All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten
by Robert Fulghum
All I really need to know I learned in kindergarten.
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 sandpile at Sunday 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 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.