In three weeks Grace will have completed her kindergarten year. Here's Grace a year ago with her kindergarten teacher, Miss Lori.A year later Grace knows letters, sounds and numbers and she can write them. She can write a story that makes sense, add, kind of subtract, and read. With Miss Lori's guidance and teaching techniques, Grace has blossomed. My family will be forever indebted to her.
This morning I reflected on Grace's growth and Robert Fulgham's thoughts on kindergarten came to mind. Here they are:
"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.
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 one of those items and extrapolate it into sophisticated adult terms and apply it to your family life or your work or government or your world and it holds true and clear and firm. Think what a better world it would be if we all - the whole world - had cookies and milk at about 3 o'clock in the afternoon and then lay down with our blankies for a nap. Or if all governments had as a basic policy to always put things 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 in the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together."
And this, Miss Lori, is exactly what you've imparted to our grandchild. We can never thank you enough. You're the best!
5 comments:
Amen to that. With that being said I know a lot of people who need to go "back" to kindergarten. (But don't forget the first grade teachers, we are teaching the planet how to read,write and reinforcing those value systems.) ;)
It certainly has been an exhausting and stressful year. Only 12 more days of the hostage crisis for me! Whoo hoo!!!
aka Russell's sister
Makes you wonder why it is so hard for some people to remember these simple lessons. I am sure there is a lot Grace has learnt from Papa Bob too :)
Ms SD
We need more Ms. Lori's in the world. And when the hell did we lose those rules in maturity?
Flyinfox_SATX
I am a Pre-K teacher and try to teach them all that before they get to Kindergarten.
Annie: Okay, okay, first grade teachers make a difference, too. So next year at this time I'll be singing their praises as Grace will be leaving first grade. As a hostage, do they tie you up at night or are you allowed to roam free? :)
Md SD: I wish our world leaders would remember this stuff, too!
Fox: It must have been too much beer?
Kittie Kate: Some of us are slow learners and need that kindergarten year to master those concepts.
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