"The intention to live as long as possible isn't one of the mind's best intentions, because quantity isn't the same as quality." - Deepak Chopra
Much like with age, the quantity of something is not as important as the quality. While I understand that there needs to be a balance between to the two in order to gain the best quality possible, sometime in growing, organizations, teams, schools and the like, forget that while trying to grow, they also much try their best to find a way to maintain the quality of the product that they are trying to promote and ensure that the purpose of their organization is maintained.
This year will be tenth year as a Model United Nations advisor and my 18th year doing Model United Nations. Overtime, I have seen some conferences disappear and some grow, while overall, Model United Nations has seen a tremendous amount of growth. It has been promoted as a great academic program that provides the best learning experience for the future of a student, which in my opinion is true, but only if the program nurtures an environment in which a student can learn. However, at some point the right steps need to be made to ensure that while growing, that the growth is going in the right direction before reaching the tipping point. Malcolm Gladwell describes the tipping point as, "The tipping point is that magic moment when an idea, trend, or social
behavior crosses a threshold, tips, and spreads like wildfire." However, while he mentions it as the "magic moment" it could also be the moment that is most destructive to an organization.
When traveling to approximately ten conferences per year, I see a wide-spectrum of programs from those well-establish to those who are just staring up, from the classes to the clubs, to those with a lot of support to those who work independently. No matter the program, the types of delegates that are produced need to be focused on the academic experience of this program as they develop and continue to survive in order for the organization as a whole to survive. Don't get me wrong, the competitive aspect of the organization allows for a measure of success and also pushes each delegate to do their best in committee, but the question of, do the ends justify the means comes into play.
At every conference we attend, we see delegates who are well prepared and substantive to those who are great speakers to those who are great deal makers and negotiators. No matter the type of delegate, the way they work in committee will be important in if this organization is going to continue to be a great learning experience. I, myself, have had a range of delegates of this sort, however, I do my best to transform these delegates who can be a combination of the three during their junior year in preparations for the National High School Model United Nations Conference.
My 2013 team collected over 9,000 articles in preparation for the conference and compiled approximately 600 pages of position papers for the conference. While all 9,000 of those articles may not have been the best of articles, through the process of this research these delegates found a way to become well-researched in their topics and able to clearly communicate the complex ideas and details associated with each of their topics. The more timid delegates had to endure the difficulty of grill sessions, presenting to their peers, while those less confident in their research had to endure facing me firing questions at them. Regardless, through the whole process of development the one thing I wanted to maintain was to try and do things the way Model United Nations is suppose to be done. When I said that to my students, I had a clear idea of what that was. To prepare, to actively participate, and to respectfully and accurately represent our countries in trying to work with other nations to arrive at a solution. However, after attending this week's conference, as well as other conferences, I understand that it has not been a point of every delegate at this conference.
Thus, we arrive at our tipping point. As a Model United Nations community, it needs to be emphasized that ends do not justify the means. Winning a gavel or even a delegation award cannot be seen as an honor if dishonorable things have been done in order to earn such awards - stealing others ideas and selling them off as your own, removing delegations and operative from resolutions, showing bias or forming alliances that are not representative of the nations represented but purely to outcast a particular delegate, coming in with pre-written resolutions, or anything that diminishes this organization that has been a large part of my life. Awards cannot be the only measure of success of a delegate or a program. While it is something I feel needs to continue in order for the organization to continue to grown and be successful, programs need to re-evaluate how their delegates won these awards in order to measure if these student is truly representing your school well. Over the next few weeks, I will have to do just that and decide if they are positively contribute not to our program, but the Model United Nations community as a whole.
On the other end of the spectrum, it is our job to ensure that students are well-prepared for these conference and not just thrown into a conference for the experience of it. At many of the conferences I attend, there are a percentage of delegates, mine included, that are doing absolutely nothing and I wonder, why are they here? At a novice-level conference, I expect to see it more often, but when they are required to be in committee for over twenty hours, I simply wonder why they are there. Growing a conference with delegates that are like that just negatively affect the experience of other delegates. In one of the committees, this weekend, these delegates forced a chair to breakdown and overall, they diminish the quality of the environment for the other delegates, the chairs, and those attending and organizing the conference. The more delegates that are unprepared for conference the more difficult it becomes to truly make this a learning experience for delegates who come in prepared. In a number of committees, our delegates had told me that other delegates had no idea what they were talking about or even had delegates ask why they were "trying so hard." I had chairs tell the delegates that they needed to be less detailed with their ideas since other delegates didn't understand what they were talking about and I had to tell my delegates to do the same. I even had my delegates being accused of having "pre-written resolutions" because they had typed out outlines of their notes and research or had too much information. If it is truly to be a learning experience, then a larger percentage of delegates need to be positively contributing to the collection of details and information in each committee so that each delegate leaves feeling that the committee as a whole (or at least as much of a whole as possible) contributed and a delegate should be embraced by the amount of research they have and not scorned for it.
While I do not want to delve into a debate on morality and ethics, it needs to become one of the points of emphasis for a Model United Nations program. It is difficult to answer the question of what do I do if another delegate takes your idea and passes it off as their own. In a society where "taddling" is a bad thing, it puts you and the delegates between a rock and hard place. One of the reasons I put such emphasis on preparation is that when ideas are stolen (which happens every year), at least our delegates have the details to show they knew about this idea before coming into committee. In the past at this conference, I have seen delegates reading through our position papers in the delegate resource centers (when we turned in hard copies), not to learn about the policies of the country, but to "research" or to use the ideas within those papers. The corruptness of our higher ups in our country probably did not start their corruptness at a later stage of their life, but where never grounded in the morals and ethics at a young age. As a community, Model United Nations can be a place that these students can be grounded in these ideas, but it will take voices from within each program or within each conference saying that delegates need to play by the rules and participate in these simulations morally and ethically by giving credit where it is due, by not coming in with pre-written resolutions, or by doing anything they can to win an award.
Don't get me wrong. I love this organization and this conference, however, each year, the number of problems seem to grow and not enough is being done to stop it. However, it is something that we can change to ensure we maintain the respect that this organization has gained in the eyes of many around the world. It is schools like Richland Northeast who I have seen arrive at conferences such as NHSMUN well-prepared and have positively contributing to committees. Almost every year I attend this conference, my students have good things to say about them and it is programs such as theirs that keeps me pushing my students to maintain the quality of our program to garner the same respect that I have for theirs from other programs around.
Each year, I have a good number of students who fall into the same category of students I want to see changed for the better. Students who need to understand that the ends do not justify the means, that they need to come in well-research, that they cannot steal other ideas, that they cannot come in with pre-written resolutions, and they need to be engaged and positively contributing to debate. If they cannot adjust, they do not have a place representing our school and while it may reduce the number of students in my program, I do not have a place for them in my program representing our school if they are unwilling to change. While I know it's difficult to remove a successful delegate or to reduce the numbers of a program, cleaning up the program is the only way that I know that the future of our program's respect and credibility can be maintained.
Our Model United Nations community is at a crossroads and at the tipping point where what we decide will "spread like wildfire." The lessons we want to teach these students who participate in this program must be decided and it cannot be something we can take lightly, otherwise, this wonderful organization we see as such, will slowly crumble. The organization produces a large number of successful individuals who have relied on the skills they learned from this program to become doctors, lawyers, politicians, entrepreneurs, teachers, and who all have truly stepped up to make a difference in this worlds; something they set out to do when they attended each of these conference. However, if we do not maintain the quality of our organization in order to sacrifice growing this organization, we are only contributing to demise of the organization and quite possibly the future generations of this world. I have full faith that we, as a community, will be successful.
