Elmo and Big Bird Recruited by the White House
November 23rd, 2009
Two new spokes-characters for the White House will be Elmo and Big Bird. These two along with thousands of scientists and video game programmers will be recruited to help improve math and science education in middle school and high school.
President Obama will announce this new initiative called Educate to Innovateon Monday. Discovery Communications, Sesame Street, Sally Ride, various CEOs will all be involved. The initiative is a partnership with foundations and industry. This is going to be big and will certainly rival the push in math and science back in the early 60s which was a response to Sputnik.
Full Story New York Times
It should be a good press conference. Puppeteers from the Children’s Television Workshop will be controlling the Sesame Street characters, and David Axelrod will be controlling the Obama puppet.
Oh Slow. Cheering again for the White House I see.
I liked Elmo when he first came out in the 80’s. Now I think he’s commercial and annoying as s_it. The kids like him, though.
Hi Slow, it was announced a few weeks ago that David Axelrod has handed over the strings to the Obama puppet to Andy Stern from SEIU (aka the most frequent White House visitor)… you know, the guy Obama talks to first before making any descicions on Health Care…
Try not to look. Elmo is an institution. I have always found him annoying.
Yeah, Elmo sucks…
My son LOVES Elmo. I guess it’s cool, I liked Sesame Street, and especially the Electric Company, so I can’t begrudge him his Elmo.
Does he like Tickle Me Elmo? That makes me want to break off a table leg and bludgeon him to death. My favorites are Kermit and the Count.
Has anyone heard the announcement? I not paying close attention to TV today. Thought I would be brave and try a little Glenn Beck. I decided he needed duct tape on his mouth and perhaps some prison time.
The Count!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B-Wd-Q3F8KM
Moon-howler doesn’t seem to get much of a “tickle” out of Elmo, it appears. My own favorite is Oscar the Grouch — especially on Monday morning after the Skins have blown another one on Sunday and the Michigan Wolverines have imploded once again on Saturday.
Now now – we all know that Snuffa-lufagus rules the show (and that Big Bird can get a bit preachy).
I have to say that I’m all for innovation. Myth-Busters, Smash lab, Extreme Engineering, storm chasers – my kids love these shows and want to see more. And let’s be honest, what self respecting kid doesn’t like to see things blown up!
The side effect – kids who are interested in science and can see it’s practical applications. Looking a diagrams of a catapult are pretty boring. Seeing someone launch a pumpkin almost a mile and watching it go SPLAT gets your attention and even gets you interested in learning how they got that pumpkin to fly.
Having said that, I’d like to see a greater emphasis from our political leaders on content in school programs. Getting kids excited about math and science is one thing, but we have to ensure that the education they receive is good enough that they can pursue those fields. The programs we have now, for the most part, don’t do enough.
Oh, I get it now. That photo of Elmo with a microphone — he’s slated to replace Robert Gibbs!!