WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.859 Welcome to today's deep dive. I'm really glad 00:00:02.859 --> 00:00:05.059 you're here with us because today we're trying 00:00:05.059 --> 00:00:06.660 a bit of an experiment and I think you're going 00:00:06.660 --> 00:00:08.759 to love it. Yeah, it's definitely a unique approach 00:00:08.759 --> 00:00:10.939 for us today. Right. Because usually we take 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:14.220 a massive stack of articles, complex research 00:00:14.220 --> 00:00:17.000 papers, heavy books, and we distill them down 00:00:17.000 --> 00:00:19.239 so you don't have to read them all. But today 00:00:19.239 --> 00:00:22.039 our source materials is actually incredibly brief. 00:00:22.379 --> 00:00:25.820 We're looking at a single relatively short Wikipedia 00:00:25.820 --> 00:00:28.579 page about a place called the Pietro della Valle 00:00:28.579 --> 00:00:34.170 Italian School in Tehran, Iran. It's such a great 00:00:34.170 --> 00:00:36.429 exercise for a deep dive, really. Oh, absolutely. 00:00:36.689 --> 00:00:40.369 Because in an age of constant information overload, 00:00:40.789 --> 00:00:43.229 we're just so conditioned to think we need hundreds 00:00:43.229 --> 00:00:45.929 of pages to understand a topic. We assume more 00:00:45.929 --> 00:00:48.869 data equals more insight. Which is almost never 00:00:48.869 --> 00:00:51.969 true. Right. Honestly, sometimes the most profound 00:00:51.969 --> 00:00:54.229 realizations don't come from massive textbooks. 00:00:54.530 --> 00:00:57.409 They come from analyzing the quiet details. When 00:00:57.409 --> 00:01:00.229 you look closely at things like... lists of active 00:01:00.229 --> 00:01:03.450 versus defunct institutions or how a government 00:01:03.450 --> 00:01:07.090 categorizes its overseas outposts, you start 00:01:07.090 --> 00:01:10.349 to spot much larger global patterns just hiding 00:01:10.349 --> 00:01:12.950 in plain sight. Exactly. And that is exactly 00:01:12.950 --> 00:01:15.409 our mission for this deep dive. We're going to 00:01:15.409 --> 00:01:18.349 use this one specific school as a magnifying 00:01:18.349 --> 00:01:22.340 glass. I love that framing. Thanks. By examining 00:01:22.340 --> 00:01:25.060 its ground -level details, looking at its sister 00:01:25.060 --> 00:01:27.079 schools around the world, and then zooming out 00:01:27.079 --> 00:01:29.159 to see the other international schools in Tehran, 00:01:29.239 --> 00:01:31.560 we're going to uncover a really compelling story 00:01:31.560 --> 00:01:33.959 about global connections and shifting international 00:01:33.959 --> 00:01:36.560 footprints. It's a fascinating story. Okay, let's 00:01:36.560 --> 00:01:38.739 unpack this, starting right at the street level. 00:01:38.859 --> 00:01:41.140 The physical reality of the school itself. Where 00:01:41.140 --> 00:01:43.890 is it planted? Right. So the page places it in 00:01:43.890 --> 00:01:46.370 Farmani, which is a district in Shamir in Tehran. 00:01:46.430 --> 00:01:49.150 And we even get the exact street address, which 00:01:49.150 --> 00:01:53.689 is Lavasani Avenue, number 47, zip code 195 -464 00:01:53.689 --> 00:01:56.849 -3113. They even included the exact geographic 00:01:56.849 --> 00:02:00.150 coordinates. They did. 35 degrees, 48 minutes, 00:02:00.269 --> 00:02:03.629 03 seconds north and 51 degrees, 27 minutes, 00:02:03.709 --> 00:02:06.750 56 seconds east. I'm treating it like an audio 00:02:06.750 --> 00:02:09.509 treasure map for you. It's great because having 00:02:09.509 --> 00:02:12.669 that