The idea that on April 30th we will hold our 16th Annual Kump Education Research Seminars is a great delight to the old researcher in me. We started this seminar tradition when I was teaching in the Education Department at Davis & Elkins College, and we invited student teachers from Alderson-Broaddus and West Virginia Wesleyan College.

I will never forget seeing the bus arrive from Wesleyan with 28 students who had written excellent teacher work samples, and one of them won our award for the best research project. It seemed as if we, education instructors, were almost as important as the coaches of sport teams.

Since that time, both D&E and WVWC have continued to offer four-year college degrees and a few master’s degree programs. A-B built a large stadium, became a university, and then closed for financial reasons. I have taught classes in all three small colleges as well as two state universities, and I still believe that a four-year college experience is important for bright students.

We have fewer young people in West Virginia now, and we need to be sure they know how to compete in the 21st century. Demographic and technological changes bring economic changes, and education must keep pace with these trends. The challenge for educators is to learn and teach with technology while they continue to nurture the human spirit.

What is the right balance between screentime and social interaction time? Do books still have a place in schools? Should students ride a bus two hours a day?

Kump Education Research Seminar this year will include traditional student teacher research on what affects student behavior in school and how to teach math in the elementary grades. It will also include some findings on what we have been doing at Kump Center.

This year we have enjoyed the support of a D&E College education intern who has developed a new Kump House history guide for elementary students, and she has helped with our tutoring program. She will share her insights on the impact of Snow Days on student performance. When students did not go to school on Snow Days they did not attend tutoring, and their absences reduced our tutoring time.

On April 30th Kump Center will also share the West Virginia University Capstone project of our new Administrative Coordinator. She has been working on “Fostering Families,” and she has had many new experiences that make her findings unique. Her project is not based on what happens to students in school, but it delves deeply into what is happening to the 6,000 children in West Virginia foster care programs. Often, they are lucky if they even get to the school bus.

After 16 years of looking at teacher education research, I am convinced that we must think more about the needs of young families in our communities, and the importance of doing more professional research on the curriculum and achievement for all West Virginia students.