Learning the ways of the world

As it turns out, if youths ran the world, the world would run pretty much as it does today.

At least that’s what a group of high school students discovered recently at the Montana Model United Nations Conference. About 400 students from across the state, including 30 from the Flathead Valley, attended the conference at the University of Montana in Missoula at the end of November.

Seventeen local home-school students and 13 from Flathead High School attended the conference.

They represented countries with a variety of power in the world, from the United States to East Timor.

The secret to a successful experience at the conference lies in how well a student can take on his or her country’s attitudes — a task that wasn’t easy for some students assigned to countries known for repression.

“It’s kind of hard. You have to try to push an agenda you totally disagree with,” said freshman Jenae Roedel, a home-school student and delegate from Myanmar.

While researching Myanmar before the conference, Roedel discovered the country was known for its military junta, 2007 anti-government protests and its less-than-open attitude to the rest of the world.

“A lot of the countries we’re representing in Model U.N. are not very friendly or researchable,” Roedel said.

This creates a challenge for a high school student who needs to figure out what Myanmar’s leaders truly believe and what image the country tries to project to the world.

“A lot of the countries, although they are very mean, don’t want to look mean,” she said. “You have to know the appearance they’re trying to give.”

Chris Dooling told his Contemporary Issues class at Flathead High School that it was sometimes “awkward” trying to represent Libya, which, like Myanmar, has an unpleasant reputation.

“It was awkward, but cool” to represent Libya, Dooling said. “I didn’t always agree with what Libya thought.”

Delegates representing larger countries got to experience a different end of the spectrum.

“I think it was interesting to see how the U.S. and France, more prominent countries, made themselves present,” said Jordan Jackola, a Flathead High School student. “Smaller countries didn’t speak up as much.”

Each student was assigned a country and a committee: General Assembly Plenary; General Assembly First Committee, which handles security issues; General Assembly Second Committee, which covers economic and financial matters; General Assembly Third Committee, which discusses social, cultural and humanitarian issues; or Security Council.

Each committee was staffed by a member of UM’s Model United Nations class.

There were about 85 students per committee, and students could choose how active they wanted their roles to be, home-school adviser Susan Wagner said.

“If you want to sit, observe and sign on to resolutions, you can do that. You can have a more silent role,” she said. “It’s still a great learning experience if that’s all you choose to do.”

But those who wanted to could give speeches and argue in front of scores of other delegates in favor or against resolutions. This was the favored role for Flathead delegates who were members of the speech and debate team, adviser Genia Allen-Schmid said.

“It’s so natural for them,” she said.

Most of the Flathead team were members of Allen-Schmid’s Contemporary Issues class, although a few speech team members who weren’t in the class opted to participate as well. Despite its international focus — Flathead is the only International Baccalaureate high school in Montana — this was the first time Flathead has participated in Model U.N.

“It’s partly because it takes a lot of time to organize it. There’s no paid position for it, no stipend,” Allen-Schmid said in explaining why Flathead has never before attended the conference.

“I decided to try it as a part of my class.”

Allen-Schmid has advised Model U.N. students at other schools around the world. While teaching in Tanzania, she took students to a Model U.N. conference in Nairobi, Kenya. While teaching in Spain, she took delegations to Lisbon, Portugal, and The Hague, Netherlands.

Wagner first became involved with Model U.N. in Missoula and has taken home-schoolers from the Flathead to the state convention for three of the last four years.

This is the largest team she has ever taken to a conference, she said.

The 17 home-school students represented the United States, Serbia, the Democratic Republic of the Congo and Myanmar.

Flathead delegates represented Libya, East Timor, Indonesia and Brazil.

On the Web:

http://www.cas.umt.edu/mun

Reporter Kristi Albertson may be reached at 758-4438 or by e-mail at kalbertson@dailyinterlake.com