Resources

Abigail McNamee on 08/22/2011 at 6:42pm

This is a surprising wonder!  My early doctoral work in child development was at the University of Pittsburgh with Nancy Curry and others strongly connected to Fred Roger’s work.  I watched his TV show being filmed.  My children became friends of Mr. Rogers on TV and even at home.  One day Fred came to lunch and as were sat at the table my four-yeaar-old son was sucking the middle two fingers of his left hand, as he so often did, and Fred said, “What do they taste like, Drew?”  I was startled.  I thought that this was one of the dumb questions that adults sometimes ask children, but not Fred!  Then Drew responded.  “Peanut butter”, with great pleasure apparent.  Drew was highly allergic to peanuts and could not eat peanut butter.  Somehow Mr. Rogers seemed to always know what children needed.  I have used his songs as a virtual course in (early) child development at Lehman College/CUNY.  This year I will have Mr. Roger’s Night as a celebration of his work in my child development course.  Interestingly, I have found that many of the teacher candidates whom I teach have trouble connecting with Mr. Rogers…they sometimes see him as silly or soft…until they work with the words of the songs.  Thank you for this work.  If I can help in any way, please contact me.