What would Mister Rogers make of news from southern border?
A friend of mine who has been a volunteer at a Milwaukee public school for a few years told me an interesting anecdote recently.
She was paired with a student to work on reading. Things didn’t get off to a promising start. But after a while, the two of them clicked, the sessions went well and the student made progress. What changed?
The student sent my friend a note that said, “I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me. When I first met you, I’m going to admit I didn’t really talk much and I thought you were just another random person, but as you kept coming in the class, I kind of opened up.”
Just another random person. Or worse, someone who really doesn’t care. That’s who so many children — not all of them poor or minority — face far too often, both at home and in other circumstances.
It’s one of the big reasons the words “trauma” or “social and emotional learning” have come to dominate discussion about improving school success and the lives of children.
What convinced the student that my friend was not a “random person”? The relationship. Support. Consistency. Warmth. Call it love.
Those are things kids really need. From the biggest scale to the smallest, there are a lot of reasons to be concerned about how we, as a whole, are doing on offering these.
Without touching the subjects of immigration and border security, what message does it send — and we can be sure kids are taking this in — when the policy of the nation is to take kids from their parents and put them in circumstances that offer none of the positive traits just mentioned?
Or when the first lady of the United States heads off to visit some of those kids wearing a jacket that, in large letters, says, “I really don’t care.”
Even if steps are being taken to lessen the crisis, the message is that “family values” such as holding down the trauma in all kids’ lives are not our highest priority.
Go to the other end of the spectrum. I saw the movie, “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” — a documentary about Fred Rogers and the “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood” program that ran on public television for more than 30 years. It is being shown in theaters in the Milwaukee area now.
(Episodes of the show itself are easily available online.)
I think Mister Rogers was a genius who had great positive influence on millions of 3- to 6-year-old children (including my own).
The slow, quiet pace of the show made it a prime candidate for mockery from adults. But Mister Rogers connected with kids in such healthy ways, offering them, even via television, a relationship with a consistent, caring and wise adult.
Mixed in with make-believe stories and other elements of the show, Mister Rogers helped guide children through important and tough subjects such as death, divorce and moving away from friends.
Fred Rogers did not like the hyper paced, superficial, often violent entertainment that makes up so much of
what kids are exposed to now.
What values are being ingrained through all of that?
More broadly, there is a strong chorus of concern among educators nationwide about how much time kids of all ages spend looking at screens and what is it they’re seeing and doing. Many experts regard extreme screen time as a negative force academically and socially.
One specific piece of evidence of how widespread the concern is: The publication Education Week conducted a poll recently of principals nationwide about technology trends.
One question asked about the time students spend on screens while in school. Sixty-four percent of principals said kids spent about the right amount of time on screen; the rest split almost evenly between “too much” and “too little.”
But asked about how much time students spend on screens at home, 95% said, “Too much.”
What is the huge amount of time so many kids spend on screens doing to their personal development and development of good relationships with others, both kids and adults?
It’s an important generalization that kids who have good, stable relationships with adults that nourish the character traits of success by every definition are kids with promising futures. And kids whose lives are unstable, who are bounced around, who lack supportive adults in their lives are kids who, far too often, are on paths to difficulties.
I spoke to a group of retirees several days ago and got a question that I hear often: How can schools serving highneeds kids get better results when so many have such unstable home situations?
There is no doubt that, overall, kids shaped by big difficulties outside of school do not have good records of success in school.
There are efforts underway in the Milwaukee area that could move the needle in a positive direction, including more high-quality early childhood programs, more efforts to deal with kids’ social and emotional needs, and efforts
I think he would be discouraged by those who are acting like “random adults” (or worse). He would cheer those who are responding with care and compassion for kids in difficult circumstances.
to improve parenting itself, such as the Vroom “brain builders” program available online (vroom.org) and now being promoted actively in Milwaukee.
What would Mister Rogers make of the news from the southern border last week?
I think he would be discouraged by those who are acting like “random adults” (or worse). He would cheer those who are responding with care and compassion for kids in difficult circumstances.
And he’d urge people to aim to be like my friend, the volunteer who offers kids consistent, warm, nourishing stability and help.