Fifty four Elementary School teachers from Palau, Marshall Islands and Federated States of Micronesia (FSM) participated in the three-day training. The first Math Regional Meeting was also held in Palau back in 2004, and last year they held it in FSM.
“Our purpose is to have all these teachers share their teaching knowledge on the Math subject, their education system, the problems and challenges they encounter,” said Rie Hiramatsu, JICA Palau, Math Education Group Leader.
At the end of the training, the teachers will have discussed their opinions and shared their teaching strategies. “After the training, they’ll go back to their respective schools and they will use the skills they learned during the training,” said Hiramatsu.
With this year’s theme is “From input to output,” the training hopes to understand the situations of schools in each country by doing presentations of typical activities they do in their respective countries.
Representatives will also be doing skits, showing bad situations in classrooms. They will also share problems and troubles normally encountered in class, as well as discuss solutions to classroom challenges.
According to Minister of Education Masa-Aki Emesiochl, they’ve been trying to recruit teachers for elementary and high school for Math and Science in Palau because these are challenging areas that need help in the academics.
“When it comes to education, everyone should be involved,” he said during his speech at the opening day of the training. “But in the end, it will be the teachers and the students in class that will make a difference.”
He closed his speech with the saying, “Mediocre teachers teach, good teachers explain, superior teachers demonstrate and outstanding teachers inspire.”
