All I Really Need To Know I Learned In Kindergarten
Remember what you learnt at SIX years old! All you need to know about HOW to live and WHAT to do in life, you’ve learnt in kindergarten!
- 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.
As parents, we must have said these words a million times to our kids, but never really heard or given a second thought to the meaning behind these words. These lessons that we learnt as preschoolers were promptly forgotten as we got busy with the more grown up stuff – pursuing academic excellence, achieving social accolades, falling in love, climbing the career ladder and cultivating material wealth.
These words that we learnt in the sand pile during our kindy years still applies to our daily lives no matter how old we’ve become. Colleagues withhold information to get that lucrative promotion; competitors play dirty to win the deal, spouses who do not put things back where they belong (much to our irritation) and irresponsible behaviours resulting in family divorces.
LIFE gets hectic; there is so much more going on in our modern world. But we should remember to relax and enjoy the present – maybe have some warm cookies and cold milk. We have to be careful and discerning. Relationships are important (hold hands and stick together, maybe more face-time and less Facebook). There’s a time and place for everything, so have faith; pray a little and trust the higher order to sort things out.
As the young students recite the list of lessons, I reflect upon the world and the cracks in the moral fabric. And I silently pray for my child and her peers to remember these words and wish them the best of luck as they navigate in new territories in the years to come.
Thank you Two by Two Schoolhouse for this timely reminder. May we all remember these pertinent life lessons and act on it.
