Last weekend, 11 members of the Martha’s Vineyard Regional High School’s (MVRHS) Model UN delegation attended the Boston University Model United Nations Conference. At the conference, members acted as delegates in a simulation of the United Nations, discussing world issues and proposing and voting on diverse solutions.
Students have been preparing for the conference since the trip was confirmed in November, meeting weekly on Mondays during flex. Roughly two months ago, they received their country and committee assignments, which allows them to focus their research prior to the conference.
History teacher Leigh Fairchild-Coppoletti, a first-year Model UN advisor, shared a bit about the scope of work students did to prepare. “The conference requires a considerable amount of preparation,” she said. “After students are assigned to different committees, they need to read a significant amount of background information about their committee and the questions that it’s grappling with. They need to think about how their assigned country would respond to those questions when in actual committee hearings.”
Freshman Murilo Freitas, who represented the UNESCO committee in the conference, joined Model UN with the hopes of sharing his thoughts and opinions with others. “I just wanted to speak my opinions, help out with worldly problems, and try to solve them while participating with other people,” he said.
Murilo added, “I think this trip made me see stuff in a way people overlook. Like, world problems that are going on, the way people can solve them, how we can help, [and] how normal people can help do great things.”
Ms. Fairchild-Coppoletti recalled a moment at the conference between two MVRHS seniors that she believes sums up the learning experience. “I watched the two of them dart back and forth between different negotiating groups with so much conviction and energy. They were invested in the process, which speaks so much to the potential of experiential learning,” she said. “Basically, it comes down to kids learning when they don’t quite realize that they’re learning, and learning so much more than they do often in traditional classroom environments.”