The renaissance of Saturday morning cartoons
The renaissance of Saturday morning cartoons
Educational short-form content is now the main attraction, and it’s very much here to save us all
**Disclaimer: This post assumes that your parenting toolbox includes a limited amount of screen time.**
For us, Ms. Rachel was the end of taking a hardline on screen time. She’s a lifesaver at the end of a long day, or when he’s sick or spinning out… or when we need to get something done and it’s our only option. It’s OK if this isn’t your thing!! I’m just a much better parent because of Ms. Rachel.
If you have parents of a young child and Ms. Rachel has been part of your journey, you’ll completely understand why what I’m about to tell you is so exciting.
Remember Schoolhouse Rock, and how revolutionary it was to bridge Saturday morning cartoons with a 3-minute grammar drill or civics lesson?
I recently discovered a gem of a show called City Island that’s been quietly streaming on PBS KIDS.
Its episodes are short.
Its wisdom is endless.
Brimming with Sesame Street vibes, the show takes place in a fictional city where objects are people who interact with each other and everyone contributes to making their city a thriving place to live.
It’s honestly such a special show.
I don’t know how they pack so much civic and social-emotional goodness into three-and-a-half minute episodes, but it’s a level of mastery that keeps on giving. All 20 episodes of Season 1 are streaming now on PBS KIDS (for free!), and Season 2 comes out this summer. I’m beyond hopeful this show stays on the air for a long time.
City Island was created by Aaron Augenblick, an animator and storyteller who applied his creative genius in a way that is genuinely herculean for helping parent young children. He found the perfect home in PBS KIDS, and together they fully get what makes an animated, civics-themed show for kids work.
I recently had an opportunity to Zoom with CITY ISLAND creator Aaron Augenblick and Anne Lund from PBS KIDS. I was like a giddy fan with a backstage pass.
Below are a few highlights from the Q&A. I highly encourage you to check out the show (again, streaming free on PBS KIDS – there’s also an app and I think it’s also a downloadable app to your TV).
I wanted to start out with a basic question, because a lot of times people will ask me – well, what does civics mean to you? Is it political? Is it about government? It’s obviously so much more, and I think you've done such a beautiful job of showing that through the show. So I’d love to start by asking what “civics” means to each of you.
Anne Lund (PBS KIDS): When I think about “civics”, I think a lot about the unique role that we each play in our communities, and about being informed and learning how our communities work – and the thoughtful choices we make that can help others in in our different community spaces. The idea of “community” is just so important to how we think about civics at PBS KIDS, and how I think about it myself.
Aaron Augenblick (Creator, CITY ISLAND): One of the neat things is that PBS is the most careful and well-researched place, and they have an amazing curriculum framework that breaks it down. With CITY ISLAND, we cover cities and government, geography, economics, history – all important facets of civics and social studies. And when you look at civics in that kind of broad framework, there's so much to talk about and explore.
One of the unique things about CITY ISLAND is that we’re a fantasy show. We're not a show about humans necessarily living in the USA. It's a world where the objects are alive, and these fantasy characters help us approach civics very philosophically and conceptually, which I find exciting.
For example, when we talk about geography – we're not saying, “okay, here's the list of state capitals that need to be memorized.” Our geography episode was about going to a planetarium, where the kids see a satellite image of their neighborhood. And they say, “oh, wow! Look at that! That's the whole world!” And then they zoom out again, and now there's a whole city, and then they zoom out again to a whole country. And then there's a whole world. That’s a civics concept.
When we talked to our curriculum advisor Liz Hinde, we brainstormed all these different basic fundamentals of civics and she told us a key geographical concept that you need to explain to kids is that the world is much bigger than where you grew up, what you can see, where you spend your day, your week, or your year. There's a much bigger world out there and we're all in this world together. So by making it conceptual, it becomes a much more powerful message. I think what's exciting about the PBS KIDS curriculum is that it gives us room to talk about big ideas where kids will expand their worldview and want to learn more.
Tell us a bit about the PBS KIDS “Civics Content Initiative”, and how parents can utilize PBS KIDS’ content to feel empowered, not only when having conversations with kids about civics, but to also be more confident in their own knowledge of civics.
Anne Lund (PBS KIDS): The heart of the PBS KIDS Civics Content Initiative is to help kids see how they can play an important role as citizens in their community. To do this, we pay attention to what early childhood advisors and policy makers are saying so we can really ground the civics curriculum in current, evidence-based research. For our youngest audience members, that might mean helping them see the roles and responsibilities that they have as part of their core family. So, as Aaron said, we start with the things that are right around you, and we work out from there as kids get older. When kids enter school, that's a new community space for them where they’re learning about the rules of their classroom and they can also learn about rules in City Island.
Our goal is looking at all these different concepts in relatable ways for the different ages of our audience. And we hope that kids and the adults in their lives watching along can see that kids can participate as citizens at a very early age! Maybe it's participating in a playground clean-up at their school or in their community, or doing a walk to support a cause that's important to their family. It’s really about modeling different kinds of behaviors, and also modeling how to ask questions. That's a big, important part – being curious and thinking critically about what's going on around us in the world. And we hope that CITY ISLAND is a great model for that kind of thoughtfulness.
