Cooney Making A Difference

Joan Ganz Cooney is the founder of the Children’s Television Workshop, the organization that has created educational programming for your children’s television for more than three decades. Her best-known work is Sesame Street, an original children’s TV program that features beloved characters as Big Bird, Elmo, Oscar, and Bert and Ernie. “The show enjoyed such great popularity in the United States that a number of other countries developed their own versions.” Cooney was inducted into the National Women's Hall of Fame in 1998, and the Television Hall of Fame. With her creative vision and drive, Cooney revolutionized children??s television programming. In 1989, she received an Emmy Award for Lifetime Achievement and was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1995 for her contributions to educational television. “As an education device, television has important strengths: it is accessible, it is cost effective, and it works.’’

     Cooney is so memorable of her hard working. She is a pioneer in children’s TV programming, and also founded the Children’s Television Workshop (CTW). The first television series was the Sesame Street. Cooney work helped shape American society in so many ways. She received a grant from the Carnegie Corporation to study the impact of the educational programming on disadvantaged children.  The success of Sesame Street helped its producer, Children's Television Workshop (CTW); create educational material in many forms. This even made Cooney one of the most respected educators in the United States. In 1995, she also received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest honor the U.S. government can give to a civilian. When President Bill Clinton (1946- ) honored Cooney, he noted how she "has proven in living color that the powerful medium of television can be a tool … to help build young lives up rather than tear them down." Something that I learned about Joan Ganz Cooney that will inspire me in my own life was how determine she was. She never gave up she accomplished her dreams and also did something for the children when she came out with the first television series Sesame Street. This motivated me to go after my dreams to become a pediatrician doctor.  To experience that feeling knowing you help that child is the best feeling in the world and that is the favor that I want to return to the youth someday.

Joan Ganz Cooney follows the “HUNT” in various ways for example

1. H -After high school, Ganz enrolled at a Catholic college in California, and then transferred to the University of Arizona. She graduated in 1951 with a degree in education.
2. U- Headed east, taking a job in publicity in New York for the National Broadcasting Company.
3. N- She began doing publicity for a popular dramatic series, The United States Steel Hour, a position she held for seven years.
4. T- A job making documentaries for WNDT, the public television station in New York.