All I Ever Needed to Know I learned in Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum
Most of what I really need to know about how to live, and what to do and what to be,
I learned in kindergarten. Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school
mountain, but there in the sandbox at the nursery school.
These are the things I learned: Share everything. Play fair. Don’t hit people. Put
things back where you found them. Clean up your own mess. Don’t take things that
aren’t yours. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody. Wash your hands before you
eat. Flush. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you. Live a balanced life. Learn
some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every
day some.
Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out inot the world, watch for traffic, hold
hands and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic
cup. The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why,
but we are all like that.
Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the plastic cup…they
all die. So do we.
And then remember the book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the
biggest word of all: LOOK. Everything you need to know is in there somewhere…
the Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology and politcis and sane living.
Think of what a better world it would be if we all…the whole world…had cookies and
milk about 3:00 every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Of it
we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where
we found them and clean up our own messes.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out into the world, it is
best to hold hands and stick together.