I was just talking about this yesterday. I love Mr. Rogers, but I don’t know if I can stand to hear this line being used by adults for adults about yet another act of inevitable, preventable domestic terrorism.
Mr. Rogers: Numbers are important and they let you count things
Me as a 6-year-old: Neat.
Mr. Rogers: Now we’re going to talk with someone who makes guitars.
Me: Interesting.
Mr. Rogers: Now we send the trolley through the portal in the back of my living room that leads to a puppet world.
Me: Wait what.
King Friday: I’ve lost my favorite bicycle!
Me: I don’t understand, are these puppets within the established reality of the show? Or are they real things being portrayed through puppets despite the broader world being human, a la Muppets or Fraggle Rock.
Henrietta Pussycat: You always lose your bicycle!
Me: Is this physically happening in the back of the living room? Because the trolley is regualar size now, meaning this world is smaller, so it’s physically concievable. Or is this another dimension entirely.
Prince Tuesday: I borrowed your bicycle without asking, I’m sorry!
Me: Can anyone access this world or only the trolley? What would happen if you stick your hand in the portal? Or is the trolley the needle that pierces the veil between the worlds.
Henrietta Pussycat: It’s wrong to take things without asking!
Me: What exactly is Rogers doing while this is happening. Does time move differently here?
Mr. Rogers: I hope we all learned that its important respect other people’s things.
Mr. Rogers had an intentional manner of speaking to children, which his writers called “Freddish”. There were nine steps for translating into Freddish:
“State the idea you wish to express as clearly as possible, and in terms preschoolers can understand.” Example: It is dangerous to play in the street.
“Rephrase in a positive manner,” as in It is good to play where it is safe.
“Rephrase the idea, bearing in mind that preschoolers cannot yet make subtle distinctions and need to be redirected to authorities they trust.” As in, “Ask your parents where it is safe to play.”
“Rephrase your idea to eliminate all elements that could be considered prescriptive, directive, or instructive.” In the example, that’d mean getting rid of “ask”: Your parents will tell you where it is safe to play.
“Rephrase any element that suggests certainty.” That’d be “will”: Your parents can tell you where it is safe to play.
“Rephrase your idea to eliminate any element that may not apply to all children.” Not all children know their parents, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play.
“Add a simple motivational idea that gives preschoolers a reason to follow your advice.” Perhaps: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is good to listen to them.
“Rephrase your new statement, repeating the first step.” “Good” represents a value judgment, so: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them.
“Rephrase your idea a final time, relating it to some phase of development a preschooler can understand.” Maybe: Your favorite grown-ups can tell you where it is safe to play. It is important to try to listen to them, and listening is an important part of growing.
Rogers brought this level of care and attention not just to granular
details and phrasings, but the bigger messages his show would send.
Hedda Sharapan, one of the staff members at Fred Rogers’s production
company, Family Communications, Inc., recalls Rogers once halted taping
of a show when a cast member told the puppet Henrietta Pussycat not to
cry; he interrupted shooting to make it clear that his show would never
suggest to children that they not cry.
In working on the show,
Rogers interacted extensively with academic researchers. Daniel R.
Anderson, a psychologist formerly at the University of Massachusetts who
worked as an advisor for the show, remembered a speaking trip to
Germany at which some members of an academic audience raised questions
about Rogers’s direct approach on television. They were concerned that
it could lead to false expectations from children of personal support
from a televised figure. Anderson was impressed with the depth of
Rogers’s reaction, and with the fact that he went back to production
carefully screening scripts for any hint of language that could confuse
children in that way.
In fact, Freddish and Rogers’s philosophy of
child development is actually derived from some of the leading
20th-century scholars of the subject. In the 1950s, Rogers, already well
known for a previous children’s TV program, was pursuing a graduate
degree at The Pittsburgh Theological Seminary when a teacher there
recommended he also study under the child-development expert Margaret
McFarland at the University of Pittsburgh. There he was exposed to the
theories of legendary faculty, including McFarland, Benjamin Spock, Erik
Erikson, and T. Berry Brazelton. Rogers learned the highest standards
in this emerging academic field, and he applied them to his program for
almost half a century.
This is one of the reasons Rogers was so
particular about the writing on his show. “I spent hours talking with
Fred and taking notes,” says Greenwald, “then hours talking with
Margaret McFarland before I went off and wrote the scripts. Then Fred
made them better.” As simple as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood looked and sounded, every detail in it was the product of a tremendously careful, academically-informed process.
That idea is REALLY worth learning to talk to the kiddos. Mr. Rogers still has a lot to teach us–especially for our own kids.
Mr. Rogers is a perfect example of doing something small and easy to accommodate those with a disability or making someone more comfortable that makes all the difference to them
An image of Mr. Rogers feeding his fish. The image reads:
“Mr Rogers made a point of mentioning out loud when he was feeding his fish on his show after he got a letter from a family whose blind daughter asked him to do so because she couldn’t tell if the fish were being fed.”
Below the image of Mr Rogers, the text reads: “One girl and her fmaily wrote to tell us there was a special reason why she wanted me [Mr. Rogers] to talk about feeding the fish each day.
“Dear Mr Rogers,
Please say when you are feeding your fish, because I worry about them. I can’t see if you are feeding them, so please say you are feeding them out loud.”
Katie, age 5
(Father’s note: Katie is blind, and she does cry if you don’t say that you have fed the fish.)
Since hearing from Katie, I’ve tried to remember to mention out load those times I’m feeding the fish. Over the years, I’ve learned so mcuh from children and their families. I like to think that we’ve all grown together.“
Our neighbor didn’t die, he was just needed someplace else.
He took a moment that was about recognizing him and turned it into a moment to recognize everyone who was there and everyone who made it possible for him to do what he does. If you want a perfect example of why he is so fondly remembered and such a great person, it’s tough to find a better one than this.
Urocyon's Jaunts 2.0 
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