Simple Interactions With Children as Guides
By: Lexis McCoy, EdD
It is inspiring and delightful to learn alongside educators who recognize and rejoice in the capacity of young children. I am excited to share my experience as I watched six- and seven-year-old children take the reins of the Simple Interactions framework and make it their own.
One day during a coaching session, I was talking to a first-grade teacher, and she remarked that she was very interested in learning more about Fred Rogers’ work. This request prompted me to create a unique experience for the students; in turn, the children ended up leading me on a truly remarkable journey. It was spontaneous and organic which often leads to the best learning experiences—for both grownups and children!
After obtaining approval from the administration and sharing our plan with the parents, the teacher and I started each week with “Mister Rogers Mondays.” I thought it was important to be mindful to explain to the children that Mister Rogers had died long before they were born. To illustrate his life, I then showed the children the video on misterrogers.org where Fred is singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” through various stages of his life. The children loved watching this and delighted in seeing Mister Rogers age from a very young man into “a grandpa” within minutes. We then explained what the word “legacy” meant and how much there is to learn from Fred Rogers’ legacy from the television program that he developed called Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Over weeks of Mister Rogers Mondays, the teacher and I talked with the children about the importance of noticing. The children were provided with many examples and talked about how you notice things, what you notice, and how to record what you notice. Children are, by nature, sharp observers. Mister Rogers Mondays nurtured children’s natural observations, taught them how to share, and furthermore encouraged voicing opinions regarding what they observed. We want children to be empowered to be critical observers as they accept or reject what they see and hear in life and then learn from it.
Simultaneously, the school was conducting schoolwide professional learning to introduce Simple Interactions to the staff. The teacher wanted the children to learn about it too! I knew that Simple Interactions worked with supportive adults in communities of practice but had never thought about using it directly with the children. The origins of Simple Interactions were explained including how Dr. Li first developed the tool, and we talked about why this type of work is important. Everything was broken down to the most basic level to introduce these concepts. We explained what an interaction is and then modeled it, and we talked about what the word simple means. The words simple and interaction were put together, and we talked about what it means when the words are used together. There was so much discussion. Talk about an opportunity for language development! The children talked about how Mister Rogers interacted with people and how they felt during a range of interactions.
Next, the Simple Interactions tool was broken down. It was explained that the dotted line means that interactions are fluid and flexible and not “right or wrong.” We introduced each dimension over four weeks, following the same routine and using the shared language of the tool.
This was my plan:
One day during a coaching session, I was talking to a first-grade teacher, and she remarked that she was very interested in learning more about Fred Rogers’ work. This request prompted me to create a unique experience for the students; in turn, the children ended up leading me on a truly remarkable journey. It was spontaneous and organic which often leads to the best learning experiences—for both grownups and children!
After obtaining approval from the administration and sharing our plan with the parents, the teacher and I started each week with “Mister Rogers Mondays.” I thought it was important to be mindful to explain to the children that Mister Rogers had died long before they were born. To illustrate his life, I then showed the children the video on misterrogers.org where Fred is singing “Won’t You Be My Neighbor?” through various stages of his life. The children loved watching this and delighted in seeing Mister Rogers age from a very young man into “a grandpa” within minutes. We then explained what the word “legacy” meant and how much there is to learn from Fred Rogers’ legacy from the television program that he developed called Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.
Over weeks of Mister Rogers Mondays, the teacher and I talked with the children about the importance of noticing. The children were provided with many examples and talked about how you notice things, what you notice, and how to record what you notice. Children are, by nature, sharp observers. Mister Rogers Mondays nurtured children’s natural observations, taught them how to share, and furthermore encouraged voicing opinions regarding what they observed. We want children to be empowered to be critical observers as they accept or reject what they see and hear in life and then learn from it.
Simultaneously, the school was conducting schoolwide professional learning to introduce Simple Interactions to the staff. The teacher wanted the children to learn about it too! I knew that Simple Interactions worked with supportive adults in communities of practice but had never thought about using it directly with the children. The origins of Simple Interactions were explained including how Dr. Li first developed the tool, and we talked about why this type of work is important. Everything was broken down to the most basic level to introduce these concepts. We explained what an interaction is and then modeled it, and we talked about what the word simple means. The words simple and interaction were put together, and we talked about what it means when the words are used together. There was so much discussion. Talk about an opportunity for language development! The children talked about how Mister Rogers interacted with people and how they felt during a range of interactions.
Next, the Simple Interactions tool was broken down. It was explained that the dotted line means that interactions are fluid and flexible and not “right or wrong.” We introduced each dimension over four weeks, following the same routine and using the shared language of the tool.
This was my plan:
- Share the Dimension: The dimension we were talking about for the week was copied on cardstock, and we cut it apart into strips like bookmarks so the children could focus on one dimension at a time. In this case, we were talking about Connection.
- Whole Group Discussion: A discussion was encouraged regarding what the word connection means.
- Notice and Appreciate: For noticing connection, a clip from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood from 1981 was selected, A Visit with Jeff Erlanger. In this video, Mister Rogers and Jeff Erlanger sing “It’s You I Like.” Immediately, the children saw a real-life example of how Mister Rogers and Jeff experienced connection.
- Small Group Role Play/Skit Development: The children developed skits to act out X, Y, and Z connections, role playing interactions when people were detached, not matched, and mutually present and in tune.
- Sharing Skits: The students would perform their skit for the whole class. Their peers would practice noticing and name where they saw X, Y, and Z interactions and movement between.
- Closing Discussion: To conclude, we encouraged whole group discussion and gave the children time to reflect about the importance of the dimension we were focusing on closely.
While the children, teacher, and parents seemed to love this project, I find myself reflecting on how important this experience was for me. Practicing the work of Mister Rogers and Simple Interactions within this public school setting with this group of precious children was transformative for me as a teacher, coach, and professor.
The children’s understanding of the Simple Interactions tool and what high-quality interactions looked like held me to a standard that sometimes could be missed in a busy classroom. They knew if I wasn’t connecting with them or if there wasn’t reciprocity—and, yes, they fully understood reciprocity to be like bouncing a ball back and forth, only with interactions! The work was rather serendipitous starting with Mister Rogers’ legacy and concluding with Simple Interactions. If there is one thing I can be sure of, it is that the classroom felt like a neighborhood—a beautiful neighborhood filled with joyful learning, engaged learners, and motivated educators.
The children’s understanding of the Simple Interactions tool and what high-quality interactions looked like held me to a standard that sometimes could be missed in a busy classroom. They knew if I wasn’t connecting with them or if there wasn’t reciprocity—and, yes, they fully understood reciprocity to be like bouncing a ball back and forth, only with interactions! The work was rather serendipitous starting with Mister Rogers’ legacy and concluding with Simple Interactions. If there is one thing I can be sure of, it is that the classroom felt like a neighborhood—a beautiful neighborhood filled with joyful learning, engaged learners, and motivated educators.