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In-Class Activities

Children’s Television: Passive and Active Engagement

Author: Sara Lindey, Ph.D.

Related Videos:
Mister Rogers: Hide and Seek
Milton Chen:  The Power of Television (PDF Transcript)
Nancy Gruner: Mister Rogers and Children (PDF Transcript)
Daniel Anderson: Children’s Interaction with Television (PDF Transcript)

In order to explore how children view and interact with media, show the following Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood video clip, “Mister Rogers: Hide and Seek,” and discuss how students relate to the content on an emotional level.  Follow by having students imagine how children might react to the clips. 

You can also show the clip, “Milton Chen: The Power of Television,” from the Fred Rogers Oral History Project interview in which Milton Chen, senior fellow of The George Lucas Educational Foundation, discusses the power of media to connect with children and how children interact with television programs.

Discuss how students engage with their current media entertainment: Do they look at fan websites or blogs? Do they join in online discussions?  Move the discussion toward children’s experiences, and their own compared with today’s children.  Watch the video, “Nancy Gruner: Mister Rogers and Children,” from the Fred Rogers Oral History Project interviews to spark discussion.  Here, Nancy Gruner, who worked at WQED at its inception and worked as a producer and director of The Children’s Corner television program, discusses the involvement of children and their families in the early years of The Children’s Corner, which premiered August 20, 1955.

Or, show this video, “Daniel Anderson: Children’s Interaction with Television,” from the Fred Rogers Oral History Project interview in which Daniel R. Anderson, psychology professor at the University of Massachusetts, explains his study of children’s interaction with television.  He explains how, in his study, children would listen to the television and play at the same time.

Complementary Materials:
Huston, A., Bickham, D., Lee, J., & Wright, J. (2006). From attention to comprehension: How children watch and learn from television. In N. Pecora, J.P. Murray, & E. A. Wartella (Eds.), Children and television: Fifty years of research (pp. 41-60). Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates.

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