empowered by idia - issue 1

EMPOWERED

by IDIA

January 2011

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Presented by the Institute for Domestic and International Affairs January 2011

JANUARY 2011 ISSUE 1

Dear Readers,

Welcome to the new EMPOWERED by IDIA! This monthly magazine will keep you up to date with what is

happening at IDIA, while also offering unique insight into the fields of civics education and engagement. As

this is the first issue for 2011, I’d like to offer a review of 2010, along with an outline for what is to happen in

the new year.

2010 marked another successful year in terms of IDIA’s primary conferences. RUMUN, PhilMUN, and

RMC brought together more than 1,750 students from across the country to talk about some of today’s

most compelling issues.

IDIA worked with MSGVarsity to bring PhilMUN and RMC to the TV screen, making the Model

Congress and Model United Nations experience available to an even broader population.

IDIA launched a partnership program with local schools to develop one-day conference, ensuring that

the Model UN experience is available to an even broader population.

2011 is picking up right where 2010 left off – PhilMUN and RMC are approaching, and our conference staff is

working tirelessly to put together the best educational experience possible. We’re in the process of developing

a Hub City Leadership Conference, offering New Brunswick a program to educate and engage high school

students in their own communities. Following the tremendous success of the 2010 Model ECOWAS

conference in The Gambia, IDIA will head to Nigeria in July to learn about education in this West African

country and to run a Model ECOWAS conference outside of Lagos. The best part about this trip is that it is

open to both current IDIA staff and IDIA alumni. Later that same month, we will be off to Croatia to run

the Vukovar International Model United Nations (VukiMUN) conference, one of the first Model UN

conference ever to take place in a former UN Peacekeeping operations zone.

Over the past year, many people have asked how they can get involved in IDIA and how to support our

innovative programming. Our new membership program will allow us to have a more vibrant, more engaged

network of professionals and we are developing new programs that will rely upon our members for success.

As we progress through 2011, I encourage you to share your ideas with us so that we can continue to build

IDIA into the innovative, engaging, and valuable organization that you helped it become, for without your

support we simply cannot succeed in fulfilling our mission.

Thank you for your ongoing support, and your continued commitment,

Michael Hinchliffe

Executive Director


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Civics in the City Classroom

By Ruchi Gupta

As a second-year teacher in an

inner-city Philadelphia high

school, it is daunting enough to

try and manage my classroom

every day, let alone actually teach

my objectives in a meaningful

and transformative manner. More

often than not, Philadelphia’s high truancy rates

mean that half my class is missing at any given

period; for the students who do show up, the

material is solidly on grade level or even more

rigorous, which means that it is at least four or five

grade levels too advanced for the collective literacy

abilities of my class. It is daunting to face the low

reading skills of my students and confront the

myriad of factors that keep them from coming to

school each day, but it is even worse when it comes

to investment. That is why I have

decided to use simulation-based

learning in my classroom as

often as possible. So far, the

increase of experiential learning,

as well as the focus on civics

education, has served as a true

turning point for my students. I’d like to share with

you my story.

I teach Creative Writing, which is an elective

into which students are randomly rostered. Little

attention is paid to reading levels (I have an array

of college level readers in the same class period as

my pre-primer readers who can barely recognize

the written version of their name) and so my

curriculum focuses highly on the skill of expressing

oneself. Contrary to its name, the class does not put

an emphasis on writing. Those who can write do

write, but those who lack the fundamental skills

produce material in a much different way: role-

play and public speaking. Since I teach seniors, a

large part of getting buy-in for this plan, which is

utterly foreign to kids who were raised to be taught

to the test, rests on selling the abilities they can

learn. I used my experience with IDIA to market

simulation: communicative skills, interpersonal

skills, and critical thinking skills would all be a part

of the abilities with which my students would leave

my class.

And as a recent project has shown, this

approach is working. Whereas my first assignment

of the year (a collection of short stories revolving

around pivotal moments in a person’s life)

averaged less than 60 percent per class, my second

assignment (a public service

project where students lobbied

for change around an issue for

which they were passionate)

averaged more than 80 percent.

Students would light up when

they entered the classroom,

engaging in conversations with each other where

they were challenged to advocate for causes like

urban education reform and eradication of street

gangs. They researched primary and secondary

sources, asked great questions, doggedly pursued

answers, and crafted heartfelt, eloquent public

service announcements that called for action. A

component of the project called for 100 signatures

on a petition describing their issue; out of all 80

projects turned in, only 10 did not have the full

amount of signatures.

