as a consultant to the Harvard Institute for International Development on several child-health projects in Thailand. Dr. Cole received her doctorate in Human Development and Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education at Harvard University. Her teaching experience includes instructor positions at Boston College, Lesley College and Saint Mary-of-the-Woods College. She also works as the Review and Commentary Editor of the Journal of Children and Media.
For more information on Dr. Cole, please visit her website.