Young Americans learn from Model UN to handle disagreements diplomatically

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As the leaders from around the world gather in New York this week to speak at the annual UN General Assembly, Jasmine Yazid is gearing up to host her own version in Washington early next year.

She is secretary-general of the North American Invitational Model United Nations (NAIMUN), created at Georgetown University in 1963, less than 20 years after the UN itself was founded. Her team is bracing for a record 3,300 high school students role-playing the negotiations between governments on contested international issues.

“You learn to completely remove yourself and understand someone else’s perspective,” she says. “A lot of the countries the students represent as delegates are ones they have never been to, heard of or agree with. Yet they are able to represent these views wherever they are coming from.”

Model UN is one of an expanding set of programmes attracting growing participation in the US and beyond, as educators looks for ways to engage students with current affairs. It also involves learning to be civil even when views strongly diverge.

At a time of rising polarisation, “no platforming” and a preference for slogans over interacting directly and empathetically with people who hold different opinions, the programme offers scope to ease tensions intensified by the explosion in social media use and young people’s isolation during Covid.

“You hold the duty of representing that country or those ideas you are allocated, and it also teaches you how to say things in a non-offensive and sensitive way,” says Lucille Applegate, secretary-general of the Secondary Schools’ United Nations Symposium, a Model UN run for more than 30 years by students at Montreal’s McGill University.

Many teachers say that young people’s concern about causing offence (or being criticised for their own views) has sharply damped discussion of sensitive topics. That frustration leads to periodic explosions such as the Gaza protests on university campuses and risks feeding into the divisive US presidential election and other polarising moments around the globe.

Model UN is not alone. “We the People”, organised by the Center for Civic Education, brings together competing teams of high school students to learn about the constitution through simulated congressional hearings. The National High School Ethics Bowl asks teams to discuss ethical dilemmas, awarding points partly for engaging respectfully and supportively with opponents.

The sharp uptick in programmes seeking to provide ways to foster tolerance and debate includes a jump in interest for the Constructive Dialogue Institute, which has programmes at 88 universities across the US. In schools, meanwhile, iCivics is among a number of non-profit groups to launch a fresh range of non-partisan lesson plans and games to help students understand electoral politics and tackle disinformation.

The more intensive, immersive competitions like Model UN have limitations — not least the extensive time commitment and the travel costs. Jie Xin Ching, executive director of Georgetown’s NAIMUN, concedes that most participants are drawn from the east and west coasts, with far less representation from rural and continental states despite scholarships and active outreach and promotion. “It’s seen as elite and wealthy.”

Peter Cowhey, dean emeritus at the School of Global Policy and Strategy of the University of California San Diego (and a secretary-general of NAIMUN in the 1960s), adds that many participants were self-selected, with a pre-existing interest in a career in international affairs.

But he recalls many high school students arriving “with a glaze in their eyes that the UN was a place where important things happened, and very little realistic concept about how it really operated. They saw that they would engage in tortuous diplomatic discussions that often leave it in deadlock with worthy pledges that do not come to fruition.”

His own experiences convinced him to abandon aspirations to work in the state department and opt for an academic career. But for all their downsides, these programmes deserve a place in efforts to combat the current climate of polarisation.

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