Mehmet Toygus has been teaching English for about 40 years in Adana, Turkey. He currently works at the FINAL School in Adana, and since setting up the MUN club five years ago, Mehmet has remained the Director of MUN Studies in all FİNAL Schools in Turkey.
There is a saying, “Every treasure waits to be discovered.” I like to think of my students as treasure are waiting to be discovered, and I hope I have managed to help them be discovered. I have been the MUN Advisor for five years in my school – arranging conferences and attending overseas conferences. From my experience, my students learn in the traditional class, but the knowledge abroad is something uniquely different.
I discovered a lot of students after attending conferences with them, and now they have become independent, international students. MUN was the perfect platform for students to develop their skills in formal language in diplomacy, research different topics and collect all the information about the international problems. Moreover, my students met real friends all over the world, much like I did.
Many of my students have become self-confident and attended AFS exchange programs (nonprofit assisting in intercultural education exchange programs for students) and have resided in different countries such as Chili, Denmark, Norway, Germany and Brazil. Surely, they recognized a new culture, and learned another language through these experiences. One of my students, Yagmur Yurtbulmus, was accepted to university in London and granted a scholarship. Additionally, the American Consulate gave 11 of my students a grant because of the successful MUN organization we have developed. With this, we were able to attend ROMUN in Italy. Most of my students are attending good universities and are now able to write perfect resolutions and make powerful formal speeches. My students got to travel to countries they have never been to before and actually get to experience the countries’ culture.
When every term starts, my students look forward to the MUN Club and to be honest, it is very hard to choose who attends each conference. The Model UN club is a pride for me. I can’t imagine how I will leave the club and my MUN-ners one day.