Model United Nations: Debate, Diplomacy and Compromise

In schools, we often spend a lot of time teaching students how to find the right answer. In Maths, a calculation can be checked. In Science, evidence can support or disprove a hypothesis. Even in more open-ended subjects like Social Studies, students are often working towards demonstrating particular knowledge or understanding.

But what happens when there isn’t a right answer?

That is one of the things I value most about Model United Nations (MUN).

Understanding Different Perspectives Through MUN

On Monday 5th October, ACS Hillingdon hosted MUNACS, bringing together 114 students from four different schools (ACS Hillingdon, ACS Cobham, ACS Egham and Vyners School) for a day of debate, negotiation and collaboration. This year, students discussed two challenging topics on the agenda: refugees and immigration, and the regulation of lethal autonomous weapons and artificial intelligence in warfare.

Neither came with an easy solution.

Students arrived at the conference with their own personal opinions about these issues, but in MUN, those weren’t necessarily the positions they were asked to argue. Each delegate represented an assigned country or organisation and had to understand the issue from that perspective. What did this country value? What were its priorities? What might it have been willing to compromise on?

Where might it have drawn the line?

Suddenly, the question was no longer simply, “What do I think?” It became, “Why might somebody else see this differently?”

Building Communication, Debate and Negotiation Skills

We often talk about developing students’ communication skills, but communicating well isn’t just about being able to stand up and deliver a confident speech. Students also need to learn how to listen carefully to an argument they disagree with, ask thoughtful questions, challenge ideas respectfully and recognise when somebody else has made a valid point.

In other words, they need to learn how to disagree well.

Throughout the MUN conference, students discovered that being the loudest voice in the room didn’t necessarily get them very far. If they wanted other countries to support their resolutions or amendments, they had to talk to them. They had to listen. They had to negotiate. And sometimes they had to compromise…

That wasn’t always easy, particularly when the issues being discussed were so complex. How should countries respond to the movement of refugees while balancing their own national circumstances? How should the international community regulate rapidly developing AI-enabled weapons when countries might disagree about what restrictions are necessary or enforceable?

These are questions that governments continue to grapple with. We certainly didn’t expect a room full of teenagers to solve them in a day. But perhaps solving them was never really the point.

Preparing Students for a Complex World

The value of MUN lies in giving students the opportunity to sit with that complexity. To realise that intelligent, well-informed people can look at the same issue and reach different conclusions. To understand that finding common ground doesn’t mean everyone walks away having got exactly what they wanted.

Of course, MUN also develops research skills, public speaking and confidence, and for many of our newer delegates, simply raising their placard and speaking in front of a room full of students was an achievement in itself.

But I think MUN’s value goes further than that.

Through the conference, students gained valuable experience in navigating complex discussions, considering different perspectives and finding ways to work with others, even when they didn’t completely agree.

We are preparing young people for a world in which many of the conversations they will be part of won’t have a simple answer. They will encounter people who see things differently from them. They will have to make decisions with incomplete information, weigh competing priorities and work alongside people with whom they don’t completely agree.

If MUN helped students become a little more comfortable doing that, and a little better at disagreeing well, then I think the learning was successful.

Megan Hills, Model United Nations Director, ACS International Schools