Educational Initiatives (EI)

Teaching and engaging high school students in the New York City area with Model United Nations is one of the most rewarding aspects of Columbia Educational Simulation's mission. Our partner schools come from a wide variety of socioeconomic backgrounds. However they share in the lack of resources and funding to compete in college-run conferences. At these schools, our student teachers have the opportunity to make an incredible impact by simply sharing their Model UN experiences and skills with eager high school students.

This year, Columbia Educational Simulations is launching three tracks for our educational programming, in complementarity with our educational conferences: (1) a weekly or bi-weekly teaching commitment with one high school team, (2) one-time Model United Nations teaching sessions that will offer students an opportunity to practice debating with Columbia's Model UN Team, (3) Model UN practice workshops and panels.

For the committed teaching track, student teachers will be paired with a high school teacher and class/team for the entire semester. The student teachers will make arrangements to teach topics related to the structure of the United Nations, parliamentary procedure, crises procedures, and debate simulations. While CESIMS has suggested teaching topics for these student teachers, classes will vary greatly in Model United Nations experiences and the student teacher will be able to adjust their teaching accordingly.

For the one-time Model UN teaching sessions, student teachers will work with our USG of Education to schedule teaching or speaking sessions on an individual basis with schools in the New York City area. These speaking engagements can be a lecture about topics in international or current affairs, an offer to moderate a debate, or a directive and resolution writing workshop. These sessions are a great opportunity for our partner schools to increase exposure to Model UN, improve skills, or simply find out more about CESIMS.

Finally, our Model UN practice workshops and panels take place during our bi-annual conferences. For a few hours, when committee is not in session, delegates will be offered several different workshops to improve their public speaking, strategy-making, or debate skills. These workshops are a great opportunity to keep improving even during the conference itself. We also offer panels where delegates can exchange and chat with Columbia students who are members the Model UN club to learn more about Model UN, college, and the university in general.