King Abdullah II of Jordan is building a King’s Academy in Amman and I think it will be a blessing to the whole area. This academy is based on the Deerfield Academy in New England that King Abdullah attended himeself. He is even going to bring over the recently retired headmaster of Deerfield to run it. It will be a full boarding school just like its American counterpart and will be about $28,000 a year with scholarships available. The King says that he wants this to eventually be a school with kids from all over the world. If they hold true to the plans I think this will be a great institute. Especially if…

But instead of a mosque on campus, there is a spiritual centre and in a resolution to the difficult question over whether girls should wear a scarf to cover their hair, the school uniform will include a mandatory scarf that girls can either wear on the head or around the neck.

Being a co-educational school in a Muslim country means the school policy is far stricter than its American counterpart on mixing between the sexes, especially out of school hours.

I think it is going to be a opportunity for both the children who attend and the nation of Jordan on the whole. The effects of this level of learning and of the “westernization” of these students will definately effect the next generation in the MidEast. Education is the way to cause long lasting changes in the mind set of the population and to cause a self directed peace. (Now we needed to have a war in Iraq to get them in school and away from the brainwashing, but I digress.) I truly believe that King Abdullah II’s father would be quite proud!

(HT: JoanneJacobs.com)