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Published: August 1st 2010
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After a day to settle in and see some of the world famous sites of Beijing, the time to promote world peace for future generations was soon at hand. The next few days of this trip encompassed more of the work hard component. First and foremost, I was very proud of the students I was able to work with and as a teacher, I gained first-hand accounts of how students can be prepared to meet future global issues. The Model United Nations (MUN) has an interesting history. The United Nations was of course preceded by the League of Nations after the end of WW I. Given the rise of world tensions and the outbreak of WW II, the League didn’t display the best track record. With the UN being formed after WW II, the objective of finding peaceful means for international conflict was, and still is a political science working experiment. So when exactly did the MUN get started? Technically, the same manner of mock academic structure existed during the time of the League of Nations, originally at Harvard. After all, MUN is not limited to high school, but actually extended to this realm. Around 1952, there was a transition to
have universities began working through mock UN simulations. As time progressed, high schools began to follow this trend, reaching our current time in which high school MUN international conferences have been growing steadily over the past 30 years. Currently there are around 200,000 university and high school participants per a year. Considering the demand for international cooperation in this day and age, education and practicing of international collaboration is a realistic and desirable path to the goal.
To keep it simple in explaining the workings of these conferences, the students simply look to the structure of the UN itself for developing these simulations. Students will take roles in such bodies as the General Assembly, Security Council, International Court of Justice or other more focused bodies such as Sustainable Development. Students will then receive their designated roles well before the conference, or in the case of my school, our assigned country with a listing of topic issues we would need to be prepared to address, negotiate and craft resolutions upon. From my point of view, students were able to learn a wealth of content surrounding current global issues including pro’s and con’s of the manners to address these issues.
Beyond this, with students representing the various world nations, students were also required to communicate and work as a team through wide ranging views and needs in order to find feasible solutions. From a teacher’s standpoint, the conference was not only enjoyable, but very educational and practical. The skills of networking, communicating and being a positive team player should be attributes no matter where someone’s future profession may lie. There is of course the desire to reducing and solving various world issues, and having the future generation at least educated about these realities is a very feasible first step in this endeavor.
The MUN aside, we did of course make more time to visit more of Beijing on some nights. Going through the shopping areas was of course a good time once again. Never in all of my life have I seen so much Mao and communist paraphernalia marketed for capital profit. Perhaps what was most intriguing is the current meshing of old and new. For example, while walking through a very modern and well to do shopping district, lined with stores carrying the latest fashion trends, side streets are easily found that can take a person into a
much older and traditional market place of China. Within these side streets, enjoying the food recipes that have existed for hundreds, if not thousands of years is readily available. Numerous local shops selling an amazing amount of goods you may want but defiantly don’t need are of course here as well. Perhaps most importantly, the age old practice of bargaining for often over priced goods seems like a classical part of China that is safe to stay. There was one more part of Beijing that I enjoyed on our last day, and that was seeing snow for the first time in nearly three years. Having lived in Colorado my whole life, the past three years of traveling in the Middle East and Asia has made me feel like something was missing in my life. Perhaps when I am not experiencing blizzards, extreme cold and horrible driving conditions I am not embracing the true value of life? Maybe, or maybe I’ll just keep living in tropical areas and start taking winter ski trips?
As this work hard/play hard conference finished up, it turned out to be a success in many ways. With a busy semester still at hand that needed
to be completed back in Taiwan, we all were ready to return and get back to work (sad to say). Perhaps this is one of the real perks of conferences of changing up working atmospheres for a bit? Once this change takes place and one spends sometime in this atmosphere, coming back to where you originally work takes on a slightly altered angle (hopefully for the better). Exposure to new people, ideas and points of views is perhaps one of the best forms of education, if not in fact the heart of education itself. With this, coming back refreshed and ready to finish the school year was a good attitude to have on the plane ride back to Taiwan.
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Irsa S
non-member comment
Delicious!
Hey Mr Bryant! How have things been with you? Looks like you've been eating good - asian food is the best, isn't it? :D Hope you haven't forgotten your Philosophy Crew back in Dubai :) Cheers, Irsa