by Robert Fulghum -
an excerpt from the book, All I Really Need To Know I Learned
in Kindergarten
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 of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated
adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work
or your government or your world and it holds true and clear
and firm.
- Think
what a better world it would be if all - the whole world
- had cookies and milk about three o'clock every afternoon
and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all
governments had a basic policy to always put thing 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 into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
©
Robert Fulghum, 1990. Found in Robert Fulghum, All I Really
Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten, Villard Books: New
York, 1990, page 6-7.
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