Scholastic’s mission is to help the individual child learn and grow. Every day, we start with the life of the child who we’re trying to reach with our work. We think about what that child is experiencing, what they might know or not know, and what might be most inspiring to them. To help them, we must know who they are. Each day we try to reach to the very heart of what each child will uniquely respond to—what will change the way they think about themselves and the world, and what will give them the tools and skills they need to navigate their own individual future, and collectively, the future of the 21st century.
Our strength as a company comes from all the people we engage with every day, starting with the many millions of kids in classrooms, and at schools. We reach them through their teachers, schools, and parents who help children to have important moments of understanding every day. For the last one hundred years, the people at Scholastic have reached out to kids, through their teachers and parents, to link reading and learning to their own interests and what they need to understand. We were doing the same thing in 1920 as we’re doing in 2020—trying to understand what is happening right now in a child’s life that matters most. Is it a piece of information on social media, or a question they encountered in the classroom? Our job is to figure out how we connect to them at their level about those topics, and bring those interests and questions into focus through stories and information mentioned in our books, classroom magazines, and websites. When we do this, a child can better understand, “How do I fit in? What do I want to be? What do I need to make myself better?” When we do this, we can engage kids in the ideas that will help them relate to each other and create a better world. This is what keeps us relevant and ever-present in our society. This is what has driven us every day for the past one hundred years, and for the years to come.
When people ask us how we will maintain our relevance in a changing world, my answer is, “Find out what the most important thing is in the life of each of the fifty million children we serve each day, and help them understand more about that interest.” If we can accomplish that, we will always be relevant.
As we celebrate our history and imagine our future, take a moment to explore this website and how Scholastic reaches out to the young people that we are committed to serving every day.
Thank you for celebrating our birthday.
