A Piece of Me

This weekend I put together a viewing of The World According to Sesame Street on campus. It was mainly an Honors College event, but I wanted it to be for anyone who was interested and more importantly the people I care about. I called some of my friends and asked them to make it a priority to be there. It wasn't until after I saw it for the second time that I realized why I want to share it so much. It is going to sound cheesy, and this is going to be more personal than I normally get for this blog, but I found myself in Sesame Workshop, and in sharing this film, I'm sharing a piece of me

I entered Public Relations as an undergraduate because I wanted to work for Disney. At the time, they were making great movies with Pixar and getting a lot of flak for the children's books they were publishing about hot topic issues like having two moms. I was inspired by the reach they had to children and I was in love with how easily a picture of Mickey Mouse could make the whole world smile. After spending a semester working there, I realized that Disney had the ability to do what I wanted but not the mission. As much as I wanted to influence children's lives, the education aspect was more important to me than the entertainment. I continued on with PR thinking I would eventually work for a local non-profit like Boys and Girls Club or maybe a Haven House. At this point I had never heard of Sesame Workshop or realized that Sesame Street was anything more than a Jim Henson children's show.

When the opportunity for me to stay at UCA and get a masters came up, I was torn about what to do. I was drawn to my current program because the topics that I was researching and interested in at the time were appropriate for older students and I believe that higher education should be a right. I care about issues in higher ed like cost, curriculum, retention, and technology. I value student services and I believe the field needs more research and support so it can become better recognized and more credible. Since starting in this field I've seen a lot of jobs I would enjoy and even more that I know I would be good at, but I have only seen a couple that make me excited the same way my imaginary role and Disney did; the same way Sesame Workshop makes me feel now.

I saw the documentary for the first time less than a year ago. Within a week I had researched Sesame Workshop, found an entry level position that I was qualified for, talked with Mike about my need to move to New York if it came though, and applied. I keep trying to be realistic and telling myself how the job search will go next semester, but I really want to be at Sesame Workshop. That film expresses a piece of me. It was a piece of me before I even saw it; I just didn't know it was there. I was looking for a way to educate and empower children through entertainment at Disney because I thought that Disney did things like Sesame Street (since they now do the Muppet stuff). I was in the wrong place. Disney is wonderful, but Sesame workshop believes, "All children deserve a chance to learn and grow; to be prepared for school; to better understand the world and each other; to think, dream and discover; to reach their highest potential." I want to work towards helping children worldwide reach their highest potential.

Finding the altruistic organization that believes everything that I couldn't articulate has given me a new mission. I know right now that someday I will work for Sesame Workshop. I tried to convince myself that it was something that I could do at any point in my life. I was telling myself that I can just wait and volunteer my time after I retire if nothing else, but I can't wait that long. I have so much to offer, and there is so much good that I could do between now and then. I'll start as soon as they'll take me.

Growing Up is Hard to Do

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I got the sense in Europe that they seem to think many of the services we offer students at the Higher Ed level are babying them. I agree with a lot of their education ideals and policies, and the students I met were incredibly mature. So, I've been wondering if I agree with that. I've come to the conclusion that I don't think offering them these services is babying them, but we don't always treat them like adults either. Sometimes this is our own fault, and other times it is out of our control. For example, something that is completely my fault is that I call them kids. I'm barely older then them, and I'm a student myself, but using the term kids keeps me from thinking of them as adults. I could be argued that because I am so close to them in age it is important that make that distinction between us. Good or bad, because I use that term I treat them differently.

Something that we have less control over would be working along with parents who refuse to treat them like adults. One of the students I advised came in with his father. His father sat down across from me at the desk which forced his son into a corner chair. He then explained to me that he was there because "my son is not yet 18." He continued to talk to me like his son wasn't in the room and we were discussing legal issues. When ever I tried to talk to the student, he wouldn't look at me and always looked to dad to answer for him. It was very hard to treat him like an adult.

Of course the difference between us and Europe is cultural. During our pre-trip, how not to be insulting in Europe meetings, we were told that if we end up talking to any children, we should treat them the same way we treat adults. Many cultures believe that the transition from child to adult can be made over night. The child just has to reach a certain age, participate in a ceremony, or have some important event happen. In America we don't go from child to adult. We go from infant to terrible twos, to toddler, to child, to adolescent, to young adult, to adulthood. Then we still get to look forward to middle aged, over the hill, and retiree. I've watched as society has embraced the term tween. I was never a tween. I may have been a preteen, but if so I didn't know it. Why do we have so many stages?

When I was in psychology* the leading theorist in cognitive development was Piaget. He presented 4 stages of development. According to his theory we begin the final stage as a preteen and we may never finish that development. The theories that I know of that have been adapted from or are related to Piaget usually have somewhere between three and five stages. Six stages wouldn't surprise me, but I don't think I have ever seen it. Since studying that I have learned about the psychological process that students may go through when faced with certain situations, but not any continual psychological development of students. I am not claiming that there is not any more brain development. What I'd like to point out is that I haven't heard of any more so I am assuming that most people haven't heard of any more. Why then, is society accepting these different stages? Are they being presented to us by psychologists, or are they being presented to us by advertisers. Did the people who develop and market Bratz realize how desperately eleven and twelve year old girls want to be thirteen and create the classification tween to market directly to them.

I'm generally in support of direct marketing and audience targeting, but we have added a slew of transitions to the growing up process. Are we making it easier or harder to grow up. I understand that if you transition from child to adult over night you could could be given a load of responsibility that you are not prepared for and the expectations can be daunting, but are baby steps making it better? Or are they just making it easier to put off accepting those responsibilities? Is it making it harder for adults to give those responsibilities? That may feed right back into my generation's work ethic. We still have stages of growing to transition through so we haven't been given responsibility. Since we haven't had responsibility, we don't care about it or know how to handle it.


*Disclaimer: I have not studied much psychology. As an undergrad I only took a general education psychology course, and as a graduate I've taken a student development course that had some psychology theories in it, but it was not a psychology based course. I think it is fair to believe that my psychology education is at or above the American average so I think it is enough to be applicable to my topic. I do welcome any additional information because I find this topic fascinating.