Editor's note on Aug. 8, 2018: This piece has been substantially updated from a version published in 2014.
A solemn little boy with a bowl haircut is telling Mr. Rogers that his pet got hit by a car. More precisely, he's confiding this to Daniel Striped Tiger, the hand puppet that, Rogers' wife, Joanne, says, "pretty much was Fred."
"That's scary," says Daniel/Fred. He asks for a hug. The boy hugs the tiger. Not a dry eye in the house.
That scene is from Won't You Be My Neighbor, the hit documentary airing across the country with a 99 percent rating from critics on Rotten Tomatoes.
At first, such a film might seem superfluous. Why make a movie about a man who appeared as himself in hundreds of highly rated television episodes? Someone as familiar to millions of adults as a childhood friend?
Not because it reveals some shocking hidden side to the TV host, husband, father, Presbyterian minister, puppeteer, composer, organist, best-selling author and noted cardigan aficionado. He wasn't gay, says his good friend and co-star Francois Clemmons, who is. He wasn't a Navy SEAL, either — not sure how that rumor got started.
What makes Morgan Neville's biographical documentary so necessary, in fact, is that it shows Rogers was exactly what he appeared to be. Someone who devoted his life to taking seriously and responding to the emotions of children. In a word: to love.
Yes, Mister Rogers' Neighborhood was slow. It was repetitive. This was thoroughly, developmentally appropriate; Rogers was informed by his coursework at the University of Pittsburgh, by pediatricians like Dr. Benjamin Spock and Dr. T. Berry Brazelton, and his mentor, child psychologist Margaret B. McFarland.
The show was also deep, and not afraid to get dark. The topics and the format, it turns out, are as relevant to education and child development as they ever were:
Trauma
"What does assassination mean?"
"It's when someone is killed, in a surprising way."
The date was June 7, 1968. Robert F. Kennedy had been assassinated just days before. Fred Rogers and his team addressed the incident directly in an episode aimed both at children and adults. It explored how to share your own feelings and answer children's questions and common concerns. It also showed how children process scary events through play.
It's hard to think of any children's media today, let alone a TV show in its first season, that so directly, and quickly, responds to the news.
Yet there is far from a shortage of traumatic events today, and parents and teachers need help talking about them. It's a topic we've covered often on NPR Ed.
NPR's Susan Stamberg appears in the documentary, saying she liked to invite Rogers on the radio to reassure parents and children. In 1979, for example, she had him on to talk about the Iran hostage crisis. He often brought a message that's become almost a meme today: When the news is scary, "look for the helpers."
Early childhood education
Mister Rogers' Neighborhood focused on one audience: preschoolers. And for good reason. Today, increasing evidence points to the importance of early childhood education. Its impact can be felt decades down the road — in adults' education levels,incomes, even health.
Social and emotional skills
Mr. Rogers was in it for the love. "The whole idea," he told CNN in 2003, "is to look at the television camera and present as much love as you possibly could to a person who might feel that he or she needs it."
But he wasn't all sweetness and light. The shows repeatedly took on emotions like anger and sadness, too. He wanted children to learn that "feelings are mentionable and manageable." I may get mad and even feel violent, went one song, but "I can stop when I want to."
His shows, books and songs were carefully designed to give kids the tools to deal with what he called "the inner drama of childhood" — from sibling rivalry to loneliness, anger and edgier topics like gender expression (as in the song "Everybody's Fancy").
Today, the science has caught up. Research tells us social and emotional skills, including self-regulation, and being able to recognize emotions, are as important to success as academic achievement.
To read the rest of the article from NPR, click here.
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