Carolyn C. Smith
Brainstorming Activity
Objective
To provide an opportunity for the students to reflect on their early years of experiences associating with different ethnic groups.
Procedures
Using the essay “All I need to know, I learned in Kindergarten”, have the students to share their social skills building experiences of nursery school, day care, and/or kindergarten classes which are mentioned by the author, Robert Fulghum.
Brainstorming Questions
The following questions can be used to ascertain more detailed experiences of the students.
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1. Was kindergarten classes fun? Why or Why not?
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2. Did you have a special friend in your kindergarten class?
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3. Was this special friend of your race or cultural background?
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4. Was this special friend of a different race or cultural background?
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5. Are you still friends today?
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5. If you are no longer friends, what happened to break you apart?
Related Activities
Pretend that you are a kindergarten student for a day. List three things you would do with or for your classmates. Explain why you would enjoy doing those things.
All I Really Need To Know I learned in Kindergarten
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 mountains, but there in the sandpile at Sunday 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. Take a nap every afternoon. When you go out into the world, watch out for traffic. Hold hands and stick together.
BEWARE 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 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 your 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 three o’clock every afternoon and then lay down with our blanches 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 into the world, it is best to hold hands and stick together.
Robert Fulghum
