Do you still remember your favorite poem from high school or some other important periods in your life？Why is it that decades later it still stands out in your mind？Probably the main reason is that some aspects of that poem resonates(引起共鸣)with you．In the same way，you too as a school leader can touch the hearts of your staff and students．

    Poetry allows us to experience strong spiritual connections to things around us and to the past．Thus，it can inspire whatever and whomever it touches．The power that poetry has displayed over time and across cultures actually satisfies this common need of the human heart and soul．

    As one of the oldest art forms，poetry has successfully connected various strands of humanity(人性)from one generation to another．Referring to poetry，Hillyer makes a simple yet meaningful statement，“With this key mankind unlocked his heart．”

    School leaders can find and make use of the value of poetry for themselves，their students and their staff members．Beyond the simple use of poetry，techniques of poetry such as metaphors，repetitions and imagery can be used to take advantage of the power of language to transform communication，create meaning and a culture of care and attention．

    Since schools are mainly about people and relationship，school leaders，like poets，are required to inspire and encourage the human heart．The use of poetry—or even of some techniques of poetry—in school leadership not only helps to improve communication，but also serves to meet the human need for inspiration．

    Billionaire Bill Gates has offered the many thousands of graduates some career and life advice. Over a series of 14 tweets in his Tweeter posted last Monday, the world's richest man used the words “impact”, “happiness” and “progress”. He did not mention money. Instead, he told the graduates what jobs he would be looking for if he started out today.

“AI (artificial intelligence), energy and bio-sciences are promising fields where you can make a huge influence”, he wrote. Earlier this year, Gates—who famously dropped out of Harvard to found Microsoft—said that artificial intelligence had “ phenomenal” potential, and “anything connected with that would be an exciting lifetime career.” In the same speech at Columbia University, he said there is a huge growing demand in the energy field to develop reliable, cheap and clean energy.

    As well as urging new graduates to surround themselves with people who challenge you, teach you, and push you to be your best self, Gates reminded them to think of others, especially the less fortunate.

    He wrote that it had taken him decades to learn about the world's worst unfairness and described this lack of early understanding as his one big regret. “You know more than I did when I was your age,” he wrote, “ You can start fighting unfairness, whether down the street or around the world sooner.”

    He finished by asking graduates to consider the progress human has already made, saying that he believe the world is getting better. “ That matters because if you think the world is getting better, you want to spread the progress to more people and places.”

When milk arrived on the doorstep

    When I was a boy growing up in New Jersey in the 1960s, we had a milkman delivering milk to our doorstep. His name was Mr. Basille. He wore a white cap and drove a white truck. As a 5-year-old boy, I couldn't take my eyes off the coin changer fixed to his belt. He noticed this one day during a delivery and gave me a quarter out of his coin changer.

    Of course, he delivered more than milk. There was cheese, eggs and so on. If we needed to change our order, my mother would pen a note-“Please add a bottle of buttermilk next delivery”-and place it in the box along with the empty bottles. And then, the buttermilk would magically appear.

    All of this was about more than convenience. There existed a close relationship between families and their milkmen. Mr. Basille even had a key to our house, for those times when it was so cold outside that we put the box indoors, so that the milk wouldn't freeze. And I remember Mr. Basille from time to time taking a break at our kitchen table, having a cup of tea and telling stories about his delivery.

    There is sadly no home milk delivery today. Big companies allowed the production of cheaper milk, thus making it difficult for milkmen to compete. Besides, milk is for sale everywhere, and it may just not have been practical to have a delivery service.

    Recently, an old milk box in the countryside I saw brought back my childhood memories. I took it home and planted it on the back porch （门廊）. Every so often my son's friends will ask what it is. So I start telling stories of my boyhood, and of the milkman who brought us friendship along with his milk.

    David Lindenmayer of the Australian National University College of Science in Canberra says that older trees play important roles in maintaining landscapes and ecosystems.

    David studies conservation, landscape, ecology and biodiversity at the Australian National University College of Science in Canberra. “Lots of people recognize that as humans get older they tend to have less and less children while trees do it the other way around. What really happens is that the older some of these really big old trees get, the more seeds they produce and the more germinant（萌芽的）they're likely to be. So it's actually the polar opposite of what we see with humans and most other animals, so really quite extraordinary. “On January 26th he spoke to Scientific American Editor in Chief Mariette DiChristina when they were both at the World Economic Forum in Davos.

    In actually it's quite a worrying situation, because in plenty of forests and woodland and other ecosystems around the world, populations of large old trees are declining very quickly. And this matters because a lot of biodiversity, a lot of carbon, a lot of key ecosystem processes are associated with those really big, old trees.

    We can make sure we grow more forests, that we protect the big trees we have now, and that we don't do things that really put a lot of pressure on those trees. We should not be cutting down really big old trees anymore.

    There was once a man who had a donkey and a beautiful lapdog. The donkey was kept in a barn and had plenty of corn and hay to eat. Indeed, he was just as lucky as any donkey could be. The little dog stayed in the house and was well liked by the master. He was always playing and jumping about in an funny way and was allowed  to lie in his master's lap (膝盖). Meanwhile, the donkey had plenty to do. He pulled wood all day long and had to take his turn at the mill during the night. He often complained about his problems, and it bored him to see the lapdog living such an easy life, while he had to work so hard. Finally he thought to himself that if he acted the same way as the lapdog to his master, he would be treated the same way. So, one day he ran out of his barn and went fast into the house, where he began to kick about in a very strange way. Then, swaying his tail and imitating the funny behavior of the pet lapdog, he knocked over the table where his master was eating. He also broke all the dishes into very small pieces and did not stop until he jumped onto his master, trying to lick and paw him with his rough feet.

    Seeing their master in great danger, the servants thought it was time to help him. They beat the foolish donkey with sticks until he could not get up again. As he was about to die, he cried, "Why couldn't I have remained satisfied the way I was? Why did I try to imitate a creature who was nothing but a lazy puppy after all?"