All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum
All I really need to know about how to live and what to do
and how to be I learned in kindergarten.
Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain,
but there in the sand pile at 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 into the world, watch out for traffic,
hold hands and stick together.
*Be aware of wonder.
Remember the little seed in the Styrofoam 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 Styrofoam cup-they all die.
So do we. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books 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 politics
and equality and sane living.
Take any one of those item and extrapolate it into
sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or
your work or government or your world and it holds true and
clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we allthe
whole world-had cookies and milk at about 3o’clock in the
afternoon and lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all
governments had as a basic policy to always put things back
where they found them and to clean up their own mess.
And it is still true, no matter how old you are, when you go out
in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.