Gentle Hands: Maybe kindergarten had it figured out all along.
By Mack Callahan
There are certain lessons every American child learns before they can even read.
Don’t run with scissors.
Wait your turn.
Use your words.
And, perhaps the most universally repeated phrase in every preschool and elementary classroom: “Hands to yourself.”
Teachers say it so often that it almost becomes white noise. Every disagreement on the playground eventually ends with some variation of, “We use gentle hands.”
It’s simple advice. Simple enough that five-year-olds eventually understand it.
Which is why it struck me this week when two women with ties to local schools were booked into the Shawnee County Jail on separate domestic battery allegations.
One works as a paraeducator at Washburn Rural. The other previously worked as a substitute teacher in Seaman and has reportedly accepted a position at Northern Hills Elementary. Both are accused of domestic battery involving alleged rude or physical contact with a family member or dating partner.
To be clear, these are allegations. Both women are entitled to the presumption of innocence, and the courts—not newspaper columnists—will determine what actually happened.
Still, the irony is impossible to ignore.
Every day, educators spend hours helping children learn emotional regulation. They teach students to stop, breathe, count to ten, and use words instead of fists. They comfort children after playground arguments and remind them that being angry doesn’t give them permission to put their hands on someone else.
They’re good lessons.
They’re lessons worth teaching.
They’re also lessons that don’t suddenly expire when you turn eighteen.
Maybe that’s why kindergarten classrooms have always fascinated me. The rules hanging on those brightly colored walls are remarkably practical for adults, too. “Be kind.” “Take turns.” “Keep your hands to yourself.” Strip away the cartoon crayons and smiling dinosaurs, and you’ve got a pretty decent blueprint for living in society.
Somewhere along the way, adulthood convinces us we’ve graduated from those lessons.
We haven’t.
Life gets complicated. Relationships become stressful. Jobs wear us down. Financial pressure builds. Tempers flare. None of that changes the basic principle we expected every six-year-old to understand before recess.
Keep your hands to yourself.
That’s not a childish rule.
It’s a civilized one.
I’m not suggesting teachers should be held to an impossible standard. Educators are human beings with complicated lives, just like everyone else. They deserve due process, fairness, and the opportunity to defend themselves when accused of wrongdoing.
But teaching children carries with it an unavoidable reality: kids watch what adults do far more closely than they listen to what adults say.
The credibility of “gentle hands” doesn’t come from the words. It comes from whether the adults saying them actually live by them.
Maybe that’s the real takeaway.
The older I get, the more convinced I become that most of life’s important lessons weren’t learned in college, graduate school, or on the job.
They were learned sitting cross-legged on a colorful carpet while a patient teacher reminded us—probably for the tenth time that morning—to use our words, be kind, and keep our hands to ourselves.
Looking around these days, I’m beginning to think some of us should ask for a refresher course.
