Although he passed away in 2003, the name of children's television legend Fred Rogers of "Mister Rogers' Neighborhood" (1968-2001) has not been forgotten by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation, which named the Fred Rogers Memorial Scholarship, now in its sixth year, in his honor. Two Tufts students, Christina Zagarino and Rachel Schechter, are among the three recipients.
The scholarship, funded by Ernst & Young, a firm specializing in tax, transaction and advisory services, consists of three $10,000 awards that are given to graduate or undergraduate students. The scholarship is awarded to fund either research or educational program concepts that show potential to enhance the use of media to educate children.
The scholarships were awarded on March 22 at the first annual Fred Forward Conference in Pittsburgh.
The Academy "is proud to honor these students, who will be torchbearers of the Fred Rogers legacy by improving the quality of educational programming for children," Television Academy Foundation Executive Director Terri Clark said in a press release.
This year's three recipients were University of Southern California master's student Xavier Raphael Vanegas, who plans to develop an animated children's program; Zagarino, a master's student in Tufts' child development department, who is creating a series of short television segments to encourage physical activity in children; and Schechter, a doctoral student in Tufts' child development department who is researching the educational effects of songs in children's television shows.
Zagarino heard about the scholarship several years ago, but waited until recently to apply.
"I worked at the New Victory Theater in New York City for three years, and while I was there I realized how important circus art was to children and what a great tool it was for children in terms of performance art and also in terms of just building self-esteem and getting children to do physical activities that they really didn't think were possible or maybe were fun until they were done in that circus style," Zagarino said.
The New Victory Theater is a family oriented entertainment venue that Zagarino began working for as an intern in the summer of 2006. During her senior year at New York University, Zagarino worked part time on a family program called the "family workshop" series.
"A lot of the family workshops are circus based and those are the ones that sell the most, and they really do find ways to get parents to interact with their kids," Zagarino said.
After graduating, Zagarino began to work full time and was the manager of a series of camp programs in which children learned circus arts. "That's really what inspired me to do this project," she said. Zagarino also taught circus arts workshops in schools around New York City.
During her time at Tufts, Zagarino was exposed to large amounts of research naming television as one of the primary causes of childhood obesity.
Upon further investigation, Zagarino realized that certain elements of television were more impactful on children's health than others. "A lot of the advertisements on children's programming are for sugary foods and you see a lot of recognizable characters on foods in supermarkets that are not so healthy for children," Zagarino said.
"I thought about that for a bit and realized I can't control the kinds of foods children want or even that their parents are able to afford for them, and I can't really control that certain neighborhoods in America are not safe for children to go out and play, but maybe what I can do is put something on TV that will get kids on their feet and having fun."
Zagarino's concept is to create three to five minute interludes that would occur before or after commercial breaks.
"I know children will sit down and watch stretches of two to three hours of television in one morning or early afternoon," Zagarino said. "I did that as a kid. The way I see these working is they would be spread out across a long time of programming in one day." Although Zagarino is still early in the creative process for the series, she has the basics of each episode planned out. Each would start with a familiar piece of music that would indicate the program had started. "When you hear that, you know it's time to get up on your feet," she said.
The camera would cut to two performers who would interact with each other and viewers at home. "[They would] model exercises and try to get the children to replicate that, so they'll model it, they'll give the child time to try it out, and they'll recognize what [the viewers did] by either applauding or giving a thumbs up, and then they'll move on to the next step," Zagarino said.
The episodes would focus on themes like stretching, imitating animal shapes and group exercises. Zagarino plans to go into production for the five-part series in the fall.
Although she also hopes to change children's television for the better, Schechter plans to use the scholarship funds for research, rather than production.
"[My research] is for my dissertation, which is happening next year, and it is on how children understand songs that are in children's television shows," Schechter said. "I always loved children's television as a child and what really drew it to me was the songs."
Schechter worked as a preschool music teacher several years ago and noticed that children enjoyed the songs from television shows.
"There's a special connection children have with music," Schechter said. "However, I also learned from reading research that children actually don't understand a lot of the content that's taught through song at a young age ... I want to investigate that more because if so many songs are used on all these shows, obviously children are learning something, but all the researched that's published for the public and for students like myself to read says that children don't understand the content that's presented through song."
Schechter cited the song "It's Not Easy Being Green" performed by Kermit the Frog as an example of a song in which the true meaning escapes a good deal of its target audience.
"The song is about diversity, and how it's not easy being different. Three- and four-year olds don't understand that. They think it's about being green versus purple versus orange. They don't really understand what the implicit message is that it's sharring," Schechter said.
Schechter hopes that her research will help caregivers and media creators better understand how to convey their messages through song.
To carry out her research, Schechter will have preschool teachers implement versions of a curriculum she will create that utilize pre-existing video songs.
"I'm going to have a treatment and control group, I'm going to have pre- and post-surveying with teachers, I'm going to have a parent survey, which is important for background information on a child," Schechter said. "I'm also going to be doing observations of the children before, during and after the curriculum implementation."
"We're currently living in a society where children are consuming media in outrageous amounts in all different settings throughout their day, so it's important that at Eliot Pearson [Department of Child Development], we're looking at this. It's just as important as everything else that we're doing," Schechter said.
"I think now in children's media, there's such an emphasis on educational value, so if you don't have that developmental background that Mr. Rogers was one of the first to pioneer that movement, if you don't have that [you have to ask], ‘What are you making for kids and what is the value of what you're making for kids?'" Zagarino said.
