In honor of Scholastic's anniversary today, our CEO, Dick Robinson, penned a letter thanking teachers for helping to shape and improve children's lives every day. We hope you'll take a moment to read it, and join our anniversary celebration.
Today, on Scholastic’s birthday, we thank you for the great work you do to help your students understand the importance of the values and the skills they are learning from you this fall. Through your guiding hand, young people discover the power of reading to help them understand themselves, understand others, and understand the world they live in.
Ninety-six years ago, on October 20, 1920, Scholastic published its first magazine to help teachers bring the best in contemporary literature and current affairs through English and Social Studies. From the first issue, the mission of Scholastic has been to help teach young people the importance of facts, logic, reasoning, and “straight thinking”—to understand how our society works, and how Americans govern themselves.
Almost 100 years later, our magazines such as Scholastic News, Junior Scholastic, Scope, The New York Times Upfront, and Storyworks, among others, still help you present the issues, challenges, and opportunities our society faces. We lay out the facts so children and young people, at their own reading and age level, can learn the skills of managing their world.
Similarly, we continue to support teachers through our reading clubs, classroom books, and book fairs, bringing exciting and worthwhile literature to your students that helps them understand themselves through sympathetic characters, and helps them understand others by seeing the world from someone else’s point of view: developing empathy through stories.
As you help your students to develop the love of reading through great stories, and to develop their ability to reason and think clearly through reading nonfiction text, you build the values, skills, and character that will continue to influence children for their entire lives. That is the power of reading.
This fall has been a particularly challenging one as a strident presidential election has reached into your students’ lives through non-stop media, and made your teaching even more important to your students.
Your thoughtful support of your children’s reading, so they can better understand themselves, understand others, and understand their world, has given hope to your students that we can build a better society and a better life for all.
Scholastic is proud to help you in this valuable work for young people, as they look to you for the confidence and skills that will help them succeed in school and in life.
Our thanks to you for all you do, every single day, for your students and their families. Please let me know how we can continue to help you do your important work!
—Dick Robinson, CEO, Scholastic
