Blog: Life's Most Important Lessons

My granddaughter is starting kindergarten next week, here in Roseville.  It’s a big step for her.  If she’s lucky, like I was, she’ll have friends whose goodness she'll always remember, and teachers whose influence she'll never forget.

I am intrigued, as I study the faces in my own kindergarten photograph, taken 50 years ago. I can still remember most of my classmate’s names. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised; after all, we met that first day in Mrs. Cogburn’s kindergarten class, and spent the next 13 years together, learning life’s most important lessons.

I remember the anticipation and worry I felt that summer before starting school for the first time. My brothers informed me that the teachers were mean, and if I didn’t know how to read and do arithmetic, I’d get held back.

It turned out that they were just yanking my chain.  In fact, the most meaningful lessons learned that first year of school weren’t found in textbooks or on worksheets.

“Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all.” Aristotle knew it, and so did Mrs. Cogburn. The character traits and socialization skills she taught to the thousands of children that passed through her classroom were similar to Robert Fulghum’s list of lessons learned in his own kindergarten class:

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.
Draw and paint, and sing and dance.
Play and work every day.
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.

High academic expectations are placed on school children today. Teachers are required to follow strict standards while preparing students for state-mandated testing, leaving little time for character development, let alone anything else.

Education is more than just academics.

My friends and I learned many important lessons in elementary school. It all started with a wise teacher who knew that children should be taught to think with their minds and feel with their hearts.

It is said that you can count the seeds in an apple, but you can’t count the apples in a seed. 

A good teacher can never realize how far her influence will be felt.