The Model United Nations Class & Club

Words: Theo Brennan 

Photos: Hanaë Hamazaki

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You might be wondering, “What the heck does Model United Nations mean?!” Well, Model United Nations, henceforth MUN, is basically an educational simulation of real-life United Nations conferences for students to learn how real United Nations conferences work. In a United Nations conference, 193 representatives of Member States of the United Nations gather in a conference room to discuss worldwide issues and create a resolution that will solve or improve the situation. In MUN conferences, roughly 100 students from multiple schools represent a country and are given a topic to debate and create a resolution on.

At HIS, our educational program offers a MUN class for middle schoolers, and there is also a MUN club for high schoolers, both led by Mr. Beatty. In MUN class, students study current events in the world through news broadcasts and articles, do JAM (Just a minute) sessions, and do many other activities. In JAM sessions, two students are given a prompt and either speak in favor or against it. The students only have 15 seconds to brainstorm a speech and 45 seconds to speak. These JAM sessions are great for prepping for MUN conferences, as they help students prepare a speech quickly, just like when debating at a MUN conference.

This school year marks the very beginning of the MUN club. The MUN club is an after-school club on Mondays, and they send students to MUN conferences in other prefectures of Japan. After school on Mondays, the members of the MUN club gather in a room to study how MUN’ing works and prepare for conferences. This year’s club has been very successful and has started a firm foundation for the club. The MUN club and its members have grown a lot and will hopefully continue to grow over the coming years.