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Last week members of our Gibbs Smith Education team attended the National Council for the Social Studies (NCSS) annual conference in Washington, DC. Thousands of social studies educators from across the country met to share ideas, network, and enjoy time together.
This year’s conference theme was "Because Democracy Depends on It." This led us to ask: “Depends on … what?”
Some of our favorite answers: Because democracy depends on … education, our children, literacy, freedom of speech, learning, and our children understanding their rights and exercising them.
On Thursday night, we were thrilled to host members from The Council of State Social Studies Specialists (CS4) for a dinner at the historic Whittemore House. This dinner always reminds us that educators know how to party!
Setting up a conference booth is no joke and required our team to become builders, carpenters, decorators, and electricians. We think in the end the effort was worth the beautiful booth that truly highlighted the unique design, joyful content, and consistent quality for which Gibbs Smith Education is known.
Other highlights from the conference included launching our new Latino Studies resource, La Gente, strengthening our new partnership with the Center for Civic Education, and a wonderful poster session by two of our colleagues on “Contrasting and Reinforcing Narrative Elements Using Autobiographical Graphic Novels.”
Thank you to all who stopped by our booth to say hi. We had some wonderful conversations and came away with many ideas to continue supporting our favorite people: educators! See you next year in Chicago!
La Gente: Themes in Latino Studies
Using stories, figures, and developments from diverse Latino communities, La Gente explores themes such as migration, oppression, identity, expression, joy, and resistance. In their exploration of the book, students will learn the terms and tools they need to analyze the impacts of race and ethnicity in US history. They will explore the immense resources that are available in their communities and work toward solutions for issues they care about.
