Kindergarten Lessons

5) Today I am grateful for people who have learned to get along with others. Those who play nice and take turns and share their toys and think of others' feelings and keep the big picture in mind.

At the moment, I am a Council PTA President, which is a leader who has the primary job of training and assisting the local school PTA presidents in our town and the next (10 schools in all) with their jobs. But that is not really what I do with majority of my time. Yes, I train. Yes, I assist. But mostly I hold hands, babysit, referee, and put out fires.

Right now I am working with one school where the president this year and the president from last year are nearly going to blows. Each has their own idea of what is right and how things should be done, but rather than take turns--which we learned in our own kindergarten classes--they are making personal attacks and taking personal offense.

I'd like to think that each woman has the children's best interests at heart, but sadly, it is quickly sliding off that high ground and into the pit of despair. Mud is flinging at everyone in the area.

In light of this dilemma in my life today, I'd like to share one of my favorite essays of all time. I only wish I was wise enough to have written it. It is a Robert Fulghum classic.

Everything I Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten


Most of what 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 sandbox at 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 into 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 politics and sane living.

Think what a better world it would be if we all -- the whole world -- had cookies and milk about 3 o'clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or if we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and cleaned 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.

~ Robert Fulghum ~