By Salam Madanat. She is the Director General of Alliance Academy Jordan. This essay was adapted, in part, from her AAJ commencement speech, May 22nd.
Our school, Alliance Academy Jordan (AAJ), held the graduation ceremony on May 22nd for our third cohort of 12 senior high school students. AAJ is a Christian school that combines academic excellence, inclusion of students with disabilities, and an education based on Christian values.
Founded in 2014 in Amman’s southern neighborhood of Al Yadoudeh, AAJ is owned and run by the Jordanian Christian and Missionary Alliance Church. The school’s founder, Rev. Habes Nemat, envisioned “a school that is accessible to every child without discrimination based on social standing, intellectual abilities, or physical/emotional disabilities. His goals were that every child deserves to grow, learn, and succeed without being marginalized or categorized.
Our approach to inclusion stems from the vision of King Abdullah II, who helped direct the Jordanian parliament to pass a law that shifts from a charity-based approach to a human rights model, mandating equal opportunities and reasonable accommodations. Jordan’s Law on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities No. 20 for the Year 2017 is a landmark human rights legislation. It calls for the prohibition of discrimination across all sectors and calls for fully inclusive education within a decade.
From the outset, AAJ enrolled children with physical and other disabilities and fully included them alongside all other students, providing additional support as needed. This graduation season witnessed the success of one of our students, Saba Hijazin. Saba, who has severe cerebral palsy, was among the graduates who completed all requirements. At Saba’s insistence on taking the British Ordinary Level (O-Level) exams, we requested special access arrangements from the British Council in Jordan to allow him to take the exams using a laptop and extra time. The result was outstanding.
Our commitment to inclusion has not come at the expense of high academic achievement. We have worked hard to provide an enabling environment for all students without lowering expectations. Our goal has always been to ensure that our students reach their God-given potential.
In parallel, we help students build both intellect and character as we prepare them for success and responsibility in life. Our teachers and staff work diligently to provide opportunities for students to excel in the examination hall, in the lab, on the playground, in the music and talent theatre, and in whatever form of creativity they pursue, and we have won big in local, regional, and international competitions.
Our Academy’s mission extends beyond mere academic instruction and social integration to encompass the preservation of fundamental values and principles. Today, the world is racing headlong toward modernization and development; yet, regrettably, it is also drifting toward chaos and imbalances.
Disintegration is now termed freedom, and deviation from established constants is called diversity; the mentor has become a device, the friend a screen, and the ultimate authority a book of unknown authorship. It is an era in which we are surrounded by means of communication more than ever before, yet at the same time, face threats to our genuine human connections greater than at any other time.
As our students leave the safe environment of their school, they will face a much bigger, more complicated world. The digital revolution is pumping an unlimited amount of information, philosophies, and questions into the environment that they will need to search for answers to.
Their faith and their place in this new world will be tested in more ways than we can imagine. While we, as educators, are wrestling with this plethora of information, its sources and credibility, and trying to find ways to address it, we have to wonder whether we are doing enough to prepare our graduating students for these challenges.
The graduation of our students is mirrored by milestones in hundreds of thousands of schools around the world, many founded by Christian leaders who value high-quality academic curricula alongside a strong Christian value system. While we are all called to recognize the importance of combining rigorous learning, we must ensure that this is done with character development rooted in our Christian faith.
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