Kindergarten teaches a lot more then how to play in a sandbox

5/25/1989 Susan is quite mild-mannered. Very few things bother her except for one thing. When people in Utah start talking about cutting out kindergarten classes because of financial cutbacks, she gets fire in her eyes. You see, Susan is a kindergarten teacher.

The year we were married, Susan graduated from Brigham Young University in elementary education. She taught at Cherry Hill Elementary School in Orem while I finished college. Then she taught at Farmington Elementary School in the Davis School District, where we moved until Douglas, our first son, was born. Then she quit teaching for several years.

Not long ago she began teaching again. She teaches part time or fulltime depending on the need at school and the situation at home. She is fully committed to the education of young children. And I might add, she is a very skilled teacher. She now teaches kindergarten, along with Donna Gurney, at Manila Elementary School in Pleasant Grove.

Some think all kindergarten kids do is learn to sit in a circle and play in the sandbox. If that is your perception of kindergarten, perhaps you should visit a class in the future. It is there that young children get their start in the education process. A good experience in school during the early years is crucial. And perhaps some of the fundamental lessons of life are learned there.

In his book, “Everything I need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten,” Robert Fulgham has noted that kindergarteners first learn:

• To share
• To play fair
• Not to hit people
• To put things back where they found them.
• To clean up their own messes
• Not to take things that aren’t theirs.
• To say they’re sorry when they hurt somebody.
• To wash their hands before they eat.
• To flush
• That warm cookies and cold milk are good for you
• To live a balanced life – learn some and think some and draw some and paint and sing and dance and play and work every day.
• To take a nap every afternoon.
• That when you go out in the world, watch out for traffic, hold hands and stick together.
• To 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 like that.
• That goldfish and hamsters and white mice and even the little seed in the Styrofoam cup – they all die. So do we.
• To remember the “Dick and Jane” books and the first word you learned – the biggest word of all – LOOK.

Perhaps Fulgham has noted not only the keys to a well-balanced life but a successful marriage as well. He concludes, “Think 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 out blankies for a nap. 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.”