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Model UN and the Art of Diplomacy

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Originally published in TEACH Magazine, 75 Years of the United Nations Special Issue, 2020

By Jessica Selzer

In the first five years under communist rule in South Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos, nearly 1.3 million people decided to abandon their homes and flee their native countries. An outflow of refugees on a scale the world had not witnessed since World War II, an exodus of Biblical proportions. What will the world do about it?

The Model UN Club found me in 2013 in the shape of two very keen Grade 9 girls making a pitch to me at lunch about the need for more women in politics. I didn’t quite understand what I was agreeing to, but they had me at “women in politics.” I have been the staff sponsor ever since, and have loved to watch this club grow into the largest club in the school. It has been called “sports for smart kids,” and is experiential collaborative learning at its finest.

The goal of the club is to prepare for conferences. At a Model UN Conference, students become “delegates” where they must roleplay as a specific country, in a specific UN Committee (General Assembly, World Health Organization, Disarmament and International Security Committee, United Nations Development Programme, etc.). There, they are presented with a real-world crisis that they must collaboratively solve in the form of “resolutions.” To participate in just one conference, delegates must conduct research, collaborate, negotiate, lead, and speak publicly.

Model UN kids are passionate about attending these conferences and in recent years we have also run several simulations in my classroom during lunch time; the most popular being the Halloween-themed “zombie apocalypse.” It inevitably gets a bit silly but is also great for recruiting students from the lower grades. We now order custom-made hoodies, and have a large wooden sign hung in the window of my door that was made by a senior student.

You would think that the long unpaid weekends away at conferences, making sure the kids are alive and well would be a burden to me. But I actually enjoy listening to them regale me with tales of competition, annoyance at the Dias (the moderators of the committees), and the drama of their committees. Seeing how proud they are of themselves not only when they win awards, but in what they accomplish during the conference is such a joy for a teacher. I loved when a new Grade 8 student told me she sponsored a resolution, and even though she was nervous, stood with the team to present it.

Due to the passion that seems to be inherent in the MUN club, and the deep cooperative learning at conferences, I have wanted to incorporate MUN into my classroom for a while. I found my opportunity in the Grade 10 social studies curriculum, when I expanded on the Vietnam War due to student interest, and stumbled upon one of the largest refugee crises in history.

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Jessica Selzer has been a social studies teacher at Rockridge Secondary School in West Vancouver, BC, since 2010, and staff sponsor of the Model UN club since 2013.

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Jessica Selzer
Jessica Selzer
Jessica Selzer has been a social studies teacher at Rockridge Secondary School in West Vancouver, BC, since 2010, and staff sponsor of the Model UN club since 2013.

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