United Nations-Ravi Shankar

Model United Nations is a great way to expose students to the realities of becoming a global citizen.  Early this week I spent two and a half days at the University of Montana in Missoula for the Model United Nations state conference.   

Twenty-eight students from Bozeman attended, representing 8 different countries:

             Armenia                     New Zealand

China                          South Sudan

Belgium                     Uzbekistan                         

Malawi                       Zimbabwe

South Sudan

Belgium

Zimbabwe

New Zealand

Armenia

Malawi

China

Practicing Parliamentary Procedure in the hotel room

Over 350 students from schools across Montana (and one from Idaho) participated in negotiating and passing resolutions, just as they do in the real United Nations.  This provided an in depth opportunity for students to learn how to become engaged global citizens.

 A few highlights:

·      The conference is run by university students in Dr. Karen Adams’ United Nations class at the U of M.  It was great for high school students to see what they could do if they chose to pursue Model UN at the collegiate level.  It was also exciting to be around the college atmosphere since most students will be there themselves in a year.

Enjoying lunch in the dorm cafeteria

A former BHS student, now the Secretary-General

·      Students were divided into committees and each committee focused on two issues of global importance.  Issues ranged from:

o  Refugees

o  Crisis in Syria

o  International cooperation in the arctic region

o  Reforming the Security Council

o  Controlling the drug trade

o  Women in development

o  Dealing with a global pandemic

·      Monday night students participated in a Region Night where they were divided by geographic location and heard from international students from each region.  It provided a great opportunity to learn from people who knew these places first-hand.

How Model UN helps students:

·      In preparing position papers before the conference, students refined their research skills as they sought to understand perspectives of other countries.

 

Writing resolutions in committee

·      In their committees, students were required to collaborate and compromise to develop and pass resolutions.  As often as possible students maintained the integrity of the position of the countries they were representing.

Speaking in front of the full plenary

Speaking in committee

BHS student speaking in favor of her resolution

·      Students used parliamentary procedure to debate resolutions, requiring them to develop impromptu and argumentative speaking skills.

·      During un-moderated caucuses students had to forge alliances with other countries to gain enough votes for their resolutions.  Many students joined forces with students from other schools in order to co-sponsor resolutions, just as countries do in the actual United Nations.

·      Most importantly, students learned how to become global citizens as they engaged in vital world issues and community building during this United Nations simulation.

 

Distinguished winners

A huge thank you to Dr. Karen Adams and her Model UN class for putting on such a wonderful conference.   

 

Dr. Adams speaking to the Security Council

Thanks also to the Hilton Edgewater for being willing to host 28 high schools kids in their rooms.  It’s always fun spending time with students beyond the classroom, and we had some good times, including a stop for ice cream on our way out of town.

BHS students who received recognition

Stuck in the Middle-Steelers Wheel

Brazil's Current Events Update

After spending so much time in Brazil and learning so much about the culture, education and political systems, I try to keep up with current events there.  Recently two interesting articles came to my attention and I would love to hear the thoughts of my Brazilian friends about the topics of the articles and how they feel their country is portrayed in the American media.

The first article is about the education system.  The article discusses the fact that Brazil's education performance has increased rapidly over the past 15 years; however, middle class families remain dissatisfied with the education system.  A few interesting facts from the article:

Rising Expectations in Brazil and Chile

• The poverty rate in Brazil has decreased from 50% to 25% since 1995.
•  Brazilian students' performance on standardized tests have improved at the third greatest rate since 1995.
• The parents of half of Brazil's current college students did not complete 4th grade.  This fact was astounding to me, think about what that means.
• In Brazil nearly 75% of teachers now have a college degree (as compared to less than 20% in the early 1990s.)
• Brazilian teachers ranked last out of 23 countries studies for effective use of class time.  The report suggests that Brazilian teachers spend a lot of time on administrative details and maintaining order in the classrooms.  After visiting over 20 Brazilian classrooms, I wonder how this statistic may be culturally biased.  My observations were that, while Brazilian classrooms may at times seem chaotic, often the teachers to have control and the students are engaged in learning.
• As long as the middle class continues to grow, the importance of civic action will continue to propel the education system, political and economic climates in a positive direction.

The second article discusses the recent exposure of the (National Security Administration) NSA's use of surveillance abroad.   The main focal point of the article was differences is United States' responses to Germany and Brazil's reactions to the surveillance allegations.  A few interesting facts and things to think about:

Two of the World' Most Powerful Women Stood Up to NSA Spying-America's Response Reveals a Glaring Double Standard

• The two U.S. journalists who broke the story of NSA spying abroad are stationed in Rio de Janiero and Berlin.
• Do you think a United Nations' resolution condemning the surveillance would have an impact on whether or not countries spied on each other?  What would be a more effective way of dealing with the issue, or is this an issue that needs to be dealt with at the international level?
• Dilma Rousseff postponed a trip to the U.S. which was supposed to occur in October.
• While the U.S. acknowledged "Brazil's concerns," the government issued an immediate apology to Germany, what is your opinion about the different reactions toward each country?
• In general I feel Americans are woefully uninformed about Latin America in general, and Brazil specifically.  Brazil has the largest economy in Latin America and the sixth largest in the world.  Brazil's rapid ascension to the world stage requires greater attention and respect from the United States.

