16 Things Everyone Learned in Kindergarten

From Robert Fulghum‘s best-selling book, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten. That book was first published in 1986 — 30 years ago — but its core message is as relevant today as ever.

1. Share everything.
2. Play fair.
3. Don’t hit people.
4. Put things back where you found them.
5. Clean up your own mess.
6. Don’t take things that aren’t yours.
7. Say you’re sorry when you hurt somebody.
8. Wash your hands before you eat.
9. Flush.
10. Warm cookies and cold milk are good for you.
11. Live a balanced life — learn some and think some and draw and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day some.
12. Take a nap every afternoon.
13. When you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands, and stick together.
14. 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.
15. Goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup — they all die. So do we.
16. And then remember the Dick-and-Jane books and the first word you learned — the biggest word of all — LOOK.