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.
I used a story by this same fellow in my Year 7 English class. He tells the story of how he was playing a game, with a large group of youngsters, which involved quite a bit of running around and ended with the children deciding whether they were either giants, wizards or goblins. As the author is watching the ensuing chaos a little girl tugs at his sleeve and asks ‘where do the mermaids stand?’ He replys that there weren’t any to which she responded, ‘oh yes there are, I’m one’. In a moment of clarity he recognised that not all children fit into the categories society assigns them and he honoured her individuality by inviting her to stand beside him, the king of the sea, and together they surveyed their kingdom. It is a beautiful story. If you google ‘where do the mermaids stand and the author’s name you will find it.
LikeLike