To me, the benefit of bringing civics into the

classroom is manifold. Yes, my projects may

deviate from a strict Creative Writing focus. But it

is more important to me to reach students who feel

voiceless, who wonder whether their hands are

part of the collective grasp that will steer their

world in the right direction. Perhaps it is naïve, but

I think true learning comes from anything I can do

WHAT’S INSIDE?

Civics in the City Classroom Page 1

Think Globally, Act Selfishly Page 2

Where is Southeast Asia? Page 4

Crisis Culture Page 5

Bringing Model UN Online Page 6

Calendar/Joining IDIA Page 7

Those who can write do write, but

those who lack the fundamental

skills produce material in a much

different way: role-play and public

speaking.



to make Philadelphia’s youth more aware of the

power they have over their environment, whether

that means using a current event as a Do-Now or

teaching grammar skills through an article about

teen pregnancy statistics in the city.

Stay tuned to find out whether this approach

flops or soars as the year goes on.

Ruchi Gupta is a public school teacher at Ben Franklin

High School in Philadelphia, PA.

Think Globally, Act Selfishly By David Bell Mislan

Last November, the Pew Research

Center released its periodic report

on how much Americans know

about global issues. At the time, I

scanned it for something truly

shocking—the one statistic I could

use when discussing today’s lack

of global awareness to family and

friends—but I found

nothing of the sort.

Yet, I found many

indicators of a lack of

global awareness that

weren’t too surprising

concerning America’s

youth. According to

the Nov. 11-14 poll,

10% of Americans aged

18-29 can correctly

name the Prime

Minister of the United

Kingdom from a list of

choices. For

comparison’s sake, 46%

of young Americans

can name Google’s phone software.

The global ignorance phenomenon is

something that is not new to most of us in tertiary

education. Many of my students are woefully

unaware of even the most prevalent issues facing

global society, and it is my duty to inspire my

students to become more globally aware. After all,

I’m a professor of international relations.

Maybe, however, the problem is precisely that

it is the task of the international relations professor,

the African history professor, or the world cultures

teacher to globalize the minds of students. The

practice of letting the global scholars and teachers

handle global awareness is akin to placing global

awareness into an intellectual ghetto, thus

reinforcing the predisposition held by students that

thinking globally is a luxury, a niche, or a

vocational calling unto itself. The inability of other

disciplines and high school subjects to integrate

global awareness into their curricula might be one

of the latent causes of the endemic global ignorance

that no longer shocks people like me.

Why is thinking globally important for my

students? Quite simply, the most innovative and

successful people I have met all know that global

awareness is more than a niche. A globally aware

thinker can innovate better than a globally

sheltered mind, whether that knowledge is used for

building wealth or for

solving US-specific

problems. For example,

take one of our most

pressing issues today:

America’s child obesity

epidemic.

The 2007-2008

NHANES Survey estimates

that 17% of today’s

American children are

obese. Childhood obesity is

an urgent matter in our

society, since it is a highly

reliable predictor of type-2

diabetes, heart disease, and

hypertension, among other

adult ailments that lead to a

shorter life. Also, childhood obesity is not just an

individual’s issue, since higher incidences of

obesity-related illnesses have the potential to drive

up the costs of health care for all of us and places

an emotional and financial burden on family and

friends. There are many other secondary liabilities



associated with childhood obesity, such as the fact

that today’s obese children will incapable of

serving in a armed forces in case of a future war,

thus obesity has the potential to jeopardize national

security.

Needless to say, government agencies such as

the CDC and major centers of public health

research are pouring resources into finding the

causes and potential solutions to the childhood

obesity crisis. They study environments, do case

work, conduct nutritional analyses, develop

analytical models, and run experiments. All of

these tools are methodologically sophisticated and

presumably reliable, but have yet to uncover the

causes of, and solutions to, this crisis. I believe that

a researcher with a global perspective can come to

the rescue.

Childhood obesity in the

United States is not unique in the

industrialized world, yet it is

unprecedented. According to a

September 2010 OECD report,

American children are twice as

likely to be overweight than a

Japanese child. Other advanced

countries, such as Denmark, are

even less affected by the

epidemic. Why? A quick and

shallow comparison of these

countries yields no answer, since they all share a

comparable quality of life.

A public health researcher with a global

perspective would look at the meaningful cultural

differences between American and Japanese eating

habits. Going beyond just what each culture eats,

this person might ask more complex questions that

could only be developed by a globally aware mind.

