Queen Rania's Speech at Teacher Skills Forum 2017

Assalamu Alaikum Wa rahmatullahi Wa barakatuh (May the peace, mercy, and blessings of God be with you)

I would like to start by welcoming our esteemed guests to Jordan. It is a great pleasure to have you here.

I would also like to thank everyone who has worked hard to attract experts and experienced educators to this platform. I hope your participation in this forum will be productive, and will enrich your knowledge, skills, and friendships.

A year has passed since our last meeting… a year replete with eventful occurrences. The global economy is stagnant, and the world is living in a state of polarization.

And just by looking around us, it becomes evident that even humanity fails humans sometimes.   

Uncertainty, doubt, and dejection have dominated conversations everywhere. We are in desperate need for hope and a brighter future, where prosperity can take hold.

We place our faith in God, and our hope in you next…in the hands of teachers. You are the leaders of hope in every classroom.

You always start your days in the name of God, with kind colorful morning greetings.

You have become the hope that beckons our children forth every day, instilling within them the true values of learning, teaching them the fundamentals of life.

Jordan strongly values your role in society, and to us, when we value someone we empower them.

We believe that at times like this, the best investment we can make is in our teachers. 

An investment whose return was partly realized when the “Initial Teacher Education Diploma” Program welcomed its first batch of Jordanian educators last year. And this year   almost two hundred highly skilled and strongly qualified educators will graduate from it.

Imagine the immense impact these individuals shall bear on each and every student, and the countless futures transformed as a result.

Five hundred other educators are expected to graduate from the same program the year after, and multiples of that in the years to come, until this direction becomes the defining path for everyone wishing to teach before entering a classroom.

For years, it has been my dream to provide teachers with the leverage, tools and skills they need to get their message across.

Not only to have them learn and understand the knowledge they teach, but to effectively deliver it to their students.

To have them learn the basics of lesson planning and the keys to capturing their students’ interest and evoking their curiosity…to introduce them to the essentials of effective communication and efficient instruction techniques.

Our last forum centered on the transition from answering the question of “what to teach?” to answering the question of “how to teach?”

The Queen Rania Teacher Academy has chosen “deconstruction and reconstruction” as the focus of this year’s Teacher Skills Forum, which refers to the process of deconstructing learning targets and reconstructing clear and understandable learning goals…much like engineers do.

Engineering after all is the art of pooling the necessary resources for the purpose of achieving certain goals, or constructing something new.

The more equipped a teacher is with skills and tools, the more solid and innovative his teaching will be.

A teacher who follows a solid plan is the one most capable of building the future we all aspire to, as both Jordanians and Arabs.

Visions without carefully devised plans are mere dreams, prone to dissipation in the face of tough challenges.

They say that raising a child is easier than changing a man. Honorable guests… a great opportunity presents itself for the construction of a generation that can forge the path ahead.

You are the engineers of the future, so build it well; and teach your students how to master building it too.

Teach them about hard work and resilience in the face of hardships and difficulties. Teach them how to build homes and homelands based on peace and co-existence.

Teach them that building bridges can spare them the need to raise barriers and erect walls. Teach them to dream, persevere, and thank God for His blessings.

Teach them that their differences are worthy of celebration…tell them that we are all impatiently waiting to see the future they will create.

Tell them that the dreams of each and every one of them are important, and that their attainment is possible. Always give them hope, because where there is hope there is prosperity.  

We wish that this forum will serve you just as well as you will serve it.

Assalamu Alaikum Wa rahmatullahi Wa barakatuh.