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Elkins is a small town with interesting opportunities for citizens to expand their view of the world. We are proud to host Nasra Adan [Zuboy] who will share her experiences and photos from Saudi Arabia on Tuesday, July 25, at 7 p.m. in the Optimum Learning Lab at Kump Education Center.
The title of her presentation is "Saudi Arabia, Not Just a Desert Country."
Nasra started coming to Water Aerobics classes at the Elkins Y with me when she was visiting her in-laws John and Ginny Zuboy, during summer vacations from Saudi Arabia over the last several years.
Her husband Jacob Zuboy, serves in Saudi Arabia as a consultant from the Educational Testing Service (ETS) working on measuring critical thinking skills.
We have discovered that Nasra and I have much in common. She teaches essay writing at the college level, and that is the subject I taught most of my paid working life. My own Ph.D. level research was done on the variables that impact scores on essay tests, and I used ETS research to design my own research projects.
Although the technology has changed since I was researching this topic, the basic philosophical questions that impacted my research remain. How can we teach and measure critical thinking and writing?
Although I have to admit that Nasra has learned many more languages than I have learned, we do agree that learning foreign languages is very important for the development of individual minds and economic opportunities. Language and culture have a great deal to do with the ways people think, write, and earn a living.
Forty years ago in Georgia, I was able to observe that social dialect could be as powerful as racial differences as a predictor of success or failure in essay testing.
When I moved back to West Virginia, I noticed that nonstandard dialect usage continues to impact learning for many children in the Mountain State. This issue is not as great now as the lack of technology in the homes of local children, but both things contribute to the suspicions local people have when they feel threatened by someone who has had more schooling or travel opportunities.
International and cultural awareness are not new considerations at the Kump house. Mary Gamble Kump, who gave the house to the City of Elkins, was a teacher for American military dependents over four decades in various parts of the world. One of Gov. Kump's granddaughters, Nancy Wooddell Warlick was a Presbyterian missionary in the Congo, and her daughter Elizabeth Turk is a nurse in Madagascar now. Other family members have served in the military as doctors, engineers, lawyers, and soldiers in other countries. West Virginians can travel beyond these hills.