How does each culture approach eating? What are

its social aspects? When do the Japanese eat

compared to Americans? After all, some slight

cultural differences might have a large impact on

differences in obesity rates. For example, do the

Japanese work while eating as much as Americans

do? If not, how might that impact what each

culture eats, and thus, differences in obesity?

When thinking specifically about children, one can

look at how they are taught to think about food in

both cultures. How do parents feed their children

in both cultures? Differences there, or in other

cultural and sociological aspects, have the potential

to yield clues to understanding America’s dire

predicament. In short, we cannot begin to

understand American-specific problems without

understanding how Americans compare to the rest

of the world, which requires global understanding.

So, how do we create more globally aware

problem-solvers? We must start with education.

Drawing from the obesity example, we should start

by integrating global awareness into all of the

subjects of primary, secondary, and tertiary

curricula. This is no easy task, but it must be done.

As long as high schools cram world cultures into a

few social studies courses and as long as

universities ask their students to

take one non-Western course as a

graduation requirement, we are

both failing in truly globalizing

our students as well as

reinforcing the notion that global

awareness is an appendage in the

intellectual corpus instead of the

heart of it.

There is one final point to

consider regarding global

awareness: it can be highly self-

serving. As one of the professors currently living

in the “global awareness ghetto,” I constantly make

the mistake of framing my craft in idealistic terms.

I usually argue that understanding international

relations is good for world peace, for mutual

respect, and for improving the lives of others. We

need to admit that such lofty notions will not reach

all of our students; idealism is not lingua franca.

Thus, as we move to make global awareness an

aspect of teaching all subjects, educators and

parents should think about global awareness in

pragmatic terms. While world peace is nice, global

awareness might be more appealing and more

accessible if it is couched in egocentric language.

As educators, we need to do a better job convincing

our students (and ourselves) that global awareness

will make you more money if you are in business, it


As educators, we need to do a

better job convincing our students

(and ourselves) that global

awareness will make you more

money if you are in business, it will

yield more data if you are in

research, it will give you more

inspiration if you are in the arts,

and it will help you communicate

better if you are in public relations.



will yield more data if you are in research, it will

give you more inspiration if you are in the arts, and

it will help you communicate better if you are in

public relations. Most importantly, we cannot

connect global awareness to individual benefits if

we do not integrate global learning into all of the

academic pursuits.

By relating global awareness to all disciplines

and to the needs and desires of all students, we can

help shape a new generation of globally aware

Americans. The idealist in me sees this as good for

the world and the egotist in me thinks that I’ll have

better enrollments in my courses. Either way, we

all win.

David Bell Mislan is an assistant professor of political

science at Rosemont College in suburban Philadelphia

and is a member of IDIA’s Board of Directors.

Where is Southeast Asia? By Trisha Jhunjhnuwala

Not many people know which

countries make up Southeast

Asia, or even where it is. When

talking about the region, I’ve

gotten questions on Korea,

India, Bangladesh, and China—

all of which are not in the

Southeast Asian region. This

region is made up of those eleven countries east of

India, south of China, and north of Australia, and it

is sometimes referred to as the Asia Pacific.

This region is often overlooked by the Western

world. Do you remember learning about Southeast

Asia in high school? I think I only learned where

Vietnam was because of the United States’

involvement in the Vietnam War…but that’s all.

Even at Rutgers, not one of our professors

specializes in Southeast Asia, while we have entire

departments dedicated to China, Africa, Europe,

and East Asia. Few universities around the country

have programs that are dedicated solely to

studying this region. But in this region exists the

cross-roads for every major world religion and

great civilizations of Asia, a population that

exceeds that of Latin America and Sub-Saharan

Africa combined, and a society that is composed of

hundreds of languages, ethnicities, and cultures.

So how can such a rich and diverse region be

so overlooked in today’s political climate? The size

of the countries and the remoteness of the area

make it seem unimportant and removed. The

Vietnam War severed diplomatic ties between the

United States and Vietnam, and because the US has

grown to be today’s world power, it has stifled any

presence that Southeast Asia has had. Finally, the

Asian Economic Crisis in 1997 makes international

interests in the region uneasy. All of these factors,

however, have been resolved and have changed,

putting Southeast Asia back on the international

stage.

Southeast Asia has come a long way from its

history of colonialism. Ten of the eleven Southeast

Asian States have been colonized at one point, and

Thailand, the one country that hasn’t been

colonized, retained much influence from its

neighbor’s colonizers. It was because of this

history that trade, for a long time, was limited to

cash crops such as rubber, coffee, and spices.

