As this book went to press, Jordanians were preparing to go to the polls to elect their new representatives in Parliament under a new election law. Major changes that better protect the rights of women and children were introduced to the penal code, and a few people are now facing trial on corruption charges. The budget deficit has been reduced and newspapers are reporting some good news about the economy. I believe we are on track in what will be a lengthy reform process that will take much more hard work to finish, and will have its good and bad days. From the beginning I knew that we would have to invest more in the skills of Jordan’s main national asset: our people. That means providing the best education possible to our young people. I have given much thought to the subject, and having been educated in Jordan, England, and America, I’ve brought some unconventional views.
Chapter 16
Desert Deerfield
I
n May 2000, twenty years after graduating from Deerfield, I went back to give the commencement address. I was met by the headmaster, Eric Widmer, a tall, distinguished-looking Deerfield alumnus who had taught Chinese history at Brown University before coming back to lead the school. Memories flooded back as we walked past the Ephraim Williams House, with its white wood walls and slate roof, which had been my dorm. I reflected on the quality of the education I had received. Deerfield had taught me to be curious, to question what I was told, and to come up with my own solutions to problems. It taught me how to think, not what to think. It encouraged critical thinking, problem-solving, and creativity. I began to think that a school modeled on Deerfield would be a great benefit to Jordan and the region. I had seen how my classmates had grown up to become leaders in business, science, and politics. Why was there nothing like this in Jordan? A young boy or girl in Jordan, Palestine, Egypt, or the Gulf states should not have to travel to America to get a first-class education.
The next day the Deerfield community gathered for the commencement ceremony. Friends, family, and staff applauded as two bagpipers led the class of 2000 down Albany Road, through the center of the village, and toward a large green-and-white-striped pavilion.
In my commencement address I reflected on the values taught by a Deerfield education—honesty, independence of mind, integrity, and friendship—and said that these values would be needed now more than ever by young people as they faced the hectic pace of change in the modern world. I remembered all that Deerfield had taught me: the wisdom and patience of the teachers; the egalitarian spirit, taking turns to clear the tables after our fellow students; the chance to meet and befriend people from different backgrounds, many of them on scholarship; and the lifelong curiosity and excitement for learning. As I looked out over the young faces, their eyes shining, I became determined to bring the Deerfield experience to the Middle East.
After the ceremony, I told Dr. Widmer that I wanted to set up a school in Jordan on the model of Deerfield and that it would be the first New England-style boarding school in the Middle East. He said that sounded like a great idea and offered to lend a hand and give advice insofar as he could. The seed of what would later become King’s Academy had been planted.
Throughout the Middle East there are many private schools for the children of the elite, who show up in their chauffeur-driven Mercedes, cell phones clamped to their ears. But there are no schools in the Deerfield tradition, open to all talented young people and offering scholarships for those unable to afford the fees. I wanted to create a new tribe in a region often riven by ethnic and sectarian conflict: the tribe of the talented meritocracy.
Back in Jordan, I immediately began to work on turning this vision into reality. Safwan Masri, a Jordanian expatriate teaching at Columbia University in New York, was invited to lead the project, and I convinced my good friend Gig, who at the time was a senior banker at Citigroup, to help with fund-raising. Over the next few years, Safwan, Gig, and a small team worked hard to raise money, locate a site, and choose an architect to bring the project to life.
We found a perfect spot just outside Madaba, fifteen miles south of Amman. This is the location, at the Greek Orthodox Basilica of St. George, of the sixth-century Madaba Mosaic Map, one of the earliest maps of the Holy Land. The site we selected for the school was on the historic King’s Highway, an ancient trade route that ran from Heliopolis in Egypt across the Sinai to Aqaba, turned north through Jordan, and continued on to Damascus, ending at Resafa on the banks of the Euphrates.
We began construction on July 22, 2004. But I was well aware that if I really wanted to re-create the spirit of Deerfield, I would need more than buildings. Eric Widmer, the school’s fourth headmaster since 1902, was due to retire from Deerfield in 2006. This was my chance. I managed to persuade him to be the founding headmaster of King’s Academy.
When I returned to Deerfield for my twenty-fifth reunion in 2005, my classmates were excited to hear the news of King’s Academy, and I invited them all to visit Jordan. That August nearly one hundred classmates and their family members traveled to Madaba to see the new school for themselves and to tour the country. For many it was their first trip to the Middle East, and all commented on the warm and generous reception of the Jordanian people. Proving that the spirit of the class of 1980 remained strong, they raised over $1 million for King’s Academy. To this day they continue to provide strong support for the school, dedicating time and money to its growth and success.
The next year I was again invited to be the commencement speaker at Deerfield, and gladly accepted. On May 28, 2006, I stood in the green-and-white-striped tent, once more looking out at a crowd of jubilant young men and women. Eric Widmer, presiding over his last convocation as headmaster, turned to me during his introduction and said, “I am tempted to introduce you as my new boss, then I’m tempted to say you have to be nice to me even so, because of the likelihood I will be overseeing the education of your children.” Indeed, it was my dream that my children, joined by young boys and girls from Jordan and the region, would soon draw the same kind of inspiration from King’s Academy that I had received from Deerfield.
In my remarks I stressed the importance of building unbreakable links between America and the Middle East and spoke of my dreams for King’s Academy. “We want to bring the Deerfield model to the Middle East,” I explained, “a coed boarding school where faculty and students are close, academic studies greatly encouraged, and life enriched with competitive sports, lively arts, and real community service.” To give our students the best chance of competing in the modern global economy, we decided that we would follow the American Advanced Placement curriculum, and all teaching would be in English. We would also offer classes in classical Arabic, grammar, and literature, as well as courses in Middle Eastern politics, religion, and society. I also wanted King’s to be coeducational. Although Deerfield was single-sex when I was there, it began admitting girls a few years later, in 1989. I knew that some in the region would object to the idea of educating young girls and boys together, but I was determined that our daughters should have the same opportunities as our sons.
