I heard an interview on National Public Radio over the weekend–Erasing Red Ink, Sesame CEO Offers Vision To Preserve Home Of Big Bird http://www.npr.org/2016/10/13/497803214/key-to-big-bird-and-elmos-survival-sesame-workshop-ceo-outlines-vision The means to achieve that end: kindness and empathy! Google “sesame research on empathy and kindness”…this is a serious effort.
Excerpts below are from http://www.sesameworkshop.org/press-releases/u-s-parents-teachers-see-an-unkind-world-for-their-children-new-sesame-survey-shows-2/
(October 13, 2016) – Parents and teachers in the United States worry that their children are living in an unkind world, that people do not go out of their way to help others, and believe that children need strong social-emotional skills to succeed in life, according to a new survey commissioned by Sesame Workshop called “K is for Kind: A National Survey On Kindness and Kids.”
Nearly three-quarters of parents and almost four-fifths of teachers say they “often” worry the world is an unkind place for children. At the same time, parents and teachers clearly see the importance of having strong social-emotional skills. Almost three-quarters of parents believe it is very important for their child to be accepting of others, to be polite, and to have manners, while about three-quarters of both parents and teachers prioritize kindness over academic achievement. “Getting good grades” was one of the least important attributes for children, with less than half of parents and only about a tenth of teachers describing it as “very important.”
Sesame Workshop CEO, Jeffrey D. Dunn: “This survey confirms our concerns. It is time to have a national conversation about kindness. We hope that this is a first step towards doing that.”
For more information on the survey, visit kindness.sesamestreet.org, and to join the conversation on social media, follow #TeachKindness.
One Pond-Ripples 