<div dir="ltr"><h1 class="" itemprop="headline">Sesame Street in Canada: A journey from A to Zee to Zed</h1>
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University of Guelph professor looks at how the popular
children's show was adapted to, and reflected, Canadian culture
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<a href="https://www.guelphtoday.com/local-news/sesame-street-in-canada-a-journey-from-a-to-zee-to-zed-348301#details-shares" class="">
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about 18 hours ago
by: <span itemprop="author">Joanne Shuttleworth</span>
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<div class="" id="file-0"><img alt="Sesame Street" class="" content="https://vmcdn.ca/f/files/guelphtoday/images/education/sesame-street.jpg" itemprop="image" src="https://vmcdn.ca/f/files/guelphtoday/images/education/sesame-street.jpg;w=630"></div> <div id="details-body" class="" itemprop="articleBody">
<p>As Canada strove to establish its own identity and culture in
the 1970s and ‘80s, it found itself travelling along Sesame Street. And
it wasn’t all sunny days, as University of Guelph Professor Matthew
Hayday has discovered.</p>
<p>Hayday is a professor of history with an interest in Canada’s
education and language policies and how they have shaped the nation and
help define what it means to be Canadian.</p>
<p>Sesame Street, the children’s television show, began to air in the
early 1970s – a few years before Canada established Canadian content
rules in broadcasting and French language policy.</p>
<p>When it came to Canada there was pressure to Canadianize the content.</p>
<p>“I wanted to look at the way Sesame Street was adapted to Canadian
content and the politics involved in that,” Hayday said in an interview.
“That was the hook for me. What was the vision of Canada and how was
that injected into the show?”</p>
<p>The first and most obvious change was including French rather than Spanish segments.</p>
<p>“The other priority was to include multiculturalism,” Hayday said.
“This was the second year after government policy on language so it was
very important.”</p>
<p>The third piece of Canadian content, and one that was “very
progressive” for the era, Hayday said, was to include images and
information about First Nations people.</p>
<p>“They were called Indians and Eskimos at the time but it was a very
early priority of the show in Canada,” Hayday said. “The idea was not to
teach French necessarily, but for children to know and accept that
there are different languages. And these were positive representations
of First Nations people – something not always seen.</p>
<p>“The idea was to subtly convey these values to Canadians aged three, four, five and six.”</p>
<p>It was tough going for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation,
however, as it negotiated these changes with the Children’s Television
Workshop, which produced Sesame Street in the U.S.</p><div class="">
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<p>The Children’s Television Workshop was very proud of the show and its
vision of teaching children rather than just entertaining them.</p>
<p>“The show had specific pedagogical models and it didn’t want other
countries to tinker with that,” Hayday said. “(The CBC) had to make sure
it covered the curriculum in a specific way and educational experts had
to vet the project.”</p>
<p>Commercials could not be aired during the show and the program had to
air five days a week in the same time slot. Sesame Street was still
building its brand, and as it gained international interest it was
adamant about maintaining quality content for children.</p>
<p>Not every country thought Sesame Street was worth importing however.</p>
<p>Hayday said the British Broadcasting Corporation thought the show
gave its lessons “with too much authority. They thought it wasn’t
child-centred enough,” he said.</p>
<p>“What’s interesting about the Sesame Street project was how the
stories were changed for local content and in Canada the show served to
normalize certain values about Canada.”</p>
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