I mean I didn't every grown up reference on Sesame Street as a kid. But when I learned about them later in life, they had extra meaning for me because I'd learned them first on Sesame Street in my childhood. Keeping kids away from grown up references to avoid "confusion" isn't helping them.
I totally agree! Sometimes it seems like they're afraid not to make every single word accessible and helpful to every single 3-year-old, even though the bits they themselves think are the best often have multiple layers. Like they know what works and they know they're good at it, but someone on the team is still scared to do it. Which I don't get, b/c they're smarter than that. Maybe the problem is less in the content than in how they're talking about it.
The inclusion of non-traffic signs is so easily justified positively: just like the version of "Can Read" with the label and the recipe, it points out all the places you come across words every day, and thus highlights the fundamental importance of literacy quite creatively. I think the fact that they're TALKING about it in the negative--traffic signs are inappropriate because kids don't drive--is weird, because it doesn't fit the content of the song or their own philosophy. I wonder if the negative language is really the way they justified the suggestions, or if that's how the writers/performers interpret the suggestions, or if they are all thoughtful throughout the creation process but dumb it down for the public who are untrained in educational psychology? Just a thought.
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