As a child, Tracy Andrews said Fred Rogers’ soft-spoken wonder made her curious about the world. As a parent, his calm, civil approach to disagreements helped guide challenging discussions with her children.
Now, as a 1st grade teacher at Wilmington Area Elementary School, in New Wilmington, Pa., Andrews said the landmark television series, “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood,” taught her the importance of ensuring students “knew that they were loved, safe, cared for before ever trying to educate them.”
It’s been 25 years since Fred Rogers hung up his red cardigan for the last time and thanked his young viewers “just for being you,” but Andrews and other teachers say the children’s television icon’s focus on listening to and valuing children still resonates. They’ve taken his work as inspiration for how they approach teaching.
For the past four years, teachers across Rogers’ home state of Pennsylvania have come together with local higher education institutions and the Fred Rogers Center for Early Learning and Children’s Media, a nonprofit based at Saint Vincent College in Rogers’ hometown Latrobe, for “FrED Camp,” based on his instructional approach.
The project introduces teachers to the science underpinning Rogers’ famously calm, empathic approach to teaching children, and highlights decades of evidence and practice linking academic learning to students’ identity and social development, a hallmark of the idea of social-emotional learning. (The Trump administration has sought to cast doubt on the validity of social-emotional learning in education.)
“When we remember Fred Rogers today, we remember that nice guy in a sweater, which he certainly was,” said Ryan Rydzewski, a co-author of When You Wonder, You’re Learning: Mister Rogers’ Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids, “but every aspect of ‘Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood'—from the clothes he wore to the way he walked into the room at the beginning of every episode—everything he did was grounded in the science of learning.”
For example, Rogers began one well-known segment involving a visit to a crayon factory by sitting down to color on an easel before introducing the question of where the colors were made. He ensured students had some background knowledge and started wondering about the topic before introducing new material.
“If Fred just plopped down in the middle of a factory without any context, kids wouldn’t be curious,” Rydzewski said. “They wouldn’t have that grounding.”
The public television series, which debuted in 1968, was strongly shaped by Rogers’ study and mentorship by Erik Erikson, Margaret McFarland, and Benjamin Spock at Pittsburgh’s Arsenal Family & Children’s Center, at the time the researchers were developing modern frameworks of social-emotional development.
Gaining inspiration from Fred Rogers’ example
Teachers at the camp explore what Rogers considered six “fundamentals” needed for children to learn and grow:
- Curiosity;
- Capacity to look and listen carefully;
- Ability to play;
- Sense of self-worth;
- Capacity to see solitude not as loneliness, but for reflection and growth; and
- A sense of trust in the adults, peers, and world around them.
All of these pillars are being eroded by more screen time and digital media, tighter and more directed school schedules, and social isolation, Andrews and other teachers in the program said.
“Our students are coming to us significantly behind where they once were, in the ability to problem-solve, to just cope with everyday challenges of success and failure and frustration,” Andrews said
Jennifer Toney, a 20-year veteran 3rd grade English/language arts teacher in the Sharpsville Area, Pa. school district, agreed that she has seen over the last decade an erosion of children’s social-emotional skills, particularly conversation skills and connection to peers.
“Especially younger generations, with the technology that they’re surrounded by, the most important thing is seeing them as people rather than students,” said Toney, who has participated in the FrED camp since its inception.
Toney played off her school cafeteria’s Taco Tuesday with a morning “Talk to Me Tuesday.” Students practiced conversation skills by passing a taco plushy to take turns asking questions and listening closely to one another. She soon followed up with “Wonder Wednesday,” in which students had the opportunity to ask questions about anything they wanted.
Not only did the theme days quickly become a favorite with students, but they also boosted students’ writing skills and class etiquette, Toney said. “They seemed to listen a little bit better to each other, not just during that circle time, but throughout class,” she said.
Scott Miller, principal of the K-2 Avonworth Primary Center in Pittsburgh, has attended the camps with his teachers for the last three years and said it has changed what he and his staff think of as learning success.
Amid academic pressures, Miller has pushed to protect recess and movement breaks, and encourages teachers to involve students in art and community projects. Avonworth Primary starts each day with 25 minutes of “together time,” giving the teachers the opportunity to catch up on their students’ lives and discuss key social-emotional questions, like how to be a good friend or an honest student.
Based on camp discussions, Miller and his teachers created a “wisdom corridor” at Avonworth, in which teams of students interview school staff and community members about their life stories, skills, and lessons. The students line a hallway with posters celebrating the lives and insights of the school community.
“Everybody has something to share, based on their life experience. If we never ask the right questions, we never find that out,” Miller said.
