CAN THE UNITED NATIONS BE TAUGHT? Colloquium on Innovative Approaches to Teaching the UN System
(November 22, 2008)
Abstract The Vienna Diplomatic Academy has just published the proceedings of a colloquium on Innovative Approaches to Teaching about the United Nations. The proceedings contain over 40 contributions by teachers and students from around the world on the topics ranging from active learning techniques to simulations and computer based learning. In it senior UN officials and renowned academics grapple with whether the covert power games, contradictions, and ambiguities of the UN can be conveyed alongside promotion of the highest principles and aspirations of mankind. The challenges of promoting idealism, critical evaluation, and higher order thinking alongside job training for UN positions are discussed. The volume recounts lessons learned both from innovative university teaching programs and from the field, specifically global peacekeeping and police operations in Bosnia, Kosovo and Sierra Leone. Contributors demonstrate the pedagogical value of intern experiences, study tours, historical model UNs, human rights debate clubs, law clinics, and learning through translation of UN documents. In addition, a section on computer-based learning outlines the electronic materials available from the UN and its agencies; discusses online teaching and virtual classrooms in the United States and Europe, and the use of e-learning in DPKO, UNITAR, UNU, and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime. This colloquium was sponsored by the Academic Council on the United Nations System (ACUNS) in conjunction with the Austrian Science and Research Liaison Office in Ljubljana, Slovenia and held at the Vienna Diplomatic Academy. Copies of the Compendium can be obtained from the colloquium organizer and ACUNS liaison officer in Vienna, Michael Platzer, from the Diplomatic Academy or www.acuns.org.