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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 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 they 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 of basic sanitation.
Ecology and politics and sane living... Think of 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.
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