level of granular detail, it really grounds 00:02:12.669 --> 00:02:14.969 the whole concept. It reminds you that this isn't 00:02:14.969 --> 00:02:17.909 just an abstract diplomatic idea. Right. It's 00:02:17.909 --> 00:02:21.409 a real building on a real street where real students 00:02:21.409 --> 00:02:23.860 walk through the doors every morning. And stepping 00:02:23.860 --> 00:02:25.939 through those doors represents a border crossing 00:02:25.939 --> 00:02:28.280 of sorts, right? Oh, completely. An international 00:02:28.280 --> 00:02:30.500 school is essentially a microenvironment. You 00:02:30.500 --> 00:02:33.319 have the host city outside, but inside you're 00:02:33.319 --> 00:02:35.259 stepping into a completely different cultural 00:02:35.259 --> 00:02:37.319 and educational framework. You can even hear 00:02:37.319 --> 00:02:39.039 that crossover in the name of the school itself. 00:02:39.439 --> 00:02:42.060 Yeah, the linguistic shift. Exactly. So in Italian, 00:02:42.180 --> 00:02:44.500 it's the Scuola Italiana Pietro della Valle. 00:02:44.620 --> 00:02:47.360 And then we have the Romanized Persian equivalent, 00:02:47.659 --> 00:02:51.639 Madrasi Italiae Pietro della Valle. Just saying 00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:53.879 them back to back like that, you hear the linguistic 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:56.139 bridge the school is trying to build. You really 00:02:56.139 --> 00:02:58.759 do. Though there is a brilliant little quirk 00:02:58.759 --> 00:03:01.740 about that name, Pietro della Valle. Oh, I was 00:03:01.740 --> 00:03:04.159 waiting for this. Yet the source text covers 00:03:04.159 --> 00:03:06.280 the location, the curriculum, the global network, 00:03:06.539 --> 00:03:09.599 but it never actually bothers to explain. who 00:03:09.599 --> 00:03:11.900 Pietro Della Valle is. I kept looking for a short 00:03:11.900 --> 00:03:14.439 biography or just some context, and it's just 00:03:14.439 --> 00:03:17.960 a total Wikipedia dead end on this specific page. 00:03:18.159 --> 00:03:20.280 Which is honestly one of my favorite things about 00:03:20.280 --> 00:03:23.139 reading these hyper -focused entries. How so? 00:03:23.620 --> 00:03:25.479 Well, it encourages your independent curiosity. 00:03:25.900 --> 00:03:28.020 Sometimes sources just draw breadcrumbs for us 00:03:28.020 --> 00:03:30.400 to follow later. We don't need his biography 00:03:30.400 --> 00:03:32.520 to understand the school's function today, so 00:03:32.520 --> 00:03:35.000 for now he just gets to be the namesake mystery 00:03:35.000 --> 00:03:37.699 of our deep dive. A mystery man with a school 00:03:37.699 --> 00:03:41.620 in Tehran. I like it. But moving past the name, 00:03:41.659 --> 00:03:43.900 the curriculum itself is fascinating, too. The 00:03:43.900 --> 00:03:46.539 school offers courses all the way from kindergarten 00:03:46.539 --> 00:03:49.539 through senior high school. And naturally, it 00:03:49.539 --> 00:03:52.400 offers Italian language courses. But what caught 00:03:52.400 --> 00:03:54.860 my eye is that these language courses are explicitly 00:03:54.860 --> 00:04:00.300 based on CEFR and CILs. Now, the page doesn't 00:04:00.300 --> 00:04:02.400 spell those acronyms out. It just drops them 00:04:02.400 --> 00:04:04.180 in. Right. And this is where a little structural 00:04:04.180 --> 00:04:07.699 context really helps. So CEFR is the Common European. 