When we look to how we should make the most of our life, we can go back and be reminded of our earliest lessons. Some of the things we struggled with most since we were young, we may even struggle with today. Most of the lessons we’ve learned at the earliest times of our life, still apply to our life as we get older. Say you’re sorry when you’ve hurt somebody.” Some of the suggestions included “Share everything.

It was a simple, humorous, and truthful approach to how we should interact, behave, and understand our role in the world around us. He has been a nationally-syndicated newspaper columnist.Robert Fulghum’s book of short essays and poem of the same name “All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten” became well-known after it was published in 1986.

He has been a speaker at numerous colleges, conventions, and public events across the United States and Europe. His prose style is very simple and direct, and finds life-affirming maxims in such mundane matters as zoos, leaf-raking and dusting.įulghum has performed in two television adaptations of his work for PBS, and is a Grammy nominee for the spoken word award. There are currently more than 16 million copies of his books in print, published in 27 languages in 103 countries. Throughout this collection, subtitled 'Uncommon Thoughts on Common Things,' Fulghum expounds his down-home philosophy of seeing the world through the eyes of a child. He came to prominence in the US when his first collection, All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten (1988), stayed on the New York Times bestseller lists for nearly two years. Previous to his professional careers, he also worked as a ditch-digger, newspaper carrier, ranch hand, salesman for IBM, and singing cowboy. He was a founding member of the authors' collective rock-and-roll band, 'Rock Bottom Remainders'. He sings, and plays the guitar and mando-cello. Fulghum is an accomplished painter and sculptor. He has worked as a Unitarian Universalist minister (at the Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship in Bellingham, Washington from 1960–64, and the Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church in Edmonds, Washington amongst other communities well into the 1980s).ĭuring this same period he taught drawing, painting, and philosophy at the Lakeside School in Seattle. Robert Lee Fulghum (born June 4, 1937) is an American author, primarily of short essays.

Robert fulghum poem on kindergarten