The Learning Curve Podcast

Wednesdays at 12 pm

Join Pioneer every Wednesday for insight and perspective on education, learning trends, school choice, and public policy. Our hosts and guests offer a mix of provocative commentary as they interview school leaders, innovators, bestselling authors, policymakers, and more.

Listeners can find The Learning Curve on iTunes (Apple Podcasts), Stitcher, Spotify, and the Choice Media mobile app. Also find it online at Ricochet and Pioneer Institute. Follow The Learning Curve on:

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ExcelinEd’s Dr. Kymyona Burk on Mississippi, Early Literacy, & Reading Science

This week on The Learning Curve, co-hosts Alisha Searcy and U-Arkansas Prof. Albert Cheng interview Dr. Kymyona Burk, Senior Policy Fellow at ExcelinEd and former state literacy director for Mississippi. Dr. Burk shares insights from her remarkable career in K-12 education reform. She discusses her journey from classroom teacher to leading transformative literacy initiatives in Mississippi that resulted in groundbreaking improvements in early literacy and NAEP reading scores.
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U.K. Cambridge’s Prof. David Abulafia on Oceans, Seas, & Global Trade

This week on The Learning Curve, Professor David Abulafia from Cambridge University discusses the many roles of the world’s oceans in human history and trade. He focuses on how the Pacific, Indian, and Atlantic oceans, along with the Mediterranean Sea, have spurred the rise of civilizations. He concludes with a reading from his book The Boundless Sea: A Human History of the Oceans.
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Dr. Peter Wood on Diversity and Anger in America

This week on The Learning Curve, Dr. Peter Wood, president of the National Association of Scholars, discusses the invention of the modern concept of diversity, the history of U.S. Supreme Court rulings on the concepts of diversity and race in college admissions, and how a culture of anger seems to pervade American life.
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UConn’s Prof. Manisha Sinha on The Slave’s Cause: A History of Abolition

This week on The Learning Curve, UConn Professor Manisha Sinha discusses the influential figures and seminal events that created the abolitionist movement. She describes the legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad, the passage of the Thirteenth Amendment, and other key moments in the fight to end slavery.
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Pulitzer Winner Tamara Payne on the Life and Legacy of Malcolm X

This week on The Learning Curve, guest cohosts Alisha Searcy and Mariam Memarsadeghi interview Tamara Payne, award-winning biographer, about Malcolm X. They delve into his early life, rise in the Nation of Islam, civil rights movement involvement, pilgrimage, assassination, and ongoing legacy debate. Ms. Payne concludes with a reading from her book.
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Johns Hopkins’ Dr. David Steiner on Teaching Wisdom in Schools

This week on The Learning Curve, guest cohosts Charlie Chieppo and Alisha Searcy join Dr. David Steiner for a wide-ranging discussion about the importance of education as a means of transmitting enduring wisdom to young people.
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Pulitzer Winner Stacy Schiff on Samuel Adams & American Independence

This week for the Fourth of July, the Learning Curve interviews Pulitzer Prize-winning biographer Stacy Schiff, who explores the American revolutionary Samuel Adams. She discusses Adams’ background, religion, and formative intellectual development, including the influences that Greco-Roman history, the Bible, and Enlightenment thinkers had upon his life and political thought.
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