On Monday, poet Amanda Gorman taught Sesame Street’s Grover about a new word, “upstander.”
Gorman is the first guest in a new “Word of the Day” video series from Sesame Workshop, the nonprofit behind Sesame Street. Produced in partnership with media company WarnerMedia Kids and Family, the series “harnesses the power of language to nurture children’s positive and healthy senses of self,” according the announcement. Each short video will feature celebrity guests including Samuel L. Jackson, Gabrielle Union, Brett Goldstein, Anna Cathcart, Zazie Beetz, Ava DuVernay, and First Lady Jill Biden as they introduce new words like “belonging,” “fairness,” and “proud.”
In the video, Gorman and Sesame Street character Gabrielle tell Grover that an upstander is someone who “uses their kind words or actions to help their friends or themselves when they’re being treated unfairly and unkindly.” Sometimes people are treated unfairly because of how they look, the language they speak, or their religion, they explained. So if someone were to say something unkind about the color of Gorman or Gabrielle’s skin, Grover offers, being an upstander is saying, “that is wrong, and all skin is beautiful.” Or, Gabrielle suggests, she can be an upstander for herself and say “that’s wrong and not fair,” if someone says they can’t play with her because of the way she looks.
The series comes from the ongoing Coming Together, a racial justice initiative that was created in 2020 after Sesame Workshop saw an increased need to “help families talk about race, ethnicity, and culture with their children,” read the announcement. Coming Together has also featured a town hall with CNN and two full-length specials, content that includes two new Sesame Street characters, Tamir and Ji-Young, the first Asian American puppet.
“We know that children are not colorblind; they absorb messages about their own and others’ identities from a very young age, from their own lives and the world around them,” Akimi Gibson, Sesame Workshop’s vice president and education publisher who was one of the leaders in the Coming Together initiative, said in the press release. “With these new videos — and as with all of our Coming Together content — we want to support caregivers as they help their children navigate our complex world,” Gibson continued.
Monday’s video and upcoming “Word of the Day” videos will be featured on Sesame Street’s YouTube channel, and Cartoon Network and Cartoonito’s social channels.
