Back in the mid/late 1980s, Robert Fulghum published a book of essays. It is titled All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten after the first essay in the book. I don’t own the book so can’t quote from the book but here is what I found on the internet:
“Most of what 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 box at nursery 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 are 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 some and paint and sing and dance and play and work everyday.
Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out in the world, watch for traffic, hold hands, and stick together. Be aware of wonder. Remember the little seed in the plastic cup? The roots go down and the plant goes up and nobody really knows how or why. We are like that.
And then remember that book about Dick and Jane and the first word you learned, the biggest word of all: LOOK! Everything you need to know is there somewhere: The Golden Rule and love and basic sanitation, ecology, and politics and the sane living.
Think of what a better world it would be if we all, the whole world, had cookies and milk about 3 o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blankets for a nap. Or we had a basic policy in our nation and other nations to always put things back where we found them and clean up our own messes. 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.”
This book is roughly 40 years old, yet the expectations of our kindergarteners has not changed. We expect them to share. We expect them to play fair. We expect they won’t hit others. We expect them to say I’m sorry. Etc., etc., etc. And, two things that seem small but are huge: “learn some and think some,” and “LOOK! Everything you need to know is there somewhere.”
Far too many of us think we know it all. When that happens, we have no inclination to learn, think or look for what we need to know. We end up closing our minds to truth.
Truth of the matter is supporting Donald Trump is not about politics. DJT is the RINO in the room. He is not a Republican. He is of no party. He seems to be of the party of self-enrichment.
If you can’t stand leftist politics, that’s ok. What isn’t ok is choosing a candidate without regard for their ethics, civility, respect for all our country’s citizens, our constitution and even the law, for heaven’s sake. It’s not ok to turn a blind-eye to felony convictions. It isn’t ok to accept incessant lying. It isn’t ok to overlook patterns of sexual abuse, including pedophilia and rape. Surely, you can find a candidate who represents your party that isn’t any of these things. If not, then you need a new party.
As I read the essay, it struck me how many of these things supporters of Donald Trump and his administration apparently did not learn in kindergarten or ever in their lives. I have highlighted them. Interesting that, in this nation that has so many who spout Christian values, The Golden Rule is specifically mentioned and how so many of our so-called Christians do not live by that rule.
It is a sad commentary on our society that we need to ask our country’s leaders as well as many of our citizens to model their behavior after kindergarteners rather than the other way around.