Model UN (open: students at middle school level)

[Hart Kenney]

One of the more entertaining aspects of teaching was exposing students to different forms of government, from local townships to state to federal all the way up to international. And one of the ways students learned about these varied authoritative bodies was participating in what amounted to games of pretend.

One of the most popular across schools districts was the model UN. While there were conferences dedicated to this they were typically put on by college volunteers for high school students looking to escape parental influence for a weekend of expensive living.

However, even classrooms could put on a mock UN conference of their own, one with less access to alcohol and random hook ups. One that, given the students in his class, was likely to include a great deal of ineffectual arguing.

Hart figured that made the experience more realistic.

Currently he stood at the front of the classroom, hands behind his back. The chalkboard had a list of member countries scrawled down the left side with the names of the student representing it in a second column.

"Now each of you has been assigned a country to represent," he had explained cheerfully the first day, "and your goal is to do your best to gain advantages for your country, negotiate treaties and debate the merits of international agreements and solve conflicts."

Today the students were debating nuclear disarmament, a sensitive subject for some of their countries.

OOC
And here is the list of countries, in random order so assume your character's country is based on posting order. So the first student to post gets the first country on the list, the second student to post gets the second, etc.
Sudan - Ciaran O'Reilly
Romania - Harmony Muller-Barton
Japan - Tomer Berelowitz
Finland - Clement Evans
Syria
Turkey
Venezuela
Australia
Mexico
Argentina
Guatemala
Portugal
Cuba
Ecuador
Libya
Canada
Austria
Brazil
India
Netherlands
Sweden
Jordan
Ghana
Switzerland
Senegal
Russian federation
Nigeria
Iraq
South Africa
France
Uruguay
Italy
Côte d'Ivoire
Chile
Hungary
Germany
Uganda
Kenya
Colombia
Somalia
Thailand
Saudi Arabia
Qatar
China
Poland
Indonesia
United kingdom
Belgium
Spain
United States
Cameroon
Korea, republic of
Kuwait
Egyp

[Ciaran O'Reilly]

It was Ciaran's first History lesson and he really did not want to be late. That was the second biggest concern he had, the first being the light conditions in the room. Luckily, once he got there, he saw that both of them were okay. He found a seat by himself, sat down and listened to the teacher - Mr Kenny - introduce the lesson.

Ciaran's heart sank as the man spoke. Discussion. Arguments. Shouting. And, worst of all, he had been given Sudan, a country he had no knowledge of whatsoever. Atleast the other kids were only a year or two older than him.

Ciaran stood up and got a textbook from a stack on the side and flicked through the pages looking for 'Sudan'.

[Harmony Muller-Barton]

Harmony ducked into the classroom and took her seat in the back as usual. She was slouched in her chair doodling on the desk as Mr. Kenney blabbed on about their day's assignment. She glanced up at the board to see that her name was written beside some place called Romania. Seriously, was that even a country? It sounded like something someone had made up. She flipped through her book to the map in the back trying to locate it. But as usually with schoolwork, her heart wasn't really in it.

She had complained when Mr. Kenney had first assigned the country to her, but figured it was worth another shot. "Why do I have to have such a lame country?" she asked, sighing loudly. She looked around at the other students. "Keep your nukes if ya want, just make sure you blow Rome off the map." Because yeah, Rome had to be in Romania, right?

[Hart Kenney]

If there had been any justice in the world, Harmony would have been assigned Syria. However, Hart had assigned the students their countries at random, and he wasn't about to switch them just for one ill tempered girl.

"Haven't you heard of Elie Wiesel?" He knew that, as Josef's niece, she had some claim to Jewish ancestry, and so surely she must know a little bit about the Holocaust and its survivors. Not that knowing one activist and author who had been born in Romania would help her with the assignment. "I think the band that wrote the Numa Numa song are from Romania,,too."

Also not very helpful for diplomatic purposes.

"Blow up Rome?" He raised an eyebrow at this proclamation, uncertain where she had gotten animosity to Rome from. "Sudan, what do you think about this suggestion?"

