humanities
model united nations: Nuclear Proliferation
In this part of our Model United Nations project, we focused on Nuclear Proliferation which is the spread and distribution of nuclear weapons. We kept the same countries from the first conference and studied the positions of them.
In terms of international diplomacy, I think our class was much more moderate than our actual United Nations because we could build a strong consensus among the group. Our actual UN has some issues with the amount of power that the Security Council holds. The UN should take note of our class to come to resolutions.
From our first conference to our recent one, I have made great strides in my understanding of background information. I feel like I knew way more overall about nuclear proliferation and I was able to do better research. In the actual conference, my speech was much better and I felt like I could ask people challenging questions and I was able to answer questions that came my way.
I got really good at retaining information from articles in this project. When we were doing our research, I took notes on my articles which helped me to summarize them and get a deeper understanding of what was going on. I think this will really help me read articles and textbooks in the future and be able to retain the information.
If I could change anything in this project, I would try to get a deeper understanding of my countries relations with other countries. I think this would have helped me in the conference to defend myself and stand up to Iran and North Korea.
Policy Paper
model united nations: Venezuela
In our first Model United Nations conference, we focused on the Venezuelan Refugee crisis. We each picked a country and then researched that country's position on the subject. In the actual conference, we chose a proposed resolution and then debated for it to be voted for.
My favorite part of this project has been the conference. I really enjoy public speaking and debating so this was perfect for me. I was really interested and engaged the whole conference. I found myself getting very defensive about my position and was interested in asking my peers questions and testing their statements.
At the start of this project, I thought I knew a lot about United States policies and laws, but this project has completely opened my eyes to forign affairs. I’ve not only learned about the US’s involvement with Venezuela, but I’ve learned who we’re allies with, different organizations we’re affiliated with, and even our involvement in the Middle East. Not only have I learned more about US politics, but I’ve also learned about other countries politics. This has helped me to gage a better understanding of what's going on internationally and the other types of government.
For the first day of conferencing, I wasn’t as prepared as I would have liked to have been. I felt like I couldn’t defend my claims all that well and I didn’t have very specific information of statistics. I also felt like I could not fight back when people were taking shots at the US’s policies. After this, I went home and wrote a new, detailed speech for my proposed operative clause and I wrote responses so I knew what to say when people asked me questions. I also was able to use these responses to comment or question people's speeches.
For our next conferences, I need to implement the strategies I used on the second day. I would also like to have a more hard hitting speech that challenges my peers’ positions. I also think I could benefit from having a little more knowledge on the small details on my stance.
Model Un Conference
My Policy Paper
My proposed resolution
teenagers: the good, the bad, the ugly
In this project, we dove into the psychology of adolescence. To get a better understanding of what adolescence is, we dove into multiple different theories and sources. We learned about Erikson’s Stages of Development, Attachment Theory, Piaget’s 4 Stages, and moral development. We also read Brainstorm by David Siegel and Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian by Sherman Alexie.
I am most proud of my final essay. Writing this essay caused a lot of stress for me and I struggled with a lot of it. After I finished it, I ended up really liking it. I was able to come up with a really good perspective and I was able to successfully back it up with theories we learned in class and quotes from my mom’s interview.
The most difficult part of this project was also the piece I was most proud of which was my essay. I had a hard time coming up with a perspective statement that connected to what my mom talked about. I had a lot of ideas, but I did not know how to connect them all. I also struggled with writing in general in this project. I felt like my words weren’t flowing how I wanted them to and my paragraph structure was not very strong. I think that after the critique, I was able to improve my writing a lot and I did not have as hard of a time with finishing my essay.
Although the content of this unit was nothing less than compelling, the most valuable thing I learned in this unit was self-management and organization. Not only did I have to appropriately manage my time to get my work done, but I also had to learn how to organize my writing. This was the first school-related piece of writing that I haven’t immediately been handed a rubric and told exactly what to do. Through this, I had to come up with my own ways to organize my thoughts and then put them into words.
So far this year, I would give myself a 9. I am always prepared and ready for class with my necessary materials and work. I am generally pretty good, but I do struggle with time management and procrastination. I often find myself not doing an adequate amount of work in my class time because I am distracted by other sources. As a consequence of this, I am left with a lot of work to do at home. In order to change these habits, I will work on removing myself from distractions in class so I am left with less work at home.
My essay
My portrait
