We recently lost one of the greatest (and quietest) child advocates we’ve ever known. Frank Mahler.
I met Frank in 2007 when HHI was recreating our training on early childhood care. He was introduced and brought onto the project by Christine Chaille, his former professor, then mentor and dear friend. Both Frank and Christine worked with me for months and then traveled to India to listen, learn and share with our entire team of trainers in India.
He was smart, intuitive, deeply compassionate and an incredible advocate for babies and young children. While he was somewhat startled by some of the deprivation, poverty and filth he witnessed in India, he never questioned people’s intelligence, care and commitment to children. After the trip, after listening and learning, he and Christine returned to the US and rewrote their entire curriculum in response to the guidance and insights they gained on the trip.
In 2008, Frank, Christine and I traveled together again to Budapest, Hungary where we all presented on HHI’s unique new curriculum. Their creation, HHI’s curriculum, was/is unique because it is designed to empower parents, teachers and other caregivers in how their direct and daily actions of nurturing and caring can improve their child’s development. This is significant, especially when most child development programs only focus on listing child developmental milestones; such as “at this age, a child can roll over or repeat sounds.” HHI has also consciously designed its curriculum to be culturally adaptable. Frank and Christine’s language and examples were all carefully chosen, guided by HHI’s trainers, to be applicable anywhere in the world. They created something that is able to infuse local knowledge of stories, games, songs and dance to adapt its curriculum to any culture. This empowers people to provide for their children, regardless of a lack in toys, resources, or even the care giver’s own level of literacy.
Frank will be deeply missed, but his commitment to children, to those who love and care for children, these will live on for generations. Frank told me that one of his proudest life accomplishments was the work he did for HHI, and that this has now reached over 160,000 people and continues. His work with HHI is a part of his legacy.
I cannot finish this tiny tribute without saying a few personal things about Frank, as I grew to know him professionally and personally over the years. He was the funniest person I have ever met, hands-down – hilarious! He once counseled me to just think of infants/toddlers as “tiny drunk midgets, some with serious attitudes, not in full control of their actions and sometimes a little violent.” An apt description. I cannot do justice to his hilariousness, it came in little ways, all the time, would catch me off guard and leave me snorting my beverage up my nose.
I will end with, Frank was a hero. A very quiet, gentle, compassionate and brilliant man, who dedicated his life to making the world a better place. He will be deeply, profoundly missed, but he will never be forgotten.
His bio:
Frank Mahler was an early childhood educator since 1989. For many years, he was a teacher and home visitor for Head Start and Early Head Start programs for at-risk, low income, and special needs children. His work included the privilege of visiting families in their homes, helping them to better understand the fundamentals of early childhood development and the many ways that parents and caregivers can positively influence their child’s potential for success in school and in life. He was an instructor in the Early Childhood Education Masters program at Portland State University, and also held a position as a lead infant/toddler teacher at PSU’s Helen Gordon Child Development Center.
