Editorial Staff

Mariam Memarsadeghi on Freeing Iran, Civic Ed, & Immigrant Portraits

/in , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

This week on “The Learning Curve,” co-host Cara Candal and guest co-host Derrell Bradford talk with Mariam Memarsadeghi, senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Mariam shares remembrances from her early years spent in the Shah’s Iran, and emigration to the U.S. shortly after Ayatollah Khomeini’s revolution in 1979. They discuss the massive cultural and civic differences between the Islamic Republic of Iran, with its government controlled by religious leaders, and modern liberal democracies like the U.S., with constitutionally limited government, and how this difference is manifested in the treatment of women and political dissidents. Mariam describes Tavaana, an organization she co-founded that is dedicated to a free and open Iran, and how it is using the internet and other means to advance democracy, civic education, and women’s rights in Iran. They also discuss her involvement with “We the People”: The Citizen and the Constitution, a nationwide civics contest for American high school students that is run by the Center for Civic Education. She descibes her experiences as a Presidential Leadership Scholar, and one of 43 individuals chosen as a portrait subject for President George W. Bush’s April 2021 book, Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants.

Stories of the Week: From Texas, California and Colorado to Tennessee and Georgia, school districts are using some federal stimulus funding to award “thank you” bonuses to teachers to prevent resignations and boost morale after COVID-19. In New Jersey, one of nine states that have mandated in-person learning, some parents are raising concerns about the poor condition of the schools their children are being forced to return to.

Guest:

Mariam Memarsadeghi is a senior fellow at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute. She is co-founder of Tavaana, a civil society capacity building and civic education project for the people of Iran. She has over 20 years of international civil society capacity building experience, including three years of post-conflict work in the Balkan region. She is a 2017 Presidential Leadership Scholar and an advocate for democracy, civic education, internet freedom, and women’s rights, particularly in Islamic contexts. Her writing has appeared in The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, Newsweek, and other publications. She is a frequent speaker at universities and think tanks worldwide, and has appeared on NPR, the PBS NewsHour, and C-SPAN, as well as other English, Persian, and Arabic language radio and television news programs. Ms. Memarsadeghi serves as a judge for the national finals of the “We the People” competition, a contest assessing knowledge of the Constitution among high school teams across the U.S. She was among the 43 individuals whose portrait President George W. Bush painted for his April, 2021 book, Out of Many, One: Portraits of America’s Immigrants. She was born in Tehran and emigrated to the U.S. shortly after the 1979 Iranian Revolution.

Guest Co-Host:

Derrell Bradford is the president of 50CAN. In this national role, he recruits and trains local leaders across the 50CAN network for roles as CAN executive directors, fellows, and YouCAN advocates. Derrell frequently contributes to education debates in print, digital, radio and TV media. A native of Baltimore, he attended the St. Paul’s School for Boys and the University of Pennsylvania, where he received a bachelor’s degree in English.

(The Learning Curve co-host Gerard Robinson is off this week.)

The next episode will air on Wednesday, July 28th, 2021 at 12 pm ET with guest, Robert Woodson, Sr., founder and president of the Woodson Center that supports neighborhood-based initiatives to revitalize low-income communities, as well as author and editor of the May 2021 book, Red, White, and Black.

Tweet of the Week:

News Links:

WSJ: Schools Are Turning Stimulus Funds Into Teacher Bonuses
https://www.wsj.com/articles/schools-are-turning-stimulus-funds-into-teacher-bonuses-11626600602?mod=mhp

Hechinger Report: “After a year and a half at home, some parents don’t want their kids returning to run-down schools”

After a year and a half at home, some parents don’t want their kids returning to run-down schools

Get new episodes of The Learning Curve in your inbox!

Related Posts

Susan Wise Bauer on Classical Education & Homeschooling

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Bob Bowdon & guest co-host Kerry McDonald talk with Susan Wise Bauer, writer, historian, homeschool parent, and author of The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home, as well as numerous other books.

Dick Komer on Espinoza v. Montana & the Bigoted Legacy of Blaine Amendments

0 Comments
/
On this episode of “The Learning Curve,” Bob & Cara are joined by Dick Komer, Senior Attorney with the Institute for Justice. Komer led the oral argument this week before the U.S. Supreme Court on behalf of the plaintiffs in the high-profile school choice case, Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue.

Derrell Bradford on the Future of Education Reform

0 Comments
/
This week on “The Learning Curve,” Bob Bowdon is joined by guest host Alisha Thomas Cromartie, personal growth coach, education leader, and former Georgia state legislator. They talk with Derrell Bradford, Executive Vice President of 50CAN, about the future of education reform.

Montse Alvarado on Protecting Religious Liberty in Schools & Society

0 Comments
/
Montse Alvarado of the Becket Fund joins The Learning Curve podcast this week to discuss Becket's work to protect religious liberty in K-12 education, the upcoming U.S. Supreme Court school choice case, and more.

Lance Izumi on How Charters Are Meeting Diverse Learning Needs

0 Comments
/
Happy New Year! This week on "The Learning Curve," Cara and Bob talk with Lance Izumi, Senior Director of the Center for Education at the Pacific Research Institute, about his new book, Choosing Diversity.

Will Fitzhugh on the Enduring Relevance of History Research & Writing

0 Comments
/
Will Fitzhugh, founder and editor of The Concord Review, an international journal that has published high school students’ history essays for 30 years, joins "The Learning Curve" this week.

Joy Pullmann on the Fallout from Common Core

Joy Pullmann, executive editor of The Federalist, talks with The Learning Curve about the mediocre NAEP and PISA results, after a decade of the Common Core national education standards and the failed experiment with federal involvement in standards, curricula, and tests. They also discuss social emotional learning, parental involvement, and the media’s coverage of K-12 education policy issues.

This Week on The Learning Curve: E.D. Hirsch, Jr. on Background Knowledge & Educational Equity

0 Comments
/
This week on "The Learning Curve," Professor E.D. Hirsch, Jr., founder and chairman of the Core Knowledge Foundation, professor emeritus at UVA, and acclaimed author, discusses a critical ingredient of academic achievement, the shared background knowledge needed for language proficiency and cultural literacy.

Steven Wilson on Anti-Intellectualism in K-12 Education

0 Comments
/
Co-host Bob Bowdon talks with Steven Wilson, Founder and former CEO of Ascend Learning, a charter school network in Brooklyn, New York. They discuss the emergence of anti-intellectualism in K-12 schooling.

Jason Bedrick on Religious Freedom & Private School Autonomy

0 Comments
/
Bob and Cara talk with Jason Bedrick, EdChoice’s director of policy, about New York’s controversial “substantial equivalency” proposal that would give the state Department of Education oversight of school curricula at yeshivas and other private and parochial academies.