The 9th NAREA Summer Conference

The North American Reggio Emilia Alliance Board would like to welcome you to The 9^th NAREA Summer Conference, part of the Dialogues for Quality in Education series. Dialogue Across the Pacific: Honoring the Child as Learner, Collaborator and Citizen is a NAREA initiative in collaboration with Reggio Children and Nā Liko Mōhala.

Since our founding in 2002, the NAREA board has traveled to different parts of North America for its summer board meeting. Last year we had the privilege of developing our eighth summer initiative in Portland, Oregon with Portland Children’s Museum, and we are excited to continue to bring together educators with the aim of supporting and strengthening all those interested in the experiences and ongoing research of Reggio Emilia, Italy. We hope this initiative offers a rich and meaningful contribution to your ongoing professional development.

It is with special gratitude that we welcome Claudia Giudici, pedagogista, president of Preschools and Infant-Toddler Centers, Istituzione of the Municipality of Reggio Emilia, Italy and member of Reggio Children’s Advisory Board as well as Emanuela Vercalli, co-chair of the Reggio Children International Network and member of the Reggio Children/Loris Malaguzzi International Center Managing Committee. We also wish to extend our sincere appreciation to

Nā Liko Mōhala, the entire Hawaii hospitality committee and Mid-Pacific Institute for hosting this initiative and supporting its planning.

We wish to highlight our belief in and commitment to the value of diversity and differences as essential aspects of personal and professional development. Recognizing the ever-increasing number of programs for young children inspired by Reggio’s approach to life and education, we honor and encourage each program and every group of colleagues to invest in an ongoing approach that includes permanent study, research, collaboration, innovation, transparency, and exchange. Through our professional development projects, we encounter a host of schools at varying points of their own journey, willing to open their doors, expose their work and welcome the participation of visitors. This style of development has been introduced to all of us by the only “Reggio schools” of Reggio Emilia, Italy. To be continually encouraged to find our own unique identities as schools in different communities worthy of our own identity is to see how much the message of Reggio Emilia is based on attitudes of research and innovation, rather than prescriptive dogma. For this, we are also grateful.

Please enjoy the pleasure of thinking and wondering as we work together to construct a better future for our children, ourselves and our communities.