Dear Sesame
Workshop,
I am 40 years old. 4, 0, FORTY
years! [Thunder, lightning] Ah, ah, ah, ah. . . . . Yet I distinctly recall playing hide & go
seek as a 4 year old boy. My uncle asked
me to count to 100 so everyone else could go hide well before I went searching
for them. But I had to tell him I didn't
know what that was. I had only learned
to count to 20, because that was the highest number Sesame Street would teach
at the time. Even then, none of the
other kids took the time to teach me what they knew, they just wanted to play
the game. But I'm certain I could have
learned how to count to 21 & beyond, if only they had taken a moment to
explain it. I missed out on learning
that until the 1st or 2nd grade.
I think children are capable of learning much more math, much
sooner. If the Sesame Workshop had just played
some shorts explaining numbers up to 100, I think I would have quickly figured
out that the pattern of increasing numbers and their names continues to at
least 999, at which point I certainly would have asked adults on my own,
"What comes after that?", and they could easily handle explaining 1000+.
There is one problem with numbers in American English that is invisible
and built-in. The teens and their names.
10 should be called "tenty"
11 should be called "tenty-one"
12 = "tenty-two" and so on up until 19 = "tenty-nine"
When you consider that all numbers above 20 have the same naming
pattern, but the numbers 10-19 don't, then you realize that teaching numbers
just up to 20 means a child is going to presume every number has a special name
that someone else must share with you before you can name it, or use it, just
like people have names that are unknown until an introduction is made.
So please consider increasing from 20 to 100 the maximum number that
Sesame Street teaches. You could even
make a song about how it makes no sense that number eleven should be "TENty-one",
but that sounds too similar to "TWENty-one", especially on the phone,
so we call it eleven instead. You might
make a joke that maybe we could call it "ONEty-one", but that too
sounds too much like "twenty-one" on the phone, the radio, or TV.
You might find it helpful to present the number and the word for the
name of that number at the same time. I
know Sesame Street hasn't normally done that in the past, but I think it might
be time to start, with the basic numbers especially, as this could help
children learn to read much faster too, as spelled-out numbers are everywhere
around us.
You might determine I'm wrong, that this is too hard for children this
age (for all I know, you may have already tried it before). Maybe trying to explain how the teen numbers
break the normal pattern is too much for your TV show. Perhaps just a few rare showings of segments
about these larger numbers & teen-names is all that older children will
need to clue in & pay attention that this is important, because they rarely
see the skit about this.
But whatever else you do, please increase from 20 to 100 the maximum
number that Sesame Street typically teaches.
Your friend,
Ace Frahm
