It’s a beautiful day in my neighborhood of Pittsburgh today. I am feeling grateful for this sunny, crisp day, for this heater near me at my desk while I write, for my fluffy cat Willow, for the shelves of picture books that surround me as inspiration, for all the children in my life even though I no longer have a classroom of my own, and for all of the brilliant educators with whom I get to learn and grow.

Two years ago, I never could have imagined the life I have now and the ways in which I get to work with children and educators. There is no greater joy than being able to work alongside a teacher to try something new in a classroom or facilitate a workshop that generates a new kind of reflection or notice the process of children’s thinking with other teachers and later marvel at the brilliance we witnessed.

One of the projects that brings an enormous amount of joy is our Educators’ Neighborhood project. Oh, the delight of watching Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood episodes alongside children and their teachers! To witness the impact of Fred Rogers’ approach on children and educators in 2019-20 is to notice what is most essential to children and educators right now. What’s essential goes way beyond a notion of “kindness” that is often the highlighted feature of celebrations of Mister Rogers. Yes, there is kindness present in the episodes and indeed kindness is highly important. But there’s a lot more to the episodes, too.

Beyond the typical celebrations of Mister Rogers, teachers in our Educators’ Neighborhood look deeply into the rigor of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood episodes, study the child development theory and practice embedded into each second of every episode, and learn from each other about the varied ways children from various backgrounds are making connections with the episodes.

I’ll be writing more about our Educators’ Neighborhood learning throughout 2020, including specific ideas around children’s engagement with the episodes and how teachers are learning and growing together.

In the meantime, here is an introductory piece about our project and the kinds of learning we are already finding together: Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood Today: Learning from Educators in our Neighborhood.

-peace and love, Melissa