When You Wonder, You're Learning: Mister Rogers' Enduring Lessons for Raising Creative, Curious, Caring Kids

With lessons from Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood and examples from the acclaimed education network Remake Learning, this book brings Mister Rogers into the digital age, helping parents and teachers raise creative, curious, caring kids.

Authors Gregg Behr and Ryan Rydzewski know there’s more to Mister Rogers than his trademark cardigan sweaters. To them, Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood isn’t just a children’s program — it’s a proven blueprint for raising happier, healthier kids. As young people grapple with constant reminders that the world isn’t always kind, parents and teachers can look to Fred Rogers: an ingenious scientist and legendary caregiver who was decades ahead of his time.
 
When You Wonder, You’re Learning reveals this never-before-seen side of America’s favorite neighbor, exploring how Rogers nurtured the “tools for learning” now deemed essential for school, work, and life. These tools can boost academic performance, social-emotional well-being, and even physical health. They cost almost nothing to develop, and they’re up to ten times more predictive of children’s success than test scores.
 
No wonder it’s been called “a must-read for anyone who cares about children.” With insights from thinkers, scientists, and teachers — many of whom worked with Rogers himself — When You Wonder, You’re Learning helps kids and the people who care for them do what Rogers taught best: become the best of whoever they are.

Gregg Behr is a father, children’s advocate, and director for the Grable Foundation whose work has drawn comparisons to his hero, Fred Rogers. For more than a decade, he has helped lead Remake Learning—a network of educators, scientists, artists, and makers he founded in 2007—to international renown. Formed in Rogers’ real-life neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Remake Learning has turned heads everywhere from Forbes to the World Economic Forum for its efforts to ignite children’s curiosity, encourage creativity, and foster justice and belonging in schools, libraries, museums, and more. A graduate of the University of Notre Dame and also Duke University, Gregg holds honorary degrees from Carlow University and Saint Vincent College. He’s an advisor to the Brookings Institution and the Fred Rogers Center, and has been cited by Barack Obama, Richard Branson, and the Disruptor Foundation as an innovator and thought leader. Twitter: @greggbehr
 
Ryan Rydzewski is a writer whose science and education reporting has garnered several awards and fellowships. A graduate of the University of Pittsburgh, he taught elementary school in south Louisiana before earning an MFA in nonfiction writing from Chatham University. As a freelancer, his magazine stories focus on everything from schools to space travel to Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood, and his poems and other pieces appear in several journals. A native of Erie, Pennsylvania, Ryan lives in Pittsburgh with his wife, Jacqueline. Twitter: @ryanrydzewski