And finally, we want to help parents learn how to model these kinds of behaviors, and ask questions and think critically for themselves as well as for their kids. Parents are the best role models for our kids, and what we do, they will follow. So we hope to provide that springboard for those conversations in really fun ways.
Aaron Augenblick (Creator, CITY ISLAND): If I could add to that, another interesting place that we're exploring this season is media literacy within the world of civics. Media literacy is easily integrated into civics education, and we think it has its own place in City Island.
For example, Windy the Kite is Watt's (the main character’s) best friend. She sees a news story about how there was a bad storm where lots of things were damaged, and she doesn't know what to do about it. Her family talks about what they can do together to help out, because they’ve all seen the news and the impact the storm had, and they decide how to act on it as a family. The point is that hopefully, we're creating a model for a way that kids can actually participate in their world. This isn't just something to be reading about and learning about, but there are actually things you can act on as well.
I feel like that dovetails perfectly with a quote I pulled from another interview that Aaron did, where you said that civics is really “conceptual” for kids. I think that’s a description that really lands. Can you explain what you mean when you say that civics is “conceptual” for kids?
Aaron Augenblick (Creator, CITY ISLAND): It's funny. When I was in school, I was always really good at classes that were more conceptual. I obviously loved art class because I'm an animator. I loved (and still love) reading. I loved science and math. But when I had to memorize stuff, I was just always really terrible at it.
And so I’ve always really loved ideas. I love learning about ideas as much as I like talking about ideas. And when you look at civics as a curriculum that has so many ideas to explore – and not just information to memorize – I think kids have fun with that. I think kids like ideas; they like thinking about stuff. They like exploring. They like imagination, and City Island is all about imagination and exploring ideas. And luckily our central character Watt is a kid that gets super excited about these types of things. He likes to meet people. He likes to learn about new things. He likes to find out things. He likes to try things out. So he’s become a really nice conduit for us to explore all these ideas that also happen to be civics and social studies concepts.
Anne Lund (PBS KIDS): And there's something to the playfulness, right? At PBS KIDS, we really like to think about playful learning; that experiential, in-the-moment learning. Through story, CITY ISLAND presents playful ways to learn about concepts that, on the surface – especially for parents – might seem very complicated. But when you bring these ideas into relatable contexts and spaces that are familiar to kids – spaces like home, school, and their own neighborhood – it helps demystify and makes it a lot easier for kids to ask questions and for parents to see the connections and find paths to talk to their kids about these otherwise complicated topics.
Aaron Augenblick (Creator, CITY ISLAND): We're raising kids in a time where civics is being taught less and less in schools. That's a reality. And for some kids, the only chance they may have to learn about civics is on PBS KIDS. That's why it's so crucial. When I started delving into this world, I really understood just how complicated it is to teach civics. There are so many complex mechanisms at work. But this is really what PBS does best – organizing complicated concepts into understandable frameworks. We feel like it's our job as the creators of CITY ISLAND, in tandem with PBS KIDS, to make complicated things not that complicated, and hopefully also entertaining and fun.
Take the concepts of citizenship and civic participation. How can I take that and present it to kids in a way that they totally get it and think it's fun, and maybe even make it something they want to learn more about? That's my job, and it's so much fun. Every time we're brainstorming a new episode, we go to the curriculum, and it's like a candy bag of ideas. We’re like, oh, a family tree! That's interesting. What's a family tree? How does that work? How do you make a family tree? What does a family tree represent? So we make an episode about Watt (the main character) making a family tree, and going to a family reunion where he gets to meet all these different kinds of lights in his family. There's a streetlight and a lava lamp. Then then you start getting into OK, let's have fun. Let's play around. But I couldn't do it if it weren't for this careful, clear, curriculum framework that PBS KIDS maps out for us.
I love the family tree episode. OK. I like to say I’m trying to create a civics “toolbox” for parents with resources to help them raise civically-engaged kids, and what you’re both doing feels foundational to what I think of when I think of the toolbox. So here’s my last question to each of you:
If you could whisper one parting piece of advice in every parents’ ear to make them feel empowered, and maybe even excited about the opportunity to go on this journey with their kids – what would that piece of advice be?
Anne Lund (PBS KIDS): I think it goes back to that role model piece. About what you can do as a parent to model civic engagement for your child, and not get caught up in the “what do I need to tell them or say to them”, especially for young kids, because that will come. Remember they’re watching what you do. And listen to the questions they’re asking, and don’t worry if you don’t have the perfect answer.
Aaron Augenblick (Creator, CITY ISLAND): I couldn't agree more. For us, the north star is presenting a world that gives kids a sense of optimism and positivity. Because the reality is that kids are having a really tough time. Right? Kids are having a tough time, and for very good reasons. A lot of our audience have grown up in the pandemic. They're feeling isolated. They're feeling distanced from the world. They don't really feel like they're a part of their universe. And so we try to present a world where things work really, really well; where people are friendly and nice; where there are authority figures and helpers creating a better world for everyone. I believe the world is like that. I think we're all doing our best and we all want the world to be better. So we want to convey a more optimistic view of society where the world is filled with people trying to make the world a better place. And I think that's incredibly important. And so I would say to parents, it’s just as much about teaching the basics of understanding our world as it is about conveying a sense of positivity to kids that things are going to be great. We have a lot of smart people out there trying to create change, and I think that type of optimism is an important aspect of civics as well.