Gibbs Smith Education

In celebration of Day of the Dead, we are excerpting a Culture Search from our brand-new resource: Exploring Near and Far for second grade students. Click through to receive a brand new lesson plan for teaching about this celebration with your class. https://hubs.la/Q02TV3ND0

One month until NCSS! We are looking forward to spending time with you in Boston. Visit with us at booth #801.

At GSE, we care so much about our books, our photo, marketing, and production teams are all in on the quality control. Or maybe we just love an excuse to get together and talk about how appealing our books are in person!

Happy Indigenous Peoples’ Day! Indigenous Peoples’ Day is a holiday in the United States that celebrates and honors Indigenous American peoples and commemorates their histories and cultures. Today we’re revisiting our blog about Plains Indian Sign Language (PISL). Click through to read about the history of the language and plan an activity for your class. https://hubs.la/Q02TjTPf0 📷 National Anthropological Archives, Smithsonian Institution, NAA INV.00866700

On October 10, 2014, activist Malala Yousafzai, age 17, won the Nobel Peace Prize. Malala Yousafzai became an activist for girls’ and women’s rights when she was still a child. When she was 10 years old, the Taliban took control of her town in Swat Valley, Pakistan. The Taliban shut down all girls’ schools, claiming it went against Islamic law to educate women. Yousafzai and her father, an education activist, immediately protested the restrictions. She secretly wrote for the British Broadcasting Service about living under the harsh rule of the Taliban. For the next three years, she gave interviews on the importance of education for women; eventually, the girls’ schools were reopened. On October 9, 2012, a member of the Taliban boarded Yousafzai’s bus after school and shot Yousafzai in the head. Two other girls were also injured in the attack. All of the girls survived; Yousafzai was taken to England for treatment. After she recovered, Yousafzai worked even harder for the right of women to receive an education. She cofounded the Malala Fund, which works to educate governments about the benefits of educating women. The fund also encourages women and girls to speak out against injustice. She has also written several books. #onthisday #malala #malalayousafzai #nobelpeaceprize 📚 Beyond Borders: World History 1500 CE to Present 📷 Simon Davis/DFID

It's Hispanic Heritage Month (September 15 – October 15)! Hispanic Heritage Month is celebrated each year to recognize the contributions of Hispanic Americans to the history, culture, and achievements in the United States. For Hispanic Heritage Month on the blog, we are focusing on the origin story of the Nahua people. What is often mislabeled the Aztec Empire was actually an alliance between three Nahuatl-speaking city-states in the 15th and 16th centuries. The Nahua people, including the Mexica for which Mexico was named, are a group of Indigenous peoples of Central America and Mexico. Click through to read more. https://hubs.la/Q02S4sVH0

We are excited to reveal our new 5th-grade Arkansas geography textbook! This customized program fully covers the newly approved world geography state standards and frameworks in social studies. This brand-new resource looks at the history and cultures of the world through the lens of geography. The new 5th-grade geography program will be ready for preview in mid-October. To request a trial or join a virtual open house to learn more, please visit our website. https://hubs.la/Q02Rqw7b0

As people invested in social studies education, what skills and understandings do we want our students to develop? At Gibbs Smith Education, we use fact-based, culturally inclusive materials to help students develop a deeper understanding of the world. We want to help students be aware that people, politics, and history are complex and full of contradictions. And we want them to recognize systems of inequality, to feel empowered to raise awareness of them, and to be able to participate in a community to dismantle them. These are all aspects of “critical consciousness," which is integral to the study of Black history. Last month, I had the opportunity to co-present at the Teaching Black History Conference in Buffalo, New York, with Abigail Henry. This conference is one of my favorites for my own personal learning. It is full of incredibly smart, talented, socially-minded people who share a common goal: to educate. In the following article on our blog, Abigail shares her approach to teaching CHAIN GANG ALL-STARS, a National Book Award fiction finalist that has particular relevance to these ideas. — Liz Wallace, Publisher, Gibbs Smith Education https://hubs.la/Q02RqlKk0

Each of the books on the shelves below has been banned from a school or district. If you think that’s ridiculous, wait until you find out why! #BannedBooksWeek Tell us the most ridiculous book banning reason you've heard in the comments below, and we'll send you a free copy of The Issue, Volume 2.2 on censorship. Here are a few reasons these books were banned. Can you determine which book goes with which reason? • Promoting witchcraft, crystal balls, and demons • Encourages children to use violence against their fathers • Unfavorable stance on the subject of human nature • Graphic violence, mysticism, and gore • Drug reference, suicide, death, and a disrespect for truth and authority • Satanic content (it was even burned by members of a church in New Mexico!) • Being too sophisticated • Selfless giving seen as sexist content • Obscene, lewd, and lascivious (showing sexual desire) • Promotes satanism through references to magic • Thought to be a “real downer” • Lying, spying, talking back, and cursing • Nudity • Sex, infanticide, suicide, starvation, and euthanasia (the painless killing of someone suffering from an incurable disease) • Talking to animals seen as disrespectful to God  📚 The Censorship Issue (vol. 2.2)

It’s Banned Books Week! At Gibbs Smith Education, we believe in the freedom to read. Did you know Banned Books Week started in 1982 as a response to the surge of challenges to books in schools, libraries and bookstores? These challenges have only increased since then, (American Library Association reported the highest number of books targeted in 20 years in 2023), and we will likely see these numbers rise even more in the coming years. Tell us the most ridiculous book banning reason you've heard in the comments below, and we'll send you a free copy of The Issue, Volume 2.2 on censorship. #BannedBooksWeek2024