(Editor's Notes by Christina Myer - Photo Illustration - MetroCreativeConnection)

Have you had to help an elementary or middle school student with homework lately?

Wow, things have changed. And no, I’m not talking about new math or anything like that. I think maybe I have changed. School work being completed by not-yet-teenagers is not as easy for me as it used to be.

Turns out I have no idea what the stages of the water cycle are. Not sure I ever knew, actually. But (insert old woman voice here) back in my day, the way I found out was so different it might as well have been the Stone Age. Ask a kid to look something up in a dictionary or encyclopedia and they will look at you as though it might be time for the nursing home. But goodness they are amazing at learning things with the help of all kinds of technology and software that is mystifying to me.

I hovered as one middle schooler showed me how she handled her Spanish homework and found myself wondering whether I would still be able to (barely) speak the language if I had learned it that way.

I’ll never know, of course, but seeing it in action made me rethink my assumption that learning was better when it was accomplished with nothing but textbooks and overhead projectors that had clear plastic sheets for the teacher to write on.

It still makes me cringe when I ask “What are you reading in school?” and I get blank stares, but then again, was “Great Expectations” really the secret to my academic success?

Reading in general was, I’m confident of that, but I need to get over believing young people need to read and learn the way I did, if they’re getting ready to live and work in a world that is so radically changed — and still changing.

Maybe they won’t ever have to think about the water cycle again, either; but they’ll know how to figure it out much more quickly than I would, should it ever pop back up.

West Virginia schools have plenty of work to do, as they try to keep up with our students’ needs, but there was some good news last week as state Department of Education data showed a 92.8% high school graduation rate at the end of the 2024-25 school year. It is the highest four-year rate the state has ever had.

As always, I hope improvement in that number is not a result of teachers and principals making it easier for students to graduate or outright fudging the numbers, but if we take it at face value, it’s a percentage worth celebrating.

Meanwhile, early learning is improving, too, with a decrease in the number of K-3 students requiring targeted interventions.

Given how much our teachers are handling (It’s far more than the academic basics. Sometimes the adults at schools are the only lifelines students have), it is impressive to see how THEY are adapting to all the changes in technology and technique to help students perform better and finish strong.

State lawmakers say they want to work toward workforce-ready education, and support teachers and school service personnel with salary increases, among other efforts to support education. Maybe there’s hope that “dead last” won’t be good enough, anymore.

Lawmakers who have had even the slightest exposure to what these students and teachers are accomplishing should have no trouble deciding to support whatever it takes to propel them even further.

Christina Myer is executive editor of The Parkersburg News and Sentinel. She can be reached via e-mail at cmyer@newsandsentinel.com.