I did not even go to kindergarten; I just started first grade when I was five and started reading right away. I don't know how it all worked, but I had a lot of adults and older siblings around me. So, I guess I was probably introduced to what one would be introduced to at that time in kindergarten.

Joan Ganz Cooney

Categorized in : Me Know Time Reading

Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society. by Joan Ganz Cooney

Cherishing children is the mark of a civilized society.

Joan Ganz Cooney

cherish society children

It’s not whether children learn from television, it’s what children learn from television... because everything that children see on television is teaching them something.

Joan Ganz Cooney

teaching children television

There is a young and impressionable mind out there that is hungry for information. It has latched on to an electronic tube as its main source of nourishment.

Joan Ganz Cooney

women mind memorable

The question for me was, could TV actually teach? I knew it could, because I knew 3-year-olds who sang beer commercials!

Joan Ganz Cooney

tvs beer years

In South Africa, where HIV-positive children are often shunned, we have an HIV-positive Muppet to teach children to be friendly with children with HIV. But they use local actors. And it's not always a street. Sometimes it's 'Sesame Plaza,' or 'Sesame Tree.'

Joan Ganz Cooney

friendly tree children

I wish I could tell you that the Children's Television Workshop and Sesame Street were thanks to my genius, but it really was a lucky break.

Joan Ganz Cooney

luck wish children

Probably any successful career has X number of breaks in it, and maybe the difference between successful people and those who aren't super achievers is taking advantage of those breaks.

Joan Ganz Cooney

differences careers successful

I was a TV producer at a noncommercial station, and we were producing some good documentaries - on Head Start, on poverty. But I was struck by the children, and the damage that poverty was doing to them. I didn't think filming them was helping much, so I wondered how we could use TV for them, to teach them.

Joan Ganz Cooney

good think poverty children

I was brought up Catholic, and even as a little girl I was affected by the idea of giving back - doing something for the needy, something of significance.

Joan Ganz Cooney

doing back girl giving

My degree was in education, but the idea of being a teacher lost out to being a reporter. I worked at a newspaper for a while, then went to New York and worked in PR at RCA and NBC, and at 'The United States Steel Hour,' a drama series.

Joan Ganz Cooney

new education lost teacher

Big Bird was the biggest star, I mean, children's favorite for a number of years. I have a 22-year-old granddaughter whose first words were 'Big Bird.'

Joan Ganz Cooney

words big bird children

I thought it was quintessentially American - very hip, very late-'60s. I was absolutely stunned when a German production company asked me if I could do a 'Sesame Street' in Germany. It was absolutely the happiest surprise.

Joan Ganz Cooney

street thought me surprise