The Good Neighbor: The Life and Work of Fred Rogers

by Maxwell King

When Fred Rogers’s teachers at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary had the good sense to send him over to Margaret McFarland, he found the perfect environment in which to marry his creative work with high academic standards. Rogers took the teachings of McFarland, Spock, Erikson, and Brazelton and gave them a practical role in the real world of early childhood education. He gave their research immediacy and currency by thrusting it into the new world of television and popular culture. Eventually, it was Fred Rogers who taught multiple generations of American parents how very critical the first few years of human life could be, and how social and emotional learning is more important at that age than cognitive learning. More than any other popular voice in American culture, Fred Rogers taught this powerful lesson to parents, teachers, and to children themselves through his gentle, slow-paced but richly textured programming.