In July 2006, I inducted Dr. Widmer as headmaster in a small ceremony, after which we all ate dinner together in the King’s Academy dining hall, seated at round tables to facilitate discussion and interaction, following the Deerfield tradition. The construction team had done a fantastic job, and the 150-acre site contained over twenty buildings and extensive sports fields. There was a theater, a dining hall, a gymnasium, a library, boys’ and girls’ dorms, and a spiritual center. The adobe-walled, red-tiled buildings were sturdy and elegant. Now all we needed was people to fill them.
For the next year, Eric Widmer and his team worked tirelessly to hire faculty, many from the United States with boarding school backgrounds, supervise the construction, set up the admissions process, and receive applications for the first entering class. They traveled across the Middle East, describing and explaining the idea of a coed boarding school, with instruction in English, to worried mothers and skeptical fathers. Because the idea of a boarding school—and a coeducational one at that—was so new to the region, some parents were wary. But many others saw the potential for their children’s futures.
Setting up a new institution from scratch is never easy, but Eric and his team pulled off miracles. They scoured the globe and put together a team of some of the finest teachers imaginable. They also managed to develop the curriculum and instill something less tangible: the ethos of the institution. Deerfield has had more than two centuries to develop the “Deerfield Way.” But at King’s, Eric was creating new traditions as he went.
King’s Academy opened on August 29, 2007. As bagpipers played, faculty and trustees gathered in a courtyard on the campus and said a few words to mark the beginning of the first term. There were 106 students in the entering class, from Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, and several Arabian Gulf countries. There were also students from the United States and from as far afield as Taiwan. The sixty-six boys and forty girls were divided between the ninth and tenth grades, with both full-time boarders and day students, most of whom were commuting from Amman. The following year, over 150 new students arrived in August for the start of the new school year, bringing the total to over 250, still split 60 to 40 percent between boys and girls. Among the group were representatives of twenty-one nationalities, including new arrivals from Iraq and Afghanistan. And in August 2009, King’s opened with 400 students from twenty-four countries.
Among the entering students was my eldest son, Hussein. Like all parents, we want the best education for our children, and I considered sending him overseas to be educated, as I had been. But as a parent, it was too hard to send my son away, and thankfully, there was now a local school where he could have an education rivaling the one I received in America.
Although it is never entirely possible in Jordan for members of the royal family to lead a normal life, Hussein has had to learn to make his bed and share a bathroom, and to wait on tables for other students. The first weekend he came back home, Rania, the other children, and I were all waiting eagerly to see him; we had missed not having him around the house. As soon as he got through the door, he said, “Hi, I have homework to do, so I’ll see you all later.” Hussein going to do his homework? That was a shocker.
One of my aims for the school was to have a diverse student body, representing not just different countries but also varied economic backgrounds. Some of my closest friends at Deerfield were there on scholarship, and I saw the value to the school and society of helping able young men and women rise as high as their talents would take them. We were able to offer almost half the students need-based financial aid. This enabled the school to accept the brightest students, regardless of their backgrounds. We decided that the top student in each of the twelve governorates of Jordan, plus the top student from the refugee camps, would be given a scholarship. I personally provided scholarships at King’s for some thirty students, known as King’s Scholars, who were given a spending stipend, and took a particular interest in their development. Proving that poverty is no indicator of intelligence, in 2008 as much as 70 percent of the honor roll comprised children on scholarship. These are young men and women who are reaching the potential their extraordinary talents deserve.
Inside the school, the students are treated equally: in the honored Deerfield tradition they take turns waiting tables in the dining hall and are required to wear the same uniform of blazer, tie, and slacks. But outside the school walls, many enjoyed opportunities that those there on scholarships did not. With this in mind, I organized a camping trip for the thirty scholarship students whom I had personally sponsored. I took them to Wadi Rum, a series of massive dry river valleys that run for some eighty miles through the desert near Aqaba.
One of Jordan’s best-known natural features, Wadi Rum was described by T.E. Lawrence as “vast and echoing and god-like.” The tallest rock walls rise some thousand feet above the desert, and above them is Jabal Rum, at over five thousand feet the second highest mountain in Jordan. We flew low over the rock formations and headed for the campsite deep in the heart of a massive valley.
We had set up a camp with tents and brought in all-terrain vehicles, various games, and a shooting range. As the sun set, the students gathered around fires and we cooked lamb in the traditional manner, burying it in the desert sand, lighting a wood fire above the buried meat, and roasting it slowly. After dinner I sat cross-legged in the sand and all thirty students gathered around the fire. Among them was a Kurdish girl from Iraq, an orphaned girl from Afghanistan, a Pakistani girl, and Jordanian students from all over the country. We sat by the fire and talked for three hours, in Arabic and in English. The students asked me questions on every topic imaginable, from what it is like to be a king to Middle Eastern politics. I told each of them that I would help them with college and, for those students not from Jordan, said that I hoped afterward that they would use their new knowledge to help their countries. They promised enthusiastically that they would. I barely had a chance to take a bite of the dinner. The conversation and the sophistication and focus of these kids were electrifying. I turned to Gig, who had accompanied me on the trip, and said, “I don’t care what it takes, just find me more of these kids. The investment in them will come back to Jordan and the region a hundredfold.”
Finally, everyone went to bed. The next morning we were up at dawn, and again I spent many hours talking and debating with the students. The enthusiasm, dedication, and passion for learning these young people showed were remarkable. In the course of my duties as king, I meet many inspirational people, but that camping trip with King’s Academy students was the highlight of my year.