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Making the world a classroom

About 800 middle and high school students get a taste of the U.N.

By KEVIN GRAHAM
Published April 5, 2007

ADVERTISEMENT [Times photo: Chris Zuppa] Forrest Buhrmaster, 12, representing Bangladesh, raises his hand Wednesday to indicate he wants speaking time during the Human Rights Council meeting of the Tampa Bay Model United Nations Conference. Buhrmaster is a sixth-grader at Meadowlawn Middle School in St. Petersburg and was among many students from Tampa Bay area middle and high schools who attended the event at the Tampa Convention Center.

TAMPA - Jefferson High sophomore Andres Brito walked the halls of the Tampa Convention Center on Wednesday worrying about overpopulation in South Korea.

That may sound like a heavy load for a 16-year-old, but not under these circumstances.

Brito was among more than 800 middle and high schoolers from across the Tampa Bay area who traded pop quizzes for a day to practice international policymaking during the fifth-annual Model United Nations Conference in Tampa.

"It has definitely helped me learn different ways to prepare for class and do research," Brito said.

Organized by Global Classrooms: Tampa Bay and the United Nations Association of the United States of America, the Model U.N. program has grown to 20 major cities worldwide since it began in 2000. Its goal is to introduce public school students to international issues and the workings of the United Nations.

Daylong conference

During the daylong conference, students role play as U.N. ambassadors, working to persuade their peers to adopt policies that would improve conditions in the countries they represent.

"My friends, you live in a global community already, and what you are about to inherit is an even greater global commitment," Tampa Mayor Pam Iorio told the students.

She touted the city's international airport and the Port of Tampa as examples of Tampa's involvement in the global economy. And she urged participants to one day work to "ensure that people across the globe live with standards we can find acceptable."

Wang Guangya, China's ambassador to the United Nations, delivered the keynote address. He called the creation of the United Nations after World War II a "milestone in human history" and gave students a brief overview of the work ambassadors do before answering their questions.

A pointed question came from a young woman who wanted to know which country the ambassador thought was the biggest threat to the progress of world peace.

"No country can be regarded as the biggest threat to world peace," Wang answered. "It's the behavior of the policymakers in those countries."

Eddy Bayardelle, president of the Merrill Lynch Foundation, which is a global sponsor for the Model U.N., said programs like this serve students well because it takes them out of the classroom and puts them in real-world situations.

"You can hardly keep up with how fast things are now," Bayardelle said. "You have to be prepared to respond immediately, prepared to make a wise decision."

Position papers

Students learned that firsthand as they presented position papers to their individual assemblies and faced questions from fellow ambassadors.

Jessica Baxley, 17, a junior at Gibbs High in St. Petersburg, said she was nervous about her paper on Slovakia, even though she had attended a previous conference. "Everyone is a lot more prepared," she said. "It's intimidating."

Tammy Gibson, a freshman guidance counselor at Pasco High, has twin 16-year-olds who attended the conference for a fourth year. Having the chance to take on the persona of an unfamiliar country and argue on its behalf has increased the teens' interest in world news, she said.

"We sit around the dinner table and talk about nuclear threats," Gibson said. "How many households can say that?"

Kevin Graham can be reached at 813 226-3433 or kgraham@sptimes.com.

[Last modified April 5, 2007, 06:43:13]