Looking Ahead & Behind…

Hi Class! As the grade seven students enter the final stages of their elementary career and the sixes closer to Grade 7, think back to your first memories of elementary school…what do you remember? A famous book entitled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum states:

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.

What are your thoughts and reactions?

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10 Responses to Looking Ahead & Behind…

  1. justin says:

    My first memories of elementary school was boring. The first letter I ever learnt was the letter P , then we had the special person who would point things out with a pointer. Then there was play time, there was, building blocks, a doll house, a little computer, toy dinosaurs ,and many more. I didn’t really have any friends , until Ruchita, my friend Avery , and Keagan came along.

  2. hank says:

    I remember “The Magic School Bus”….i think, oh and i remember Ian shoving rocks up his nose and crying, panicking and yelling at the teachers to get the rocks out….

  3. cool c says:

    I had trouble with the alphabet at home it was like this a b c d um um I once got e for my mom and forget the next night and if I didn’t get a letter my dad spanked my bum and on the first day of kindergarten I held onto her and told her not to go

    • cool c says:

      and with the book on the blog I agree that cold milk and warm cookies are good for you.Cookies yum 🙂

  4. JoNnY says:

    My first memory of kindergarten is when i met my best friend Hayden. Hayden and me were best friends, he was my best friend until grade three when he moved away. When he moved away I was really sad, but after awhile I found some more best friends and I was felling better. Those are my memories of preschool.

  5. Mr. Bell says:

    The statement about living a balanced life is true. Too often it is easy to be so focused on one thing and you become overwhelmed. Being organized and using time wisely and efficiently help achieve balance.

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