So let's here what you think in the comments!

Breaking News-Michael Jackson

I love to discuss current events with my AP Gov classes.  Since I'm missing school this week, here's a short re-cap so you can stay on top of the news yourself:

Here's more info about the Iran Nuclear Deal.

Getting Better-The Beatles

National Council for Social Studies Conference in St. Louis!

Representing Montana in the NCSS House of Delegates

I told myself I wasn't bringing back any books or resources, so how did this happen?

Exciting things are happening in the world of education, and nothing is more exciting than spending time learning and sharing with other teachers.  Having just spent the weekend at the National Council for Social Studies conference, here are just a few of the resources I learned about in case any teachers out there wanted to explore them.  If you have other resources or organizations to recommend, please consider adding them to the comments.  The more we collaborate, the better we all get.



Resources for Geography Classes:

PeaceCorps Worldwise Schools-
Provides lesson plans, resources and more to teach about culture both within and beyond the United States.  Also connects classrooms with Peace Corps volunteers around the world.

National Geographic Giant Maps-
These maps are a little expensive but very cool and interactive.  They also come with all kinds of games and lesson plans for students.


Resources for History Classes:  
Department of State Historian-
Highlights of the website include milestones in the history of U.S. Foreign relations, historical documents and lesson plans.

Transatlantic Outreach Program-Germany-
Offers European History lesson plans.  

Resources for Global Education/Global Issues:

New Global Citizens-
This website emphasizing Common Core curriculum seeks to connect classrooms and teachers with international community organizations addressing global issues.  New Global Citizens has already vetted the organizations so you can be assured they are reliable.  The program focuses on problem solving, critical thinking, collaboration, communication, leadership and digital literacy.

Global Concerns Classroom-
This website is part of an international humanitarian organization, Concern Worldwide.  Their resources are free and emphasize critical thinking, research, analysis, public speaking, listening, consensus-building and debate.  They provide a thorough resource guide for ten world issues and each issue has a specific geographic region.  The issues are: child labor, child survival, climate change, displacement, education, HIV and AIDS, Hunger, Water and Women's Rights.

Read to Feed-
Heifer International Program in which students read books to raise money and support sustainable economic efforts around the globe.

Global Campaign for Education-
57 million children around the world do not have access to basic education.  This coalition of NGOs, think tanks, union, faith-based groups is dedicated to ensuring universal quality education for all children.  If you think every child in the world deserves an education, they have many ways to support their efforts.

The Genocide Education Project-
Offers 1, 2 or 10 day lesson plans on the Armenian Genocide.

Resources for Teacher Travel:

Teachers for Global Classrooms-
Outstanding fully funded program includes an 8 week online course in global education and a 2-3 week in-country study in any of the following countries: India, Philippines, Colombia, Ghana, Morocco and Russia.
Transatlantic Outreach Program-Germany-
Offers a two week history and culture study in Germany.

Spirit-Force One Network

When I visited Brazil, the first school we visited was having an annual celebration where the school was divided into teams and over the course of a week, each team had a scavenger hunt list of things to collect and accomplish.  We asked if it was similar to "spirit week" in the United States but of course Brazilian students and teachers weren't familiar with that American high school tradition.  Since it is now spirit week at Bozeman High, I thought I would take a little time to share this piece of American culture.

Most high schools in the United States have spirit week, it typically coincides with Homecoming.  Historically Homecoming referred to alumni coming back to their alma mater for a football game, banquet or other event.  Homecoming, at a minimum, consists of a football (American) game and a dance.  However, often most of the school sports teams play a home game during Homecoming week.  Often there are other events as part of Homecoming as well, including parades, pep rallies, royalty voting and all kinds of other games and activities. 

As part of Homecoming, spirit week is designed to rally students together and encourage participation in school activities and generate school spirit.  Spirit week consists of students dressing up each day in accordance with an assigned theme.  Here are some pictures from Bozeman High's spirit week to give you an idea of what it's like.

Monday-Superhero Day

Tuesday-Footie Pajama Day

Sleepy time

 Wednesday-Western Day

No, this is not how students in Montana normally dress :)

Thursday-Class color day-This is one of the most popular days.  Each grade in school is assigned a color and students wear as much of that color as possible.  This tradition has evolved so now students don't just wear their class color, but try and come up with the craziest outfits possible.  At Bozeman High, seniors traditionally wear pink.

