Chinese students take part in model UN
More than 450 students from 43 schools around China gathered at Shanghai High School International Division to take part in a model United Nations conference.
They were divided into eight committees to discuss and work out solutions in topics ranging from climate crime and educational inequality to the commercialization of space.
Ma Feng, high school principal of host Shanghai High School International Division, said the model UN was significant for high school students in China and served as a bridge connecting and facilitating cooperation among students worldwide.
WeLand International, the event co-organizer, said there were plans to admit 350 students originally, but this was expanded due to high demand.
Chen Zixuan, from Maple Leaf International School-Wuhan in Hubei Province, said the activity provided a platform for her to listen to voices from people with different cultural and educational backgrounds.
“At school, we usually get along with schoolmates with similar backgrounds, we are more likely to have similar ideas,” she said. “But at this event, I can hear more different voices.”
It was the second time she had taken part in the event. After attending last year, she made up her mind to study international politics in the future.
She participated in a committee to discuss the status of Venezuela in the Organization of American States.
Anna Lee, from Shanghai Experimental School International Division, said it was also her second time at a model UN conference. Last time, she represented Honduras in a committee discussing the overuse of antibiotics. This time she talked about the global imbalance in education representing Poland.
“Each time we have to do a lot of research and writing so as to perform better in the role of the country we represent, so it means we can learn deeply about the country,” she said.
Wang Aoji, from Beijing No. 35 High School, said she had thought African countries were poor, but as she represented Gabon in the event, she got to know that its GDP per capita was very high.
Yao Youyi, from the same school, said the country she represented was a new world.
“I had no idea about Suriname. I had never heard the name,” she said. “But when I researched it, I found there are a lot of people with Chinese origin in the South American country.”
Liu Sizhe, a student from the Yali Yanghu Middle School in Changsha in Hunan Province, said the event helped her to realize some problems she had never thought of.
She was in a committee discussing the application of international criminal law to transnational environment crime.
“I had never heard about climate criminals before, but after reading a lot of materials about the topic, I now realized how serious it is,” she said.
Chen Xiaohu, a teacher from the High School attached to Hunan Normal University, said it was the fifth year he had taken students to the event. The number of participating students from the school had grown from six to 20 in the past five years.
He said: “I had participated in international activities, such as model UN conferences and a forum for youth from China, Japan and South Korea. In such activities, I realized that we should not be satisfied with textbooks, instead we should learn to find out backgrounds of different point of views on issues in the real world.”
Chen, an English teacher and a coach for the school’s model UN club, said he believed model UN conferences can not only help students improve English skills and the ability to express themselves, but also expand their vision and make them see real problems in the world. He said he has been encouraging his students to discuss topical issues.
“They should not just live a prescribed life path, but they should also think about how to make a difference in the world,” he said.
Liu Qiankun, a teacher from Yichang Cambridge International School, also said such activities could improve students' sense of responsibility as global citizens.
“They may not think about some questions deeply, but when they have to discuss the topics with others, they will think about the issues seriously,” he said.