00:04:07.979 --> 00:04:10.300 framework of reference for languages. OK. It's 00:04:10.300 --> 00:04:12.680 the standard European grading scale that goes 00:04:12.680 --> 00:04:15.280 from A1 for absolute beginners all the way up 00:04:15.280 --> 00:04:18.160 to C2 for absolute fluency. So it's not just 00:04:18.160 --> 00:04:20.740 a casual conversational Italian class they're 00:04:20.740 --> 00:04:23.040 running in this building. Not at all. And that's 00:04:23.040 --> 00:04:25.860 a crucial point. By locking their curriculum 00:04:25.860 --> 00:04:29.620 into the CEFR framework, they are offering what 00:04:29.620 --> 00:04:32.220 is essentially a portable educational currency. 00:04:32.220 --> 00:04:35.500 A portable currency. Yeah. If a student's family 00:04:35.500 --> 00:04:38.620 moves from Tehran to Rome or really anywhere 00:04:38.620 --> 00:04:41.439 else in Europe, a B2 or C1 certification from 00:04:41.439 --> 00:04:44.079 this specific school is instantly recognized. 00:04:44.240 --> 00:04:46.740 It holds weight outside the walls of that building. 00:04:46.879 --> 00:04:49.240 It's institutional scaffolding. That makes a 00:04:49.240 --> 00:04:51.680 lot of sense. It anchors the students to a recognized 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.470 global standard. And speaking of global standards, 00:04:54.610 --> 00:04:56.910 that standardized language framework isn't just 00:04:56.910 --> 00:04:59.949 for this one building in Iran. No, it's everywhere. 00:05:00.129 --> 00:05:02.170 Right. It's what connects this school in Tehran 00:05:02.170 --> 00:05:06.149 to a massive worldwide web of Italian schools. 00:05:06.610 --> 00:05:08.949 The page gives us a breakdown of this network, 00:05:09.089 --> 00:05:11.209 and there's a really sharp division right at 00:05:11.209 --> 00:05:14.089 the top. The structural hierarchy. The text categorizes 00:05:14.089 --> 00:05:17.230 Italian international schools globally based 00:05:17.230 --> 00:05:19.050 on the relationship with the Italian government. 00:05:19.569 --> 00:05:22.670 It points out that schools with the word stettle. 00:05:23.100 --> 00:05:25.600 in their name, are owned and operated directly 00:05:25.600 --> 00:05:27.720 by the Italian state. Well, the rest of the schools 00:05:27.720 --> 00:05:30.339 on the list are private. Right. Wait, so if a 00:05:30.339 --> 00:05:32.120 school isn't state, does that mean anyone can 00:05:32.120 --> 00:05:35.160 just open a building, hire some teachers, and 00:05:35.160 --> 00:05:37.279 call it an Italian school? Theoretically, yes. 00:05:37.399 --> 00:05:39.860 Yeah. I mean, private entities, cultural groups, 00:05:39.939 --> 00:05:42.500 or expatriate communities can organize and fund 00:05:42.500 --> 00:05:44.819 their own schools. Okay. But the state still 00:05:44.819 --> 00:05:47.459 wants a say in the matter. Yeah. which brings 00:05:47.459 --> 00:05:49.939 us to the most passive -aggressive piece of punctuation 00:05:49.939 --> 00:05:53.480 in the entire document. The asterisk. Yes, the 00:05:53.480 --> 00:05:56.680 infamous asterisk. The text notes that any school 00:05:56.680 --> 00:05:59.959 marked with an asterisk is explicitly not recognized 00:05:59.959 --> 00:06:02.379 by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs as 00:06:02.379 --> 00:06:05.199 an official Italian school. It's brutal. Imagine 00:06:05.199 --> 00:06:07.360 pouring resources into an international school, 00:06:07.540 --> 00:06:10.879 teaching Italian, waving the flag, and the Ministry 00:06:10.879 --> 00:06:13.319 of Foreign Affairs just slaps an asterisk next 00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:15.759 to your name on the official roster. It's a perfect 00:06:15.759 --> 00:06:17.980 