THE Hawaii Department of Education will welcome teachers and school administrators from throughout the Pacific Islands to the 24th Annual Pacific Educational Conference on July 9-12 at the beautifully restored historic facilities of McKinley High School, a media release said.
The Hawaii DOE is host, along with co-sponsors Pacific Resources for Education and Learning and the University of Hawaii at Manoa College of Education.
PEC, the largest educational conference in the region, is expected to attract more than 1,000 educators, primarily from the U.S.-affiliated island education systems served by PREL: American Samoa, Guam, the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands, the Republic of Palau, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, the Federated States of Micronesia (Chuuk, Pohnpei, Yap, and Kosrae), and Hawaii.
Participants and speakers also come from the U.S. mainland and Canada, other Pacific Islands, and Asia.
PEC, a major source of professional development opportunities, is organized by Pacific educators for Pacific educators, who present a majority of the workshops.
The 2007 conference theme, “Language Acquisition: Know-ledge that Empowers,” covers a wide range of language arts. Other workshops address the full education spectrum, from science and math to social studies and the arts, from assessment and accountability to leadership and educational policy, and from special education and early intervention to counseling and classroom management.
Sessions will also address the cultural and educational integration of Micronesian students in Hawaii, and the recent “One Ocean, One People” voyage to Micronesia and Japan by the traditional Hawaiian sailing canoe Hokulea.
Speakers will include University of Auckland’s Dr. Graham Smith to talk about indigenous education; University of California at Irvine’s Dr. Robin Scarcella, on the needs of English Language learners; and Hokulea navigator Nainoa Thompson. Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann will deliver welcoming remarks.