[Tomer Berelowitz]

Tomer was more than a little dismayed to have been assigned Japan. He didn't know much about the country, but the few things he did know painted a conflicting picture about how it felt about the topic in question. On the one hand, Japan was the only country to have ever actually experienced a nuclear bombing, but on the other, it certainly had no qualms about using or developing nuclear technology. So he guessed that they were more than a little pro-disarmament, but were probably also wondering what to do if China or North Korea ever decided to assert themselves. There was also the disaster at Fukushima, which had been turning public sentiment away from nuclear energy as a power source, but powering a nation and defending it were two different things.

Tomer was not very religious, but he sent up a quiet apology to God and Japan for what he was about to try.

[Clement Evans]

Given that Clement's first question about Hammel had been 'where the fuck is Vermont', it was unsurprising that he had never even heard of Finland. He didn't even have any idea of where to start looking for it on a map. His best guess was that it probably wasn't in Africa. But he was just supposed to represent them, the poor bastards, right? That couldn't be too hard.

He also hadn't known what 'disarmament' meant till Mr. Kenney explained it, but that was another subject.

Street logic said that the person with the best weapon won the game, i.e. 'bringing a gun to a knife fight' wasn't a saying but sensible strategy. But on a bigger scale, Clement could see where everyone agreeing not to have nukes would be the best thing. If only because the opposite of it was everyone having nukes, and Clement knew from experience that having a weapon just made you want to use it. Honestly, he didn't know why world policy already wasn't 'put down your nukes', but he guessed a country having an a-bomb was the same as a person owning a gun. A nuke made a country feel badass, even if they never used it. Since Clement had never heard of Finland, he figured they could go with the whole 'no nukes for everyone' thing.

As long as everyone else went with it.

[Ciaran O'Reilly]

Ciaran eventually found something about his country. It showed the geography and very general conflict, but it did give him a big clue: it was bordering Egypt and Libya, both of those having uprisings and other conflicts. He figured he would stray towards the 'more nukes the better' option, seeing where his country was located.

"Sudan, what do you think about this suggestion?"

Ciaran looked up, only half listening. He quickly answered the question, startled by being asked it.

"It's probably a good idea to target capital cities. That's what I would do." Then he noticed where he was and blushed, burying his nose in the history book again.

[Hart Kenney]

Hart turned toward the chalkboard in an effort to control his facial expression. Laughing at his students and their negotiations would only offend them, and rightly so, but they so obviously didn't know what they were doing.

Maybe he ought to assign an essay about the country they were assigned, to make sure they actually researched, as knowledge seemed to be lacking.

He decided that was a good cover for turning away, and so he scrawled in the empty corner of the chalkboard

Homework assignment: essay about your assigned country and their positions on nuclear weapons.

That done he turned back to the class. "Is that a declaration of war?"

[Harmony Muller-Barton]

Harmony took one glance around the room and could tell that many of the students had no clue about their countries views on nukes, let alone much else about them. She smirked up at the teacher. Still a lot of the others were at least flipped around their textbooks to try to come up with something legit. Harmony had given up trying to even find her country and slammed her books shut.

She sighed again at the homework being scrawled on the board, not that she planned on doing it anyways. "Yeah lets bomb the heck outta them," she agreed, smiling.

[Luhan Baek]

luhan didn't really like the idea of what ever subject he had know. it wasn't that he didn't like it. it was just he was a bit feed up of learning after his parents had forced him to study extra hard. So just as he got to the classroom he forgot to roll down his sleeves to hid his fresh cuts . instead Luhan just took one of his ear phones in and attempted to sneak into the back of the classroom late. Well he could see the teacher looking at the board writing stuff. So he just took a seat at the back of the room. It wasn't his normal seat but for today it would be.

Luhan then put his head down on the table stupidly not resting it on his arms which meant once again he had left his fresh cuts on show. However being at the back he hopped he would go unnoticed for the session.