Students of the European department of the Victor Duruy high school participated in the UN modeling sessions in Madrid, the capital of Spain. The story of their teacher Perrina Gourio.
While natural events are unleashed in Morocco, in Libya, while nations are separating in the Middle East, students from about fifty nationalities learn, during UN Modeling sessions, to talk to each other, agree, negotiate compromises for draft resolutions.
Lycée teachers Victor Duruy, Laurent Martin, Xavier Chalot and Perrine Gourio prepared their European Department students for UN simulations. This is a multilateral diplomatic role-playing game, an exercise simulating the work of the General Assembly and other United Nations bodies to introduce high school students to global citizenship.
During this exercise that took place in the glass skyscraper IE of the University of Madrid from November 7 to 11, 2023, the students, divided into two committees, UNICEF and UNEP, worked as a team to defend the positions of the countries they were assigned a few months earlier as Angola , Iran or Cambodia. The goal was to achieve consensus adoption of a resolution on child labor in the fashion industry or prevention of natural disasters, topics chosen by the organizers of IE MUN.
Since the beginning of the September school year, the Euro final has required research skills such as knowing the country you represent and its views on a certain topic, its allies and its interests, developed the talents of eloquence to defend its position on the podium and its diplomatic skills.
On this occasion, the university also organized a conference at UNICEF Madrid, where students discovered the main challenges of this institution as well as the professions related to it. This exercise allows you to deepen your knowledge of geopolitics, prepare for the Grand Oral and continue higher education, as well as develop digital and language skills, since the simulation and off-screen discussions took place entirely in English.
Language immersion in English during the day and Spanish in the evening as students were placed with warm host families in Alcala de Henares, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. This trip was possible because it was fully financed by Erasmus+, a European fund. Euro 1 students will soon start participating in the MUN Adour in Tarbes, organized at the Théophile Gautier high school under the guidance of Nicolas Bounet, professor of history and geography in the international section.