illustration of the tension between private cultural 00:06:17.980 --> 00:06:21.439 initiatives and state branding. The Italian government 00:06:21.439 --> 00:06:24.459 is fiercely protective of what officially represents 00:06:24.459 --> 00:06:27.839 Italy abroad. That makes sense. Soft power only 00:06:27.839 --> 00:06:31.269 works if there is quality control. If a private 00:06:31.269 --> 00:06:33.889 school isn't meeting those CEFR standards we 00:06:33.889 --> 00:06:36.290 talked about or isn't aligning with the state's 00:06:36.290 --> 00:06:39.149 educational philosophy, the ministry withholds 00:06:39.149 --> 00:06:41.649 its endorsement. Wow. That asterisk is essentially 00:06:41.649 --> 00:06:44.009 a bureaucratic way of saying they might be teaching 00:06:44.009 --> 00:06:47.069 our language, but they don't speak for us. Losing 00:06:47.069 --> 00:06:49.410 that official recognition must have real consequences 00:06:49.410 --> 00:06:52.189 for a school's prestige or even its ability to 00:06:52.189 --> 00:06:55.819 attract expatriate families. But looking at the 00:06:55.819 --> 00:06:57.959 broader list of recognized schools, both the 00:06:57.959 --> 00:07:00.660 state ones and the private ones, the geographical 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:03.699 spread is wild. They have outposts in Paris like 00:07:03.699 --> 00:07:06.759 the Leonardo da Vinci School and the Galileo 00:07:06.759 --> 00:07:09.600 Galilei in Istanbul. Over in the Americas, there's 00:07:09.600 --> 00:07:11.860 the Cristoforo Colombo School in Buenos Aires 00:07:11.860 --> 00:07:15.019 and the Goodielmo Marconi in New York. Notice 00:07:15.019 --> 00:07:17.519 the naming conventions across that spread. Da 00:07:17.519 --> 00:07:20.879 Vinci, Galilei, Colombo, Marconi. They are exporting 00:07:20.879 --> 00:07:23.279 their heavy hitters. Exactly. When you're building 00:07:23.279 --> 00:07:26.100 a cultural footprint overseas, you don't just 00:07:26.100 --> 00:07:28.939 export the language, you export your titans of 00:07:28.939 --> 00:07:32.040 science, art, and exploration. It's a very deliberate 00:07:32.040 --> 00:07:35.079 form of national branding. And that brand stretches 00:07:35.079 --> 00:07:38.259 into Africa and the Middle East, too. The text 00:07:38.259 --> 00:07:41.379 highlights a school in Addis Ababa, among others. 00:07:41.720 --> 00:07:44.019 But as you look at how the Italian government 00:07:44.019 --> 00:07:46.879 organizes this massive multi -continent footprint, 00:07:47.339 --> 00:07:49.819 things get a little strange from an administrative 00:07:49.819 --> 00:07:52.660 perspective. What's fascinating here is a bureaucratic 00:07:52.660 --> 00:07:55.579 anomaly hiding right in plain sight within the 00:07:55.579 --> 00:07:57.879 formatting of the list itself. Yeah, this part 00:07:57.879 --> 00:08:00.160 is crazy. So when the source lists the privately 00:08:00.160 --> 00:08:02.680 operated international schools, the Italian Ministry 00:08:02.680 --> 00:08:05.040 of Foreign Affairs actually classifies Turkey 00:08:05.040 --> 00:08:08.089 as part of Europe. This is why looking at bureaucratic 00:08:08.089 --> 00:08:11.050 lists is so rewarding. Administrative classifications 00:08:11.050 --> 00:08:13.910 often completely ignore strict geographic or 00:08:13.910 --> 00:08:16.790 tectonic boundaries. A cartographer might draw 00:08:16.790 --> 00:08:19.129 the line between Europe and Asia down the Bosphorus 00:08:19.129 --> 00:08:21.970 Strait in Istanbul. But a government ministry 00:08:21.970 --> 00:08:25.389 organizing a private