"Sunny Day Sweepin' the Clouds Away..."

My cultural sensibilities were a bit shaken today during a Year 8 lesson on Holes. While reading aloud in class we tackled a portion of the text which, for most American students would have been clear from the get-go, but for a British audience of adolescents it was none too clear. An illustration of how cultural allusions in literary texts,depending on the society in which the text is read, can sometimes be unclear.

In the text a literary allusion is made to the nursery rhyme "There was An Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe", as Stanley Yelnats is reading a letter from his mother. Stanley's father is working on the creation of an invention which requires him to boil old, smelly sneakers (trainers) and so their home is starting to smell very bad. Stanley's mother comments, "Now I know how the little old woman who lived in a shoe must have felt." An clear attempt at creating some humor in the text. This allusion was easily understood by most students in the class, although there were two students who had never heard reference to this fairly tale.

On the same page of the text, as Stanley is speaking to his friend, Zero, who will later admit to Stanley that he can't read, Stanley asks him, "Haven't you ever seen Sesame Street?" To which Zero "stares blankly." The allusion to Sesame Street, and Zero's response of a blank stare would certainly lead to a prediction, on the part of a student, that perhaps Zero cannot read or write, since he has never even apparently heard of Sesame Street, and Stanley finds this fact quite shocking. In America, there would hardly be a child who did not know of Elmo, Grover, Oscar, Big Bird, Kermit and Miss Piggy! So as I was trying to lead the group towards the prediction that Zero was illiterate, it seemed to be rather slow going. I asked how many children had heard of Sesame Street, and only two students raised their hands. They had heard of the above characters through the "Muppet Movie", but not through the PBS Children's educational show. I found myself having to explain the cultural signifcance in America of Sesame Street and promised a short clip of the show if I can find one on the internet for next lesson!

In speaking to fellow teachers, I did indeed learn that while Sesame Street may be more well known amoung older generations, it may not necessarily be popular amoung this particular generation of UK students, due to the variety of television shows now aired on television. Who would have ever thought that something as simple as Sesame Street, a show we take for granted so often in the US, would lead to such discussion! I learn something new every day!

I will say, once I explained that hardly a child in the US would not have seen Sesame Street, and that it would be highly unusual for Zero not to have seen it, and that is why Stanley was shocked, the Year 8 students completely understood its significance to the story.

"Can you tell me how to get...how to get to Sesame Street?"