Humanities

Global Politics

Recently the Unit 1/2 Politics students, Ms Matthews and Mr Byrne travelled to the city as a part of our Global Politics focus in Unit 2 to attend an event in the Graduate House in Melbourne Uni. It was an International Relations Summit, where multiple schools participated. We didn’t work with our classmates, but instead met and collaborated with students from other schools around Victoria, making our own proposals for solutions to the issues we were faced with.

 

We heard from three different speakers on three different topics: Refugees, Nuclear Disarmament and Human Rights. After listening and taking notes, our groups were assigned a topic and given 50 minutes to come up with a United Nations-style solution. For example, groups focusing on refugees proposed various intake quotas for developed nations to sign on to, in hopes of alleviating the pressure various international refugee aid groups, such as the UNHCR, currently face.

 

We would then present our proposals to the rest of the groups, who would then either vote in favour or against the proposal, or abstain from voting. None of the proposals given by the 10 groups received unanimous or near-unanimous support, and this gave us all a great insight into how the conflicting interests and values of different people can prevent progress from being made, just as it does on the world stage.

 

Working together with students from other schools was an interesting experience for us all, because the day was much more about collaboration than about competition. This exercise replicated the spirit of the United Nations, which requires critical thinking, interpersonal relationship knowledge and leadership to succeed.

 

Damian Corral-O’Meara