April is the Month of the Military Child and has been “set aside to honor and celebrate the significance and resilience of military children and youth.”

All of us at K¹² recognize the great sacrifices military families make and the unique daily challenges they face. We have many military families currently attending K¹² schools who have found online education to be the right option for them given the many unique challenges they face like frequent moves, new schools, new friends, long deployments, and much more. Through all of these challenging experiences, military children learn to be flexible and adaptable. Whether they know it or not, they contribute to unit readiness and mission success for their military parents. They develop character and courage, and make sacrifices daily.

In honor of military children and their families everywhere, let's see all of the unique and innovative places they get to learn!  

National Poetry Month was started in 1996 by The Academy of American Poets, and is a month-long, national celebration of poetry! Their goal, then and now, is to widen the attention of individuals and the media—to the art of poetry, to living poets, to our complex poetic heritage, and to poetry books and journals of wide artistic range and concern.

There are so many hidden poets out there, including, Phoenix Suns co-owner Richard Jaffe, who recently published his first book of poetry. Jaffe offers five ways we can all benefit by tapping into our inner poet:

1. Improves cognitive function. Learning new words (he’s never without a Thesaurus), working out meter (math!), and finding new ways to articulate our thoughts and feelings (communication) are all good for the brain. Want to get smarter? Write poetry!

2. Helps heal emotional pain. Grief is one of the most painful emotions we experience, and it’s also the source of some of the world’s most inspirational poetry, Jaffe says. “When I have experienced a profound loss, the act of putting my feelings into words or memorializing and paying tribute to those who I lost is extremely cathartic,” he says.

3. Leads us to greater self-awareness. Most of us don’t have the time or desire to just sit and aimlessly ponder the meaning of our lives or what makes us deeply happy. Writing poetry gives us a constructive way to do that. Not only does it help us explore and gain insight, we have something to show for all that “inner reflection” when we’re done.

4. Provides a gift of inspiration or education to others. One thing we know -- we are not alone! “Universal questions, fears and emotions are called ‘universal’ because everyone, no matter what country or culture they’re raised in, experiences them,” Jaffe notes. Once we’ve done the work of exploring and finding our own answers, we can help others by sharing them. 

5. Celebrate! For some things, balloons and cake just don’t suffice. “Proposing to my wife, the births of my children, their Bar and Bat Mitzvahs, falling in love -- these were among the most emotionally powerful, joyful times of my life,” Jaffe says. “Thanks to the poems I wrote at the time to capture those feelings, I can experience them again and again.

To do our part to encourage all of the would-be poets out there to celebrate National Poetry Month, we have created the first annual K12 Poetry Contest!

Women Inspiring Innovation Through Imagination: Celebrating Women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM)

The 2013 National Women’s History Month theme, Women Inspiring Innovation through Imagination, honors generations of women who throughout American history have used their intelligence, imagination, sense of wonder, and tenacity to make extraordinary contributions to the STEM fields.

Engineers, scientists, mathematicians and technologists are largely responsible for the advances that make modern life possible, and it's unfortunate that women remain largely underrepresented in STEM professions and academic programs. However, they may be underrepresented, but that doesn't mean that they haven't left their mark in history.

Last month, we launched ‘What’s Your Story? ’, a new way for our families to read and share their educational success stories.   

We have had an overwhelming amount of submissions – from all walks of life and telling of unique situations.  Here at K12, our mission recognizes that what success looks like is unique and is based on each individual student and their story and your shared stories reflect just that. 

We recognize the great sacrifices and unique challenges faced by military families every day. Many have chosen online learning as the right option for their families and we know there are other families looking for the same opportunities. In an effort to unite this large and growing community of families, we have created a ‘K¹² Military Families’ Facebook page!