On being five

From Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten

• Share everything.
• Play fair.
• Don't hit people.
• Put thngs 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 drink some and draw some and paint some and sing and dance and play and work everyday 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 Stryrofoam 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 hamster 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.

There were 40 students in Ruth N. Bell's first grade classroom at Garfield Elementary. She couldn't have been more than 5 feet tall but ruled with an iron hand and a ping pong paddle. I only remember her really using it once. Imagine that happening now. Poor Miss Bell would have been suspended pending an investigation of child abuse.

If we went to Kindergarten at all we didn't have to take tests to find out if we could read at 5. We took naps, had snacks, got messy with paint and went home at lunch time. Life was simple. 

Life gets complicated if we let it. Today I need to remember those things I learned in Kindergarten and remember the simpler things and most of all remember to find simpler solutions. It might make things easier to manage and not so strange.