school network draws the 00:08:25.389 --> 00:08:28.269 line based on something else entirely. perhaps 00:08:28.269 --> 00:08:31.069 regulatory alignment, historical diplomatic zones, 00:08:31.250 --> 00:08:33.710 or just administrative convenience. It's like 00:08:33.710 --> 00:08:36.470 the bureaucracy creates its own alternate version 00:08:36.470 --> 00:08:39.029 of world geography just to make the paperwork 00:08:39.029 --> 00:08:41.950 flow better. Precisely. The map conforms to the 00:08:41.950 --> 00:08:44.509 ministry, not the other way around. That's wild 00:08:44.509 --> 00:08:48.039 to think about. Amidst all these active schools 00:08:48.039 --> 00:08:51.159 spanning from Buenos Aires to Istanbul, there 00:08:51.159 --> 00:08:54.460 is one final, very stark category on the global 00:08:54.460 --> 00:08:57.720 network list. It's just labeled closed. And for 00:08:57.720 --> 00:09:00.360 the entire globe, there is only one Italian state 00:09:00.360 --> 00:09:03.320 school listed under it. The Istituto Italiano 00:09:03.320 --> 00:09:06.700 Statale Omnicomprensivo in Asmara, Eritrea. A 00:09:06.700 --> 00:09:09.000 completely closed chapter. The text doesn't tell 00:09:09.000 --> 00:09:10.980 us when it closed or why. It just sits there 00:09:10.980 --> 00:09:13.600 as a single solitary entry. Think about the immense 00:09:13.600 --> 00:09:16.179 effort, the diplomatic negotiations, and the 00:09:16.179 --> 00:09:18.480 capital required to open a state -owned international 00:09:18.480 --> 00:09:21.379 school. It is a massive undertaking. So when 00:09:21.379 --> 00:09:23.259 a government officially shutters a state school, 00:09:23.600 --> 00:09:27.059 it represents a significant turning point. It's 00:09:27.059 --> 00:09:29.100 a place where a cultural and educational bridge 00:09:29.100 --> 00:09:32.820 was built, utilized, and then ultimately dismantled. 00:09:32.899 --> 00:09:36.039 Which is a perfect pivot back to Tehran. Because 00:09:36.039 --> 00:09:38.620 the concept of institutions opening and closing 00:09:38.620 --> 00:09:40.720 brings us to the most revealing part of this 00:09:40.720 --> 00:09:43.460 entire deep dive. The source material doesn't 00:09:43.460 --> 00:09:46.320 just list Italian schools globally. It also lists 00:09:46.320 --> 00:09:48.519 the other international schools operating locally 00:09:48.519 --> 00:09:50.980 in Tehran alongside our Pietro della Veo school. 00:09:51.259 --> 00:09:53.759 And this is where that single Wikipedia page 00:09:53.759 --> 00:09:57.019 acts most powerfully as a magnifying glass. By 00:09:57.019 --> 00:09:59.500 showing us the local ecosystem, we get to see 00:09:59.500 --> 00:10:02.149 the shifting plates of global diplomacy. Here's 00:10:02.149 --> 00:10:03.649 where it gets really interesting. Let's look 00:10:03.649 --> 00:10:06.190 at the active roster first. These are the schools 00:10:06.190 --> 00:10:08.509 that are currently open and operating in Tehran 00:10:08.509 --> 00:10:11.009 today. We have the École Française. The French 00:10:11.009 --> 00:10:13.570 school. Right. The German Embassy School, the 00:10:13.570 --> 00:10:15.970 Kendria Vigilaya, which is the Indian International 00:10:15.970 --> 00:10:19.490 School, the Tehran Japanese School, the Tehran 00:10:19.490 --> 00:10:22.370 Korean School, the Pakistan Embassy International 00:10:22.370 --> 00:10:25.889 School, and a general Tehran International School. 