Mastering Time
- creating a schedule of meetings helps establish a program in the daily lives of its members.
- There are many different approaches, depending on schools.
- delegating authority for running the problem can help a faculty moderator manage their own calendar.
Over the past four years, I have had a number of discussions about how model United Nations programs can be successfully operated in an environment where students have so many academic, extracurricular, athletic, and family obligations over the course of the year. The number of successful approaches to this is matched by the number of challenges schools have in common. Below you will find some of the ideas that have been generated either through conversations with other faculty moderators, or conversations I have had with faculty moderators that are new to model United Nations.
First, consider this description of programs that I sent a faculty moderator two years ago:
“Our approach at Sandwich High School, was to carve out one night a week which basically no other club or sport used or scheduled any events for, and then established a regular schedule of meetings on that one night, and we institutionalized the time into the school. We chose Monday night, from 7 to 9 PM, and over time it has become that time slot when everybody else knows there is a model United Nations club in operation.
“Other programs have set up different schedules based on the availability of both the teacher and the students. When it comes to running model UN, I have the advantage of being single, and that means my capacity to schedule time my students is much wider than most faculty. My colleagues at other schools have taken the approach of defining time right after school for meetings on those days where there will be many conflicts with other activities. Another idea that is working its way around there is to have tonight meetings a month, with pizza being served, and activity time running from about 6 PM to as late as 9 PM. If the faculty moderator needs to meet with their leadership crew, a brief meeting after school once a week usually helps. Many clubs are just meeting as they approach Saturday or weekend college conferences. In many cases, this is all that the students and teachers involved in afford in terms of time. What I found over 30 years, however, whether it be the model we use, or a model that meets only once or twice a month, that the key is that you set up a schedule of meetings that everybody interested in model UN can adapt to their own schedules.”
One of the keys to any successful program is the consistency of meeting times-this helps get meeting times into the metabolism of the students.
These models address and extracurricular based program. There are schools that have run model United Nations as a class, or have it as a component of a class, something that South Kingstown High School did as part of their Comparative Government and Politics Advanced Placement course. Running a model United Nations through a class is an exciting idea that I believe can be successfully promoted in any high school. Time management is built in to the process.The selling point is the fact that it is simulation-based learning, and all the research still holds out, dating back to the 1980s, that simulation-based learning provide students with the most authentic experiences they can have in high school setting as well as providing the greatest opportunity for them to retain what they have learned. Every simulation I have done over 32 years of teaching provides me with evidence to back this up. With every school system looking for opportunities to get students involved with authentic learning experiences, model United Nations has a strong selling point. If model United Nations cannot be incorporated into a course, it could be incorporated into a unit dealing with contemporary history and hence become the basis for setting up, as part of the curriculum, field trips that involve Saturday model United Nations conferences or weekend model United Nations conferences.
Running model UN as a class also allows you to focus on skill building, and measure its progress more closely. With more and more model UN conferences shaping some awards around model UN skills, faculty moderators can focus developing a delegate's strengths and addressing areas to improve with specific sets of criteria to measure growth and achievement.
Finally, more and more model UN Programs are handing all the organization and administration of the program to students leadership, with the faculty moderator serving purely as a source of support and advice about how to run the program. This model is growing in appeal because it develops student leadership, and because it helps faculty moderators preserve their time during the school day, and it allows the students to really fine tune what time to meet works for them. If you choose this route, make sure you brief the students fully and completely on what requirements the school administration has for operating an extracurricular or co-curricular activity, especially when it comes to field trips, where the laws of the Commonwealth are definitely in play.