At 1:30pm on Thursdays, classroom 513 transforms into the United Nations Council Chamber. The walls are not filled with majestic windows and sweeping murals, but there is a quiet murmur of conversations about debt repayment methods and intellectual property.

The Model UN program at Quad Prep offers students the chance to step into someone else’s shoes. Deeply immersing themselves in the viewpoints of other nations, students develop the invaluable skills of empathy, critical thinking, and problem-solving. What started as an opportunity for history-loving students to further their studies has evolved into a deeper exploration of perspective-taking.

Model UN advisors Rachel Behr, Upper School Speech-Language Pathologist, and Will Weber, Upper School History Teacher, co-lead students through the world of diplomacy. Working toward an intense three-day conference in April, students diligently research, write, and prepare throughout the semester.

“I think the biggest thing is how high interest it is. There is not one student who didn't want to participate. It’s a very rigorous club with high expectations. They're willing to put in the work to be successful,” says Rachel.

Quinn (Class of ‘27) is one of those highly-motivated students who wants to be—and has been—extremely successful in this program.

Quinn started Model UN in Middle School and is now a mentor within the group. “When I started, I was in less of a centerline role. Now, I’m pretty much in the opposite shoes. It is really inspiring. I have a lot of confidence in the people here right now,” he says.

“For me, a lot of the work in Model UN is based around the central pillar of effectively developing better means to interact with ideas. It gives you a really good opportunity to engage in debate with viewpoints from other countries that you normally wouldn’t even consider,” Quinn says.

90% of the work of Model UN is researching those viewpoints. The international Model UN organization assigns schools both the countries they’ll represent and the topics they’ll debate at the conference. This year, the Quad Prep team is representing Sweden and Botswana. Four committees form within each country: International Monetary Fund, World Intellectual Property Organization, United Nations Office of Counterterrorism, and World Bank.

Each committee is assigned to research and write a paper on a real-world topic in preparation for the debate. Topics range from alternative debt repayment and international trade to intellectual property rights in the age of biotechnology, and AI, national security, and cyber warfare to central bank digital currencies and policies.

Working in pairs, students ask big questions, like “Are there any precedents we need to keep in mind based on cultural expectations?” or “What kind of action have they taken in the past?” Many topics extend beyond the students’ history curricula—which is why the research and writing phase is lengthy and essential.

“[Writing the papers] helps me develop personally. I find enjoyment in the writing,” says Quinn, the multi-time award-winning writer of position papers. “It helps me debate formally with other delegates that you need to reconcile and reach an effective conclusion with.”

Although Quinn recognizes that he may not go into a history-related field (he tentatively hopes to be in aerospace engineering), Model UN fosters many transferable skills.

“To an extent, Model UN also strengthens the peer editing relationships,” Will says. ”Instead of saying, ‘Don't say this. This is poorly written,’ they would say, ‘I don't think this is how Sweden would phrase it.’ It’s a depersonalized process.”

When the conference weekend arrives, no advisors are allowed in the chamber. It’s up to the students to rely on their preparation—and each other. “You’re going to need to be able to be independent in the conference, but it's not like you're going to be alone,” Quinn says. “You will have a lot more experienced delegates to assist you.”

Delegates from schools across the world mingle. Debates ensue. Strategies develop. Eventually, voting blocs form and students must convince their fellow delegates to pass effective resolutions.

After three intense days of collaborating and debating, most of the team’s resolutions passed: a feat they proudly attribute to their coherent arguments, realistic actions, and deep research. 

“As a history teacher, it's been cool for me to see the students apply their natural aptitude for the discipline in a more practical setting,” Will says. “How often do we hear, ‘when am I going to use this?’ Every topic in Model UN is something that's relevant today and for the future.” 

“Perspective-taking is such an important skill to develop for everybody,” Will adds. “On one hand, you might see that your perspective isn't that divergent from someone else's, and simultaneously, where in the divergences can you see room for growth and opportunities to better your own perspective?”

Through programs like Model UN, future generations might be better poised to adopt healthy perspective-taking skills. “I've had to take the perspective of at least two Middle Eastern countries: Yemen and Kuwait. They have extraordinarily different perspectives from someone living here in New York,” says Quinn.

For instance, when Quinn represented Kuwait on the topic of preventing environmental overexploitation, he had to consider that Kuwait depends heavily on natural resource extraction to fuel its economy. His seemingly impossible task was to forge a path toward global resolution. “It requires a lot of problem-solving between different nations. You eventually have to allow these two separate ideals to converge into one,” says Quinn.

It doesn’t take majestic windows and sweeping murals to help these ten eager future citizens understand the value of perspective-taking — and since they are our future, we can all look forward with anticipation of where they will lead us.