Montessori Model United Nations (MMUN)
2013 MMUN CONFERENCE DATES:
APRIL 10-13: MIDDLE SCHOOL
APRIL 17-20: UPPER ELEMENTARY
Registration Opens: September 1, 2012
Registration is now open for the 2012 -2013 New Teacher Workshops.
June 15th and 16th, 2012 and October 19th and 20th, 2012. Click here for more information.
Registration is now open for the 2012-2013 Leadership Institute for Montessori Teachers and High School Students who have participated in Previous MMUNs. Click here for more information.
Montessori Model United Nations has collaborated with the United Nations to inspire upper elementary and middle schools Montessori students to global citizenship through classroom or after school study which culminates in a two day global education simulation experience in New York with the final assembly at the General Assembly of the United Nations.
Our goal is to inspire youth by engaging them in learning experience where students participate in jumping out of their skin into role-playing by becoming a delegate of their chosen country. They write, present and debate real issues affecting their nation and people of the world. By assuming the character of a citizen of their selected country, they fully develop an understanding of the needs and rights of a people.
Taking on their ambassadorial roles in a Model UN simulation, students research the issue that their UN committees will address. Model UN participants learn how the international community acts on its concerns about topics including peace and security, human rights, the rights of the child, child labor, the environment, food and hunger, economic development and globalization. Model UN delegates also look closely at the needs, goals and foreign policies of the countries they will represent at the event. The insights they gain from their exploration of history, geography, culture, economics and science contribute to the authenticity of the simulation.
When they arrive at the MMUN Conference students transform themselves into UN Ambassadors and assume the rights and responsibilities of world leaders. Their imaginations propel them to collaboratively create resolutions to our world’s most pressing problems. MMUN encourages students to know that they can make a difference.
See the full photo gallery from our 2012 MMUN Conference, New York.
MMUN Parent Quotes:
"Now my son reads the front page of the newspaper first instead of going right to the sports section."
"This has been a life changing experience for my child. "
"I never knew the depth of thought of my child until I heard her stand up and speak during Committee."
"She will never forget that she sat in the General Assembly in the seat of our Ambassador."
"I can't believe the change MMUN has made in him."
MMUN Teacher Quotes:
"We have two boys in our group that are just boys who prefer to wrestle and laugh rather than study and I thought they would never make it at MMUN, but they have both turned out to be leading voices in getting their Resolution through Committee. I can't believe the change."
"This is an incredible experience for the students. It is so much more important than any of us understood."
"This was our first year and we sent six students. Count us in for twelve for next year."
"Originally we were going to come to MMUN every other year, but once we saw the change in our students and the support of our parents, we decided to make it every year and we have never looked back. MMUN is part of our curriculum."
MMUN 2011 Highlights
Latest MMUN News
This year, I got to run a workshop titled “How to Support Your Students in their Model UN Journey.” The goal was to show how Model UN can be a journey of leadership development that is continued through high school and college and to show how teams build and train their clubs to prepare for those conferences. Many of the parents that attended my workshop didn’t realize that there were so many other conferences out there, that there are different educational philosophies among Model UN conferences and that most conferences see themselves as academic competitions rather than educational simulations (Montessori is definitely the latter), and that conferences even give awards!
Given this new information, my status as an outside observer (I was educated in public schools), and my own experience participating in competitive conferences, a few parents were very curious to know: what did I think about their children’s Montessori education in the context of Model UN? Click the learn more link below to see the five reasons the Montessori Method works in Model UN.
Montessori students learn from a Constructivist or “discovery” model. That is, the environment is provided to them to learn but the lessons are not necessarily structured — students get to choose or figure out what and how they want to learn in this given environment. The part of the Montessori Model UN conference that this concept has the most noticeable impact in is during the Regular Caucus (also called unmoderated caucus at other conferences). Most delegates choose to spend their time during Regular Caucus to meet with other delegates to collaborate on their ideas and write a draft resolution — this is normal procedure at Model UN conferences. However, delegates are also free to do whatever else they want in order to creatively learn from their environment and from other students. Most notably, we’ve observed some students draw pictures of peace.