Governments within these countries took years to

find a firm foundation, and this was only after

countless authoritarian regimes such as

Cambodia’s Khmer Rouge and Myanmar’s military

dictatorship. Now, however, each country is



committed to creating a functional democracy, as

outlined in the charter of the Association of

Southeast Asian Nations. The region has

established significant trading ties with China,

Japan, and South Korea. The United States has

recognized the importance of staying active within

the economies of the region, as many believe that

the center of economic growth is gradually shifting

toward Asia. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has

said that if the US is to keep up with the rapidly

changing economy, it must become more invested

in Southeast Asia. In addition to the economic

interests in the region, we must also consider the

political and social structures in each nation. This

region has become one of the volatile areas in the

world. In several nations, the aftershocks of the

economic crisis and rising political turmoil

contribute to poverty, disease, and human rights

abuses.

In recent years, Southeast Asia has grown

politically, economically, and socially. Despite its

progress, the region is still building its identity on

the international skyline. It is time for the world to

not only pay attention to this emerging region, but

to have an integral role in its growth and stability.

Trisha Jhunjhnuwala is a Rutgers University junior

and the Secretary-General of PhilMUN 2011.

Crisis Culture

by Victoria Yong

“How will you fund this plan?” is a popular

question in Model U.N. Overused as it may sound

in simulated debate, it’s significant to the real

circumstances which the international community

presently faces. Today, it’s becoming increasingly

hard to come up with a legitimate response to that

inquiry because of one massive blockade: the

global economic crisis. The recession shifts the

world’s focus away from social, cultural, and

humanitarian issues and can even cause them.

Since money is scarcer, aid for these causes are as

well.

With fewer resources, individuals are less

willing to give away part of what they have to

relief efforts. In fact, one is fortunate to have a job

and a steady income in this economy. Charity is an

exclusive privilege for developed countries while

developing countries focus on getting out of

poverty. According to the Red Cross Red Crescent,

governments are more occupied with trying to end

the economic crisis than dealing with the

consequences from it. There is a lack of investment

in nonprofit organizations and social services

because political figures are already spending

trillions of dollars on stimulus packages to fix the

economy. This is not to say that humanitarianism is

dead—it’s simply lower on the global list of

priorities.

The low global economy triggers human

rights abuses and less response to them. Drawing

upon this, the reason why certain social issues

spring up is because of the recession. Child labor,

begging, and piracy stem from the peoples’ need to

survive. Myanmar does not have enough money to

allot to its population. As a result, the Burmese riot

for better conditions, though the government

cannot achieve this. Far worse off are the nations

that rely on military power and trafficking to

sustain their fragile economies. Colombia’s GDP

and paramilitaries lean heavily on the narcotics

trade and Myanmar uses child soldiers to assert

control over shaky ground. Over 27 million victims

of human trafficking circulate the globe.

Individuals resort to crime and putting their lives

at risk when no other financial options are

available. Crime rates increase when money, food,

shelter, and health care dwindle.

Multiple world problems are intertwined with

the economic crisis. At this rate, the UN

Last November, IDIA announced the RUMUN 2010

Writing Contest, where students had the chance to

write an article answering the question: "How has the

global economic crisis impacted the world's capacity

to address social, humanitarian, and cultural

problems plaguing the international community?"

The winning writer would receive a scholarship to

any future IDIA conference. We are proud to

announce that Victoria Yong, a sophomore at Franklin

High School, took home the prize! Here is her article:

http://community.modelun.com/members/profile/903/blog-view/crisis-culture_11.html



Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) may

never be accomplished. The economic crisis deters

their success. How does one expect to end world

hunger, provide universal education, and stop the

spread of AIDS with little to no funding for these

programs? It is difficult to fulfill these lofty goals in

five years when the world is currently struggling

with the one crisis that binds them together.

Poverty fuels discrimination in all forms. Some

countries deny certain groups rights and education

because there is not enough money to supply

everyone in the nation. Deep-rooted cultural biases

play a part in who some governments distribute

welfare to. They believe it’s unnecessary to spend

on “inferior” ethnic groups or women. This in turn

marginalizes groups and establishes a pecking

order in the country’s culture, thus creating a cycle

of poverty for these groups. In the wake of the

global economic crisis, national governments are

more inclined to focus on securing their wealth

rather than giving equal rights to its citizens. Class

divisions have become more prevalent due to the

economic crisis. Those who are impoverished stay

below the poverty line. It is more difficult to get out

of poverty than to become poor.

