![]() He quotes, at length, his song, “What Do You Do with the Mad That You Feel?” which gives suggestions for how to channel anger: “punch a bag,” “pound some clay or some dough,” “round up friends for a game of tag.” His favorite part of the song, it seems, talks about what he calls the “good feeling of control”: He sits calmly, speaks slowly, and talks about feelings. The young Fred, just a year into the national run of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, doesn’t talk, as I once assumed, about ensuring that educational television is equally available in all zip codes. But while my friends and I are busy trying to score political points, it’s easy to miss the substance of the testimony itself. The famous video of Mister Rogers’ 1969 testimony before a Senate subcommittee shows up on my social media feeds every time government funding for PBS or NPR is threatened. Senate Commerce Committee hearing in support of public broadcasting on May 1, 1969. But our feelings aren’t an excuse for bad behavior And naming our feelings, speaking them out loud, and exploring them with those we love are all good ways, as Mister Rogers might say, of growing on the inside. In other words, whatever we feel, it’s okay to feel it-even if our feelings seem chaotic and complex. It was Margaret who helped Fred get in touch with his own childhood memories, who helped him anchor the scripts, songs, and set of Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood in child development theory, and who said to him repeatedly, “Anything human is mentionable, and anything mentionable is manageable.” Margaret and Fred became good friends, and Margaret worked as chief psychological consultant for Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood from the time it began until her death in 1988. ![]() Margaret McFarland, a member of the Pitt medical school faculty. It was through his studies that he met child psychologist Dr. ![]() During his years on that show, Fred often spent his lunch hour taking classes-first at Pittsburgh Theological Seminary (then called Western Theological Seminary) and later at the University of Pittsburgh, where he studied child development. It’s okay to feel whatever it is that we feelįrom the GGSC to your bookshelf: 30 science-backed tools for well-being.įrom 1955 to 1961, Fred Rogers was puppeteer and organist for The Children’s Corner, a popular, live, local Pittsburgh show that he co-created with Josie Carey. Here are some of Mister Rogers’ teachings that could help us weather today’s ups and downs, stand up for what we believe in, and come together across our differences. It seems we sense that Mister Rogers, whom we used to know so well, who used to seem to know us so well, may have something to say to us in our divided, contentious, often-painful cultural and political climate. Somehow, over 15 years after his death, we seem unable to stop turning back to Mister Rogers again and again-with a feature film that will begin filming in Pittsburgh this fall, and a biography that will be released in September. ![]() Those children now make up much of the American public, and now many of them are flocking to theaters to see the documentary of Misters Rogers’ life, Won’t You Be My Neighbor? Beginning in 1968 and continuing until (and beyond) the end of production in 2001, untold millions of children grew up under Mister Rogers’ steady gaze and faithful care. Fred Rogers, of course, went on to create Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, which aired nationally for over 30 years.
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