An April 1 post below mentioned Poetry Month.  My daughter, a first-grader, has enjoyed extra poetry this month at her New Haven public school.  Preparing for “poem in your pocket day,” she selected a poem from an anthology.  We both aimed to memorize her selection: “Trees,” by Sara Coleridge.  With leaves emerging early this spring, my daughter and I rehearsed “Trees” – just eight lines, from oak to beech.  Together, we made this small chore a shared pleasure.

Protesters in Kuala Lumpur are demanding electoral reforms in Malaysia, where my wife’s parents are currently living.

December 2008 posts described a trip that my family made to Malaysia, including Kuala Lumpur.

An April 1 post below cited Earth Month, of which April 22 is the most visible day.  Greater action is needed.  May there be many happy days and decades, centuries and epochs, ahead for our planet.

Recently, Yale historian of the Cold War John Lewis Gaddis received the Pulitzer Prize for his biography of George F. Kennan.  John Gaddis had already received other honors for that book, including from the National Book Critics Circle.  As noted in a (March 18) March 2012 post below, he is leading a Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute seminar this year on “The Art of Biography.”

My family is on a trip to North Carolina, primarily to see the Blue Ridge Mountains around Asheville, where we arrived tonight. 

During the past day, we were in Charlotte.  A highlight was Discovery Place, which my two young children as well as my wife and I enjoyed for its hands-on introduction to scientific principles and exploration.  Stationed outside were volunteers with Charlotte’s “Parent University,” inviting families to enter the museum with their kids.  A block away was the impressive main branch of the Charlotte Public Library, with wonderful literary quotations printed attractively outside.  We spent half an hour inside this community asset. 

Our Charlotte hotel, which we had identified blindly through the discount service Hotwire, coincidentally turned out to be hosting many of the players taking part in the (Michael) Jordan Brand Classic, a series of basketball games held blocks away at the city arena.  Yesterday evening, who should emerge from the hotel but Anthony Davis, the 6 foot 10 Kentucky freshman who just led his team to a national collegiate championship and will be the top pick in the NBA draft.  In the hotel elevator today, I struck up a brief conversation with a 6 foot 7 fifteen-year-old who was in Charlotte to play in the Jordan Brand game for European prospects.   Jan Niklas Wimberg, who humbly introduced himself as “Niklas Wimberg, from Germany,” seemed startled when (thanks to my mother’s German origins and my own limited study) I replied in German!  Tonight, there was more basketball as my son and I attended a Celtics-Bobcats game.  Despite playing on the road without three of their star players, the Celtics won handily.  A rare highlight for the Bobcats occurred when Kemba Walker – last mentioned here in an April 2011 post after he led the University of Connecticut to an improbable NCAA championship – stole the ball from Rajon Rondo of the Celtics and went the length of the court for a lay-up.

Tomorrow, we see the Biltmore Estate – the next day, the Blue Ridge Parkway…

Today is the first day of Earth Month and Poetry Month.  As noted in a (January 18) January 2009 post about such designations, they have an arbitrary aspect.  Still, they can be reminders to parents especially about conversations to initiate with our children.  For teachers, such months can provide latitude to give greater emphasis to lessons that integrate student learning across disciplines.

Beyond many poetry curricular resources on the Yale-New Haven Teachers Institute’s website, I was interested recently to encounter a book of poetry for children that Caroline Kennedy compiled.  It’s called A Family of Poems: My Favorite Poetry for Children.  Her observation resonates: “If our parents read to us as children, we remember the closeness of the moments together, the sound and power of voice and expression, the sense of wonder that a poem inspires.”

An April 2011 post included comments and links related to Earth Month, among them a link to April 2010 reflections.