Yes, remote learning can work for preschoolers

The other day some preschoolers were pretending to be one of their favorite Sesame Street characters, a baby goat named Ma’zooza who likes round things. They played with tomatoes—counting up to five, hiding one, and putting it back. A totally ordinary moment exploring shapes, numbers, and imagination. Except this version of Sesame Street—called Ahlan Simsim (Welcome Sesame)—was custom made for children like these: Syrian refugees living in camps in Lebanon who otherwise don’t have access to preschool or, often, enough to eat. Educational interruptions due to the pandemic, climate disasters, and war have affected nearly every child on Earth since 2020. A record 43.3 million children have been driven from their homes by conflict and disasters, according to UNICEF—a number that doubled over the past decade. And yet, points out Sherrie Westin, the head of the nonprofit that produces Sesame Street, “less than 2% of humanitarian aid worldwide goes to the early years”—that is, specifically supporting care and education, not just food and medicine. The Ahlan Simsim program is the largest-ever humanitarian intervention specifically intended for small children’s development. The Sesame Workshop partnered with the International Rescue Committee, a humanitarian-aid nonprofit, to win a $100 million grant competition administered by the MacArthur Foundation. The results, released in May 2023 but not yet peer reviewed, have been startling: they have provided the first evidence that 100 percent remote learning can help young children in crisis situations.