Google & Big Bird

It's the 40th anniversary of Sesame Street. My kids grew up watching this show and many times I joined them. After clicking on Big Bird's legs today, I found an interesting blog entitled "Does Sesame Still Have Legs?"

The blog author quotes Tipping Point author Malcolm Gladwell "Sesame Street was built around a single, breakthrough insight: that if you can hold the attention of children, you can educate them." Sesame Street was the first children's show that structured each episode and made "small but critical adjustments" to each segment to capture children's attention long enough to teach them something. Each segment is like a commercial.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/blogs/sfmoms/detail?entry_id=50958#ixzz0Vz7MtEQH

So, is this how we must teach today? Skillful teacher "teaching time" is what, 10 minutes of information, then 3 minutes processing time? When we teach to that model do we in essence create mini-infomercials?