Model UN visits Boston

Over the weekend of February 20th, the T.C. Model UN went to a conference in Boston for high schools from all over the country. The idea of this conference was to model the way the real United Nations works and to teach students about coming together as different nations and reaching agreements. “[The conference] gave students the chance to focus all their research and attention on a specific country and specific committees,” Sarah Kiyak, the advisor to the Model UN and an English 11 and AP English teacher said.

Model UN is a student-run club that is in high schools all over the nation. Students in the club debate current events and politics and do the same sort of work as the real UN. “Think of it like a microcosm,” Kiyak said. “The model UN emulates what the real UN does,” she continued, “they make resolutions, they bring peace to countries,” all of which was copied by the students who went to the conference.

The conference was set up as close to the way the UN is as possible; each school had its own country, like T.C. who was representing South Africa. Each country sent a person to be in each committee, these committees ranged from things like children’s funds to terrorist groups and parliaments. “We had the committee sessions where we all had different committees; no one was in the same one,” said junior Lester Schoenberger who went on the trip. In each committee was a college student who taught the high schoolers the way the UN works and led the discussions.

But the entire trip was not all work; Kiyak and the other chaperones took the 16 students on the trip to places like the Boston Harbor and the State House. They also went on the Freedom trail and went shopping on Newberry Street in Boston. They wanted the students to experience things they had never seen before and take them to historic places in the city. After the conference, many students even approached Kiyak and told her that they now planned to apply to college in Boston.

In addition to the committee meetings and the sight seeing, there were also many awards given out at the conference. Awards were given in categories like “Best Delegate”, “Best Position Paper” and of course honorable mentions. Even though T.C. didn’t win any, Kiyak was not discouraged. “This is only our second conference,” she said. “I feel like we are still trying to work things out.” Even with the lack of trophies and awards, both the students and teachers seemed to have learned a lot from the conference and experience.