One of the highlights of this month has been my participation in the bilingual high schools' Model United Nations conference. Basically, all of the Fulbrighters who teach in the secondary schools have been prepping their kids for this event since September. (On a sidenote, I have to say that the elementary teachers kind of get jipped in this deal- prepping kids for standardized tests from Cambridge is not nearly as fun.) The Fulbrighters made up the Dais, or council that presides over the meetings.
It was a two-day event but I was only there for the second day as a judge of the Western European Conference. There were five conferences- Asia, Africa, Eastern Europe, Western Europe and Latin America. For some reason the Western European conference included countries like the US, Turkey, Israel and New Zealand, I guess they didn't know where else to put them(?) Anyway, each country had 2 delegates that came from the same school and who had worked together to write position papers and research their selected country to debate the topic of Access to Education, with an emphasis on Women's rights.
The kids took it really seriously and it was fantastic to watch. The spoke in English the entire time, they stayed on task (ALL day long, even when I was ready to have a siesta on the Dais table), and they really tried to represent their countries honestly. Their intentions, while at times naive, were quite honorable and they had all kinds of countries working together to make a better educational environment for all. It really was a special day.
At the end of the day we had an awards ceremony at the Assembly of Madrid and the kids were just ecstatic to win anything. They all cheered for their friends and other kids who had been in their conferences. It was a nice break from my daily routine and it made me happy to think that some of my elementary school kids could be participating in just a few years time.
(some of the notes that the delegates passed to each other in the effort to write resolutions during the conference)
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