"All I really need to know... I learned in kindergarten." - Robert Fulghum

Something I am learning from the children as a growing teacher...

We always teach our children in school to 'use your words' and to tell the other person what we are actually feeling when there is an issue or a challenge with another person at school.  I noticed that as we get older, we tend to forget about those simple acts of communication from which we actually learned in kindergarten: we settle and calm down, we listen to each others point of views, we try to understand what the other person meant to say or do, and we make amends or come up with solutions if it is to happen again.  Sometimes all we need is a reminder of how to make good choices so that we can truly practise being peaceful in this world.

I found this online awhile ago and thought it was a really nice to fit to what I am learning from children and what the children are learning and reminding me of.

Photo Credit: playfulowl.com

This is taken directly from: http://www.peace.ca/kindergarten.htm.

All 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 sand pile at 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 in 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 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.

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.

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.

And 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.

[Source: "ALL I REALLY NEED TO KNOW I LEARNED IN KINDERGARTEN" by Robert Fulghum. See his web site at http://www.robertfulghum.com/ ]