Live a balanced life - learn some and drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday some.ġ3. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.ġ1. Say you're SORRY when you HURT somebody.ġ0. 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.Īnd 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.“These are the things I learned (in Kindergarten):ħ. Think what a better world it would be if we all – the whole world – had cookies and milk at about 3 o’clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Take any one of those items 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. Ecology and politics and equality and sane living. The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.Įverything you need to know is in there somewhere.Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die.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. When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.Live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.Wisdom was not at the top of the graduate school mountain, but there in the sand pile at school. Here’s a refresher:Īll I really need to know about how to live and what to do and how to be I learned in kindergarten. While pondering a post for today I felt a little bit of back-to-school wisdom might suit us all and that classic Robert Fulghum essay from 1988’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned In Kindergarten came to mind. The return to school feels as fresh as the crisp autumn air to me September feels more like new beginnings than January ever will. The essay upon which the title is based appeared in last year’s back to school post. This special little story is among the gems in Robert Fulghum’s All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. It doesn’t always have to be a big book to convey a powerful message. It is not true, by the way, that Mermaids do not exist. So we stood there hand in hand, reviewing the troops of Wizards and Giants and Dwarfs as they roiled by in wild disarray. (Yes, right here by the King’s Fool, I thought to myself.) “The Mermaid stands right here by the King of the Sea!” says I. What was my answer at the moment? Every once in a while I say the right thing. Well, where DO the Mermaids stand? All the “Mermaids”–all those who are different, who do not fit the norm and who do not accept the available boxes and pigeonholes?Īnswer that question and you can build a school, a nation, or a world on it. She took it for granted that there was a place for Mermaids and that I would know just where. She intended to participate, wherever Mermaids fit into the scheme of things. And was not about to leave the game and go over and stand against the wall where a loser would stand. She did not relate to being a Giant, a Wizard, or a Dwarf. A small child stands there looking up, and asks in a small, concerned voice, “Where do the Mermaids stand?”Ī long pause. While the groups huddled in frenzied, whispered consultation, a tug came at my pants leg. I yelled out: “You have to decide now which you are–a GIANT, a WIZARD, or a DWARF!” The excitement of the chase had reached a critical mass. Organizing a roomful of wired-up gradeschoolers into two teams, explaining the rudiments of the game, achieving consensus on group identity–all this is no mean accomplishment, but we did it with a right good will and were ready to go. But the real purpose of the game is to make a lot of noise and run around chasing people until nobody knows which side you are on or who won. It’s a large-scale version of Rock, Paper, and Scissors, and involves some intellectual decision making. “ Giants, wizards and dwarfs was the game to play.īeing left in charge of about eighty children seven to ten years old, while their parents were off doing parenty things, I mustered my troops in the church social hall and explained the game.
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