There is still hope. Just because the world has

less money than before does not mean that it

ignores non-financial problems altogether. Nations

find their own grassroots solutions to social,

cultural, and humanitarian issues. To name a few,

Argentina’s Gleducar organization gives free

software to its schools and recycles computers to

avoid the extra cost of educational supplies. The

United States’ plethora of student activist groups

raise funds and awareness about human rights

causes. Japan sponsors overseas programs to

promote understanding of Japanese culture. If each

country contributes its part to solve a problem,

then the international community would have

eliminated it altogether. Despite the harsh

economic climate, people still give to charity,

although though it is more concentrated among the

wealthier population. Also, the United Nations

drafts small, cost-effective solutions which serve as

steps leading up to long-term goals.

The United Nations cannot expect to solve

world issues if the world does not have the means

to support it. The recession deeply shook the

foundation of society and hindered its ability to

give. A smaller economy limits a nation’s capacity

to address social, cultural, and humanitarian issues.

The economic crisis may have delayed the world’s

progress in these areas, but smaller solutions will

ensure their long-term improvement and sustain

the international community into the future and

beyond.

Victoria Yong is a sophomore at Franklin High School.

Bringing Model UN Online By Adam Gold

One of the challenges our

organization has always faced is

the process of actually getting

students to our programs.

Whether it be because of location,

price, or timing, teachers are often

unable to bring their students to

RUMUN, RMC, or PhilMUN

even though they want to make

the conferences part of their

curriculum or extra-curricular activity. Being that

bringing civic engagement to “more students in

more places” is a central focus for IDIA in 2011, we

have decided to use the internet and its infinite

potential for communication to increase access to

our proven education strategies. The next step

following this decision to bring our programming

online was to determine what type of

programming could be translated to the World

Wide Web.

Being that IDIA has the domain name,

ModelUN.com, we decided to develop a new

website that can provide resources for teachers and

students as well as mimic the real life model UN

experience in a virtual format. However, just

having ModelUN.com and knowing the goals for

the site is not nearly enough to create a worthwhile

online destination. We have had to think long and



hard about what resources teachers and students

actually need in order to support their current

Model UN endeavors inside and outside the

classroom. We have had to analyze our current

conferences and determine which aspects would

translate best online to maintain the quality of the

learning experience and a high fun factor. Most

importantly, we have had to assess how we can be

sure that

the site is

a living,

breathing community of empowered

students. While we are still working hard to

answer all of those questions and figure out how to

apply those answers to the site’s development, we

feel very confident that we have a real opportunity

to bring civic engagement to the web, and thus

more students in more places. For more

information about ModelUN.com or to participate

in beta testing of the site, please contact me

at [email protected].

Adam Gold is the Director of Development of IDIA.

Calendar of Events

Feb 24-27 PhilMUN 2011

Feb 26 IDIA Alumni Meetup

April 14-17 RMC 2011

April 16 IDIA Alumni Meetup

Early July Model ECOWAS (Nigeria)

July 21-24 VukiMUN (Croatia)

Nov 10-13 RUMUN 2011

Nov 12 IDIA Alumni Meetup

In late 2010, IDIA launched a brand new

membership program for current and former

conference staff members. Now, one hundred

members strong, this program is ready to

experience a prolonged period of growth as we add

more membership benefits, take advantage of the

membership contributions, and extend the

membership opportunity to everyone interested in

our organization.

IDIA alumni have been asking for years how they

can contribute to the organization’s growth and we

are glad to have been able to develop a program

that encourages contributions and still provides

benefits like the membership card, this magazine,

and even IDIA apparel for the premium members.

Remember, if you have not yet joined, you can do

so easily online. The membership options are as

follows:

Student Membership: FREE

Young Alumni Membership: $20/year

General Membership: $25/year

Premium Membership: $100/year

We will continue to enhance the membership

program in 2011 and with your help, will continue

to enhance our organization and its ability to

educate, empower, and engage more students in

more places.

For more information about joining IDIA, please

contact us at 732.249.4227 or email [email protected].

To join the organization, please go to

www.idia.net and click on the link to fill out the

simple application or just go to:

www.modelun.com/joinIDIA

mailto:[email protected]

http://www.idia.net/

http://www.modelun.com/joinIDIA

[email protected]

mailto:[email protected]

empowered by idia - issue 1

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