Karen Hobson
Brown Owl, 15th Dartmouth Brownies
Dartmouth, Nova Scotia, Canada
karenh@atcon.com
All I Ever Needed To Know I Learned in Kindergarten
author Robert Fulghum, Random House, 1988
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 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 die. So do we.
And then remember the book and 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 life and 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 clean up
our 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.