How Ecole is Developing an MUN Culture
Dehradun (Uttarakhand) [India], September 16: Who am I? What do I believe? Where do I stand? These are the three questions teenagers often struggle with during their identity vs. role confusion stage, according to psychologist Erik Erikson.
As a girls’ boarding school, rather than dismissing these questions, we embrace them; we provide these questions with a platform. A platform to question, a platform to argue, a platform to respectfully disagree, and a platform to present independent opinions. A true reflection of an international school following and setting the international standards.
As we sit on the periphery of modernity, where education is not merely about the availability of content, it is more about channelising that content into transferable skills that produce independent opinions. And that’s what the culture at Ecole thrives on: providing the girls at Ecole with a platform to engage with each other and participate in intellectual discourse.
Our Thinking Forum is such a platform, providing Ecole girls with opportunities to bring global problems to our forum and design solutions after scrutinising each aspect of the issue. From climate change to gender inequality, from oil crises to political chaos, from ethical discourse to animal rights, we leave no topic untouched.
The Thinking Forum of Ecole Globale empowers our girls to engage critically with global affairs, contemporary issues, policy, ethics, and society. Through Model United Nations (MUN), Parliamentary & Conventional Debates, Youth Parliaments, Policy & Crisis Simulations, Public-Speaking Forums, Current-Affairs Discussions, and Inter-School Dialogues & Competitions, students learn to question assumptions, evaluate evidence, explore perspectives, and communicate confidently through discussion, debate, Socratic dialogue, and simulations.
Now, let’s try to understand why such a culture is significant, especially in a boarding school where students break free from the pendulum clock of 8 AM–3 PM, where students don’t just attend classes together but are also each other’s first hellos and last goodnights.
We often forget that teenagers need autonomy to develop: the freedom to think, the freedom to have an opinion, and intellectual autonomy—or what we call Self-Determination Theory. As per Edward Deci and Richard Ryan, teenagers have three psychological needs: autonomy, competence, and relatedness, which help in their cognitive development.
The need for autonomy among teenagers expects others to acknowledge their right to have independent ideas and make decisions. Through the Thinking Forum, we make sure our girls feel safe and comfortable sharing their opinions and perspectives without the hesitation of being judged or being wrong.
The need for competence among teenagers expects others to provide them with a safe space to conduct research, argue, negotiate, and improve, which is why the Thinking Forum has been established at Ecole Globale: to provide our girls with such a platform where they can gather information, analyse it, and evaluate the evidence.
The need for relatedness among teenagers expects others to provide them with a community where ideas can be exchanged, and the Thinking Forum thrives on this identity.
Our sessions are scheduled twice every week, and each month has a different topic. We start the month by introducing a relevant global issue and understanding the significance of that issue from three perspectives: personal, local, and global. Students understand the issue and analyse its impact on them personally, after which they broaden their thinking to its impact locally or nationally, and then globally. Through this cycle, girls evaluate the issue and then begin their research.
Throughout the month, girls understand various aspects of the issue through different lenses; they come to the sessions to discuss these with each other and challenge each other’s opinions while presenting their own. Girls don’t just speak but also articulate their ideas through different facets of expression, be it poetry, music, films, or literature.
To share a quick anecdote, while discussing World War II and its social impact on society, one of the girls wrote a 2,000-word reflection on the film Schindler’s List. Such expression is only possible when platforms like the Thinking Forum embed the ideas of freedom of expression and comfort.
The Thinking Forum of Ecole Globale Girls’ International School is a testimony to a new-age educational approach and techniques that bring international ideas to our students. Such a platform in a girls’ boarding school in India is not just effective but significant if we wish to raise our girls with opinions and perspectives independent of others, where they can make decisions for themselves and hold their heads high with pride and confidence. Boarding Schools in India have a wonderful opportunity to design such platforms for their students, where they can thrive with independent ideas, which will help them become global citizens.
