High School Leadership Conference 2009

Dear HSLC Mentor,

Thank you for participating in the High School Leadership Conference! This folder is for your reports. This is a public forum and we encourage your professors and teachers to review your journal entries for feedback. Make sure your report is appropriate for public viewing.

Your report need to be at least 500 words (single-spaced, 12 pt font, 1” margin). It is your responsibility to save a copy of your report. Additionally, it should focus on the content of the conference and include key concepts of International Relations, as well as specific student responses.

In order to submit your report correctly, you have to hit "Post Reply" and NOT "New Topic." Selecting the latter will post your report in a folder that is not yours.

When logged in, an edit button appears at the top of each of your own posts. You can always go back to your report and change anything you wish before the entry's deadline. Be sure that your report is saved to your own personal computer as back-up.

Your HSLC Report will be due by 9:00am on April 24, 2009. After the deadline, your folder will be locked and no late reports will be accepted.

Again thank you for your participation in the Conference!
- CALIS Staff

HSLC Report - REVISION REQUIRED - 4/29/08 - Lauren
Please include more content based on the material given at the conference. The revision is due by 9 am on Friday May 1.
HSLC Report - APPROVED - 5/1/09 - Lauren
Great job! Thank you for your service!

FOLDER LOCKED - 5/1/09 - Lauren

Initially, I was excited to participate in the HSLC, especially after a great experience working with TIRP in the fall with an AP government class at Manual Arts High School. I assumed that the students chosen would be the best students within each class or school. Although many of the children were very intellectual, they certainly weren’t all the best of their schools. I was fortunate enough to have the 1st ranking student as well as the 9th ranking student of their grade. However, the experience didn’t prove as fulfilling as I originally thought it would have. My team was rather unenthusiastic about spending their Saturday working and was not very talkative. When we had our first meeting to brainstorm ideas and to get to know each other, they all seemed interested and well-informed. They were able to confidently present their ideas and what they learned in class. However, once we reached the second meeting with the other Economic Liberal teams, they immediately became reserved and wouldn’t talk or contribute with group discussions. They warmed up (with a slight push) as the day progressed, but I really wish they were more excited to interact with the other students.

HSLC was certainly a productive project – it allowed a forum for young students to speak their minds and listen to others speak passionately about current events. I think there could have been a few more kinks worked out to make the program run smoother. I remember having many moments where all the mentors (including some that worked for TIRP) did not understand the directions and had no clue how to interpret the assignment. Eventually, we all figured it out but it seemed that the worksheets could be explained better. Also, I think mentors should go through a more vigorous training session. The informational session described the meeting and the 2nd meeting reviewed the perspectives with mentors, but there were never sessions that described to mentors what the actual day would be like. Maybe in the informational session, TIRP workers can explain their past experiences and really go in depth to the schedule and the format of the day – possibly even schedule a third brief meeting for mentors to discuss the day?

All in all, I really enjoyed myself. Though my group wasn’t particularly excited to work, which really showed in the 2nd meeting with all the other Economic Liberals, I saw the benefits to the project in the other meetings (3rd and 4th), especially the simulated UN meeting. There were some kids that dominated discussion, so I think the idea of using smaller groups to discuss hot topics was good and allowed for more individuals to have a chance to speak up in a more intimate, thus less intimidating, atmosphere. I look forward to participating in future conferences and the future topics that will be presented. I have no doubt that this will have an impact on some of the students’ college paths. I was approached by a few girls at the end of the day asking about majoring in IR and the whole day seemed to really get students interested in IR.

As an economic liberal, my students came really prepared to voice the idea that the market can work out it's own problems and that the government need not intervene. It was difficult for them to apply the theory onto specific issues. For example, they could not voice their opinions, as economic liberals, towards the “big three” bail out issue. However, I think at the end of the day they began to understand the reasons why governments should not intervene, and problems that could occur from bailouts, such as possible failures of the company as well as encouraging bad management to continue. They also understood the idea of using positive incentives. In the end, I think my students were still skeptical of becoming an extreme economic liberal, and I think students without complete knowledge of the pros and cons of an economic liberal perspective tend to lean towards a social liberal simply because of moral beliefs. A lot of the social liberals argued issues, such as giving a universal health plan and providing farm subsidies, from a moral perspective and not from an economic perspective.