Today we head for Southern Jordan stopping first at the Crusader Castle of Karak and Dana Nature Preserve where we spend the night. On Friday we leave early for Petra visiting Shobak Castle in route. We will have the afternoon in Petra, spend the evening then return in the morning before departing at noon for Wadi Rum (“the largest and most magnificent of Jordan’s desert landscapes,” & where Lawrence of Arabia was filmed). Here we will stay at a Bedouin camp. The next day we go to Aqaba on the Red Sea where we will visit sites and have a bit of time to snorkel before returning to Amman on Sunday. A blog update of these events will come after my return.
Yesterday, during our visit at the University of Jordan, we met with the Vice Chancellor and six Academic Deans. The University, founded in 1962, currently has 38,000 students (65% are women, who also represent 80% of the applications received this year) and 1300 faculty members. After our meeting and Q & A with the Deans, we toured the Library, learned about their extensive access to e-books, online databases and automated check-out system, then visited the Heritage Museum and TASOL (Arabic as a second language) Institute. After lunch at Wild Jordan (a USAID funded NGO), we visited Columbia University’s new Global Center for Mideast Scholars and the Queen Rania Teaching Academy. At the Academy we learned about their strategic plan to reform teacher education, classroom instruction, and methodology. Currently much of elementary and secondary education is by rote, classes are large - 60 or more students, segregated by sex - and teachers, although they have university degrees, have no training in teaching their subjects.
Stay tuned for next week's report from southern Jordan and more adventures.
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