The Electric Company

About a year ago, Emma started watching The Electric Company. I am not sure how she first got started, but Emma was immediately smitten with the show (um, so was I).    New episodes would air on Fridays.  She would look forward to the new episode as soon as she finished watching the Friday show.  During the week, she would request to watch older episodes which were saved on the DVR. When we discovered that PBS posted all of the episodes on their website, Emma started watching the The Electric Company on the Internet. We have a "one show a day policy." She used all of her TV show time to watch old episodes of The Electric Company.

The Electric Company was a popular children's show in the 1970's. As I remember, it was faster moving version of Sesame Street targeted to older kids.  For what ever reason, I never watched The Electric Company very much when I was growing up. Perhaps the show just came on at an odd time.

 I do remember that The Electric Company, like Sesame Street, was a peek into a world very different from my world as a kid.  Both shows had diversity -- Hispanics, African-Americans, Asians. I didn't call it diversity. I just knew that the people on these shows looked different than most of the people in my world on the rural plains of Eastern Colorado. I was both curious and fascinated by the seemly happy mix of people.

Now PBS has created a new version of The Electric Company.  The approach of the show is the same--music, dance, celebrity visits and animation to teach the basics of phonics. The current show still has the same iconic elements from the 70's version (i.e. the "Hey you guys" call to action and the blending of words by the silhouetted face people). But now the show has been updated to include elements from popular culture that resonate with the kids of today.  This means PBS added hip-hop and beatbox, plus slick music videos and a story to entertain the audience into learning basic phonics.

Here are some of our favorite clips from the show. Let's start with the show's opening sequence.  Each of the characters have a special multi-media super power to help them with words and reading.  The show is filmed on the diverse streets of the Bronx in New York City.

ELECTRIC COMPANY INTRODUCTION




Below is Emma's favorite music video from the show.  I often look across the living room as I am cooking dinner to see Emma dancing and singing along to this video. The video is about Electric City, a place "where you can be anything you wanna be."  After the show is over, Emma frequently gets a worm in her ear and repeats the "two steps to the left electric, two steps to the right electic" part over and over and over again.

WYCLEF JEAN SINGS 'ELECTRIC CITY'





Now here is my favorite video. (I actually have lots of favorite videos. It was a hard choice.) Bless the woman that gave birth to the PBS writer that came up with the idea of mixing classic Bollywood dance ensemble choreography and 70's hippy hair/clothing together with a catchy song to teach word decoding word strategies.

After watching this dance video,  you might want to do the "Slide and Drop" dance at home. Here is the link to the YouTube 'Slide and Drop" Instructional dance video .

DO THE 'SLIDE AND DROP'




I am fascinated how The Electric Company uses fun, memorable song and dance to teach rather dry and tedius spelling rules.  (I often think I should take a page from the Electric Company's teaching pedagogy and burst into song and dance myself when I stand in front of my own classroom of college students.)

To demonstrate The Electric Company's teaching method, let me show how they approach one concept from a phonics curriculum: R-controlled vowels.  Here is the R-controlled vowels phonics rule:

R controlled vowels occur when an "r" changes the way the preceding vowel is pronounced. R-influenced vowels are neither long or short. When vowels follow the "r", the sound is blended with "r" to form a new special sound (or phoneme) as in car, fern, bird, fork, spur.

Appropriately, The Electric Company calls this rule, 'Bossy R.' The rule is illustrated in four unique, entertaining ways during "curriculum commercial breaks." I have posted all four below.


Annie's Prankster Cam's approach is the most straight forward.

PRANKSTER CAM:  ANNIE'S 'BOSSY R'




This is how the 'Bossy R' rule is interpreted by show's resident beatboxer, Shock and his guest beatbox partner, Lin-Manuel Miranda.

'BOSSY R' BEATBOX 




Now for the classic back and forth interaction of the face people doing their take on the 'Bossy R.'

'BOSSY R' SILHOUETTE BLENDS

This is the version of the 'Bossy R' that Emma and I like the best. Emma refers to it as the one with the dancing mommy and daughter.

'BOSSY R' DANCE VIDEO 



Thanks to Beth for the prompt regarding The Electric Company. (See comment on previous blog entry).