Saturday, April 5, 2014

Today, it was just Glen and I with 60 kids.  During the day, I had the chance to meet and chat with teachers from schools from throughout Costa Rica, as well as observe the different councils.  I was able to take plenty of pictures of all of my students as they got to make substantive points and contribute to solving a world problem.  Many of the topics included were fascinating.  For example, one council tried to solve the issue of organ trafficking, another looked at bio-ethical problems, another looked at child labor, while another was set in 1982 and tried to prevent the Falkland Island War.  It was fascinating to watch.  It was set like a United Nations conference in which they had an agenda and each student represented a different country.  They would have to raise their placards if they wished to speak and had to be called on by the committee chair.  From there, they could attack other countries’ positions on the issues and fight for how their particular country would want to solve the conflict or problem.  I’m pretty sure I saw a future delegate to the United Nations in action today. I even participated in a world trade game in which the room was almost set up like a stock market where students could buy, sell, and trade goods and bonds.  I was at the trade table where students bought bonds, which was crazy busy and quite a rush to participate in.  I really wish that there was something like this in Owasso when I was in high school.  I got home at around 6:00 that evening and was out like a light pretty early.