Say It Right-Nelly Furtado

So many things to say as it's been awhile since I've blogged...in lieu of catching up on the past two months, I'm going to jump right in on today-Sunday, October 13, 2013.

A little background for my readers abroad-I am currently in Washington D.C. for a teaching conference (more about that in a future blog post.)  Also, the government is currently "shutdown" as Congress can't agree on a continuing resolution to fund the government.  This means that certain parts of the U.S. government are not currently functioning and, as a result, national parks and monuments are all closed.  To protest the closure of national monuments (and the shutdown in general,) veterans from around the country came to D.C. to protest at the World War II Memorial.

As a government teacher, I always find it interesting to see people exercise their First Amendment rights so of course I wanted to go check it out.  Tami, my Brazil travel partner, and perpetual good sport, agreed to get up early to go with me to see what was happening.  We arrived at the Memorial around 8:30, thirty minutes before the actual event was to begin, and over the next few hours watched as the event unfolded.  As a result of my observations, here are some tips if you want to plan a protest of your own:

1. Be organized.  On one hand this event was organized as people showed up around the same time, in the same place, so obviously they knew about it somehow.  However, while there it didn't really seem like there was a clear coordinator/leader or anyone who knew what the plan was going to be.  One person would start to sing a song, so people joined in, followed by awkward silence until someone else started yelling a speech., etc.  If you're going to plan a protest, have a clear objective and an effective plan to get your message across.

2. Play on people's emotions.  This is a sure-fire success in the United States today, just ask the media, they do it all the time.  Speaking of the media, there were plenty of media outlets there, sharp dressed reporters followed by jeans-wearing camera men lugging big equipment around.  They were looking for anything that might make a good 30 second news-clip or soundbite.  Any veteran in uniform or camo holding an American flag made a good interview, bonus points if they were older.  As a further commentary on the media, check out the varying coverage below:

Here is the report from ABC News.
Here is what FoxNews had to say.
Here is the Washington Times.

Look closely for the pink of Sarah Palin's shirt!

3. Invite celebrities.  This protest was a bit all over the place until a few well-known names arrived, like Sarah Palin and Ted Cruz, then people started paying much more attention.  However, this tip must go with tips #1 and #4 because as the "guests of honor" were speaking, they were interrupted by the honking horns of truckers and that distraction diverted the attention of the whole protest for at least 45 minutes to an hour.

4. Coordinate with like-minded people.  As I mentioned above, in the middle of this protest, semi-truckers (who had planned their own protest for Friday which didn't really work out as they planned) started driving by honking their horns constantly.  They parked in front of the monument for awhile hoping to cause a disruption, which they did until police started blocking access to the road and then this

5. Don't be hypocritical.  Two incidents I found somewhat frustrating about this protest dealt with Ted Cruz's speech and the truckers.  First of all, the veterans were there to protest the memorials being closed because of the shutdown, yet when Ted Cruz spoke (he is generally recognized as the instigator of the shutdown,) everyone cheered.  Isn't it really because of him that the memorials are shutdown in the first place?  Then the truckers came through with the goal of stopping traffic, but when the police actually stopped traffic, all of the protestors started getting mad at them.  Both of these things seemed highly contradictory to me.

6. Don't be afraid to be an entrepreneur, regardless of whether or not you agree with the cause.  There were people selling t-shirts and waters and military flags.  It reminded me of when you're in a city and it starts raining, then, all of a sudden, there are people selling ponchos-where do all of these quick -minded sales people come from, and where do they store their supplies!?
 

7. Use social media-pick a good hashtag.  Twitter and Facebook are the way to go for any modern day civic action planner, use them to spread the word.






8. Be a responsible proponent of civic discussion.  While speaking, Senator Ted Cruz made a comment along the lines of, "Obama needs to put down the Qur'an, get off his knees and start working for this country."  This kind of comment does nothing to promote healthy civic discussion about important issues, but rather perpetuates misinformation.  This is irresponsible behavior for any protest leader, much less someone in a respected position such as a senator.


On a serious note...

Veterans deserve to be honored, respected, and taken care of.  Whether it is through a memorial in the nation's capital, at an airport when they get off a plane, or through funding of medical and/or psychological services.  They have done something that less than 15% of Americans have done for our country and they deserve to be recognized and honored for that service.  During one part of the protest they called out all of the wars since WWII and veterans from each war responded, it was really powerful to see and hear.

Our First Amendment rights are important.  Whether you agree or disagree with what someone has to say, it is so important that their right to say what they want is protected by our Constitution, and that this right has been preserved over the years by the judicial system.