All I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten

By Robert Fulgum BACK

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 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 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 all die. So do we.

And then remember the book about 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 love 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. Of if we had a basic

policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back were

we found them and cleaned up our own 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.