Our Mission

Photo of Ed and Celeste Rickers – Est. March 17, 1990

I’ve been directly involved in educational publishing since 1990. I feel so fortunate to have had this career. It’s always been my life’s dream.

I was CEO of Studies Weekly from 1996 to 2018. Now, Celeste and I remain joint owners of Studies Weekly.  As president, I meet often with John McCurdy, our CEO and occasionally with our executives and staff.

Business mentors have long stated that the smartest people are those who hire and recruit people smarter than they are. Wow! Is this proof that I’m really smart? We have an amazing team at Studies Weekly! I can’t thank them enough for their tireless passion and hard work.

They are all driven by the ambition to make a difference for your students. And thanks to them, I get to spend a lot more time with my children and grandchildren and my sweetheart of 30 years!

As educators and publishers, our goal is to increase awareness. At Studies Weekly we decided a long time ago to emphasize social studies. Why?

The point of social studies is awareness. When the awareness quotient of the average person increases historically, culturally, economically, politically, geographically, demographically, and in civics principles, we raise the probability that the entire human family will soon live in peace.

It’s so important that children gain as much social awareness as possible in their earliest years. Dr. Benjamin Bloom (Bloom’s Taxonomy of Higher Level Thinking) stated that 50% of children’s adult intelligence is formed by age 4 and approximately 80% is formed by age 10. The awareness gained in these early years will largely govern their decisions on “What’s important?” and “What’s relevant?” for the rest of their lives.

Thank you for allowing us the privilege of helping you educate, or raise the social awareness, of your students! Our goal is continuous improvement.