Article Link: http://exchangepress.com/article/all-i-really-needed-to-know-leadership-lessons-from-teaching-young-children/5026172/
Many years ago, when Cammy taught preschool and kindergarten, she had a poster she hung up in her classroom near the parent board. It contained an excerpt from All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten by Robert Fulghum. In it, the author summed up the essential life lessons learned in early childhood classrooms. He wisely concluded, “…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.”
Although much has changed in the three decades since Fulghum wrote this, the life essentials that he described, such as sharing, living a balanced life, noticing simple wonders, and caring for others and the environment, are as important as ever, and early childhood is a wonderful time to start teaching them.
We both now teach early childhood education to university students, and we have recently been thinking and talking about that poster from over 20 years ago, and reflecting on our collective experiences as leaders over the past two decades in preschool, K-12 and university settings. What keeps coming to mind are the parallels we have experienced between working with adults and working with children. Fulghum beautifully describes the ...