00:10:26.149 --> 00:10:28.629 If you look at that lineup, what stands out to 00:10:28.629 --> 00:10:30.799 you? While it's heavily weighted toward major 00:10:30.799 --> 00:10:33.659 Asian economies and a few key European nations, 00:10:33.740 --> 00:10:37.769 you have France, Germany, Italy, alongside India, 00:10:37.990 --> 00:10:41.070 Japan, South Korea, and Pakistan. Right. And 00:10:41.070 --> 00:10:44.009 an active international school is usually a lagging 00:10:44.009 --> 00:10:46.870 indicator of robust economic and diplomatic ties. 00:10:47.169 --> 00:10:50.330 You need a critical mass of expatriate families, 00:10:50.610 --> 00:10:53.690 diplomats, engineers, business executives living 00:10:53.690 --> 00:10:56.529 in a city to keep these schools funded and populated. 00:10:56.769 --> 00:10:59.309 Makes sense. So that active list tells us exactly 00:10:59.309 --> 00:11:01.889 who is currently doing business and maintaining 00:11:01.889 --> 00:11:05.019 strong diplomatic channels in Tehran. OK, but 00:11:05.019 --> 00:11:07.419 then we get to the second list, the defunct roster. 00:11:07.720 --> 00:11:09.559 Yeah. These are the schools in Iran that are 00:11:09.559 --> 00:11:11.820 no longer operating. The British School of Tehran, 00:11:11.940 --> 00:11:14.580 the Tehran American School, the Community School 00:11:14.580 --> 00:11:17.360 of Tehran, the Iran Bethel School, the Iran Zemin 00:11:17.360 --> 00:11:20.039 School. And oddly enough, the American School 00:11:20.039 --> 00:11:22.179 of Isfahan, which isn't even in Tehran, but it 00:11:22.179 --> 00:11:24.620 gets grouped into this defunct category on the 00:11:24.620 --> 00:11:26.679 page anyway. If we connect this to the bigger 00:11:26.679 --> 00:11:29.139 picture. Without having to open a single history 00:11:29.139 --> 00:11:31.379 book, without reading a geopolitical think piece, 00:11:31.519 --> 00:11:34.799 you can see a massive paradigm shift. The contrast 00:11:34.799 --> 00:11:38.299 is jarring. The active list is thriving with 00:11:38.299 --> 00:11:41.519 European and Asian institutions. The defunct 00:11:41.519 --> 00:11:44.159 list is dominated by American and British schools, 00:11:44.360 --> 00:11:47.059 sitting side by side with historic sounding places 00:11:47.059 --> 00:11:50.850 like the Iran Bethel School. This raises an important 00:11:50.850 --> 00:11:53.149 question about how we view educational infrastructure. 00:11:53.450 --> 00:11:55.590 We tend to think of high schools as politically 00:11:55.590 --> 00:11:58.870 neutral spaces, just classrooms and chalkboards. 00:11:59.049 --> 00:12:01.309 Right, just kids learning math. Exactly. But 00:12:01.309 --> 00:12:03.570 an international school is a physical manifestation 00:12:03.570 --> 00:12:06.789 of a bilateral relationship. When a relationship 00:12:06.789 --> 00:12:09.169 between two countries is strong and cooperative, 00:12:09.490 --> 00:12:12.610 the school thrives. When that relationship breaks 00:12:12.610 --> 00:12:15.289 down, the families leave, the funding stops, 00:12:15.570 --> 00:12:18.009 and the school becomes defunct. The text doesn't 00:12:18.009 --> 00:12:20.350 even need to explain decades of foreign policy 00:12:20.350 --> 00:12:23.509 shifts. The simple headings of active and defunct 00:12:23.509 --> 00:12:25.870 do all the narrative heavy lifting. You just 00:12:25.870 --> 00:12:28.769 look at the names under each column and the geopolitical 00:12:28.769 --> 00:12:31.389 story tells itself. Exactly. And the inclusion 00:12:31.389 --> 00:12:33.389 of the American school of Isfahan on that list 00:12:33.389 --> 00:12:36.129 is a really great catch. Isfahan is hundreds 00:12:36.129 --> 00:12:38.470 of miles from Tehran. But for whoever compiled 00:12:38.470 --> 00:12:41.289 this information, the American educational footprint 00:12:41.289 --> 00:12:44.669 in Iran was viewed as a single defunct monolithic 00:12:44.669 --> 00:12:48.490 entity, regardless of the specific city. It underscores 00:12:48.490 --> 00:12:51.470 how total that diplomatic shift was. The physical 00:12:51.470 --> 00:12:54.110 buildings might still be standing, perhaps repurposed 00:12:54.110 --> 00:12:56.830 into local schools or government offices, but 00:12:56.830 --> 00:12:58.710 the international bridge they represented is 00:12:58.710 --> 00:13:03.159 gone. So what does this all mean? We started 00:13:03.159 --> 00:13:05.720 with a tiny, highly constrained mission look 00:13:05.720 --> 00:13:08.659 at a brief Wikipedia page about the Pietro della 00:13:08.659 --> 00:13:12.019 Valle Italian School, located at Lavasani Avenue 00:13:12.019 --> 00:13:15.539 number 47. And from that one pinpoint on the 00:13:15.539 --> 00:13:18.100 map, we've unpacked a staggering amount of context. 00:13:18.419 --> 00:13:20.399 We covered a lot of ground today. We looked at 00:13:20.399 --> 00:13:22.620 how a curriculum based on European standards 00:13:22.620 --> 00:13:25.399 acts as a portable currency for expatriate families. 00:13:25.639 --> 00:13:27.639 We dug into the bureaucratic tension between 00:13:27.639 --> 00:13:30.240 private enterprises and state -owned, statal 00:13:30.240 --> 00:13:32.299 schools, complete with the passive -aggressive 00:13:32.299 --> 00:13:34.840 asterisk of non -recognition. We explored how 00:13:34.840 --> 00:13:37.639 government ministries draw their own maps, casually 00:13:37.639 --> 00:13:40.039 grouping countries like Turkey into Europe just 00:13:40.039 --> 00:13:41.799 to make their administrative networks function 00:13:41.799 --> 00:13:44.720 smoothly. And we traced how a nation exports 00:13:44.720 --> 00:13:48.399 its cultural titans, Da Vinci, Colombo, Marconi, 00:13:48.399 --> 00:13:51.539 to build soft power from Buenos Aires to Addis 00:13:51.539 --> 00:13:55.100 Ababa. But most importantly, we read the silent 00:13:55.100 --> 00:13:57.419 stories told by the shifting landscape of international 00:13:57.419 --> 00:14:00.120 schools in Tehran itself. I think the biggest 00:14:00.120 --> 00:14:01.940 takeaway for you listening to this is that the 00:14:01.940 --> 00:14:04.779 built environment is never neutral. It is deeply 00:14:04.779 --> 00:14:07.750 connected to international relations. Knowledge 00:14:07.750 --> 00:14:11.210 is most valuable when we realize that the physical 00:14:11.210 --> 00:14:13.750 places around us, even something as seemingly 00:14:13.750 --> 00:14:15.669 mundane as a neighborhood high school teaching 00:14:15.669 --> 00:14:19.330 Italian, are actually nodes in a massive, invisible 00:14:19.330 --> 00:14:22.350 global web, a web of diplomacy, bureaucracy, 00:14:22.730 --> 00:14:24.909 and cultural exchange. It makes you look at city 00:14:24.909 --> 00:14:26.789 streets completely differently, which brings 00:14:26.789 --> 00:14:28.509 me to a final thought I want to leave you with 00:14:28.509 --> 00:14:31.289 today. We spent all this time analyzing the international 00:14:31.289 --> 00:14:33.490 footprint in Tehran and the Italian footprint 00:14:33.490 --> 00:14:35.929 globally through the lens of active and defunct 00:14:35.929 --> 00:14:38.129 schools. But take a moment to look at your own 00:14:38.129 --> 00:14:40.240 city today. Look at the international schools, 00:14:40.460 --> 00:14:42.740 the foreign cultural centers, the consulates, 00:14:42.740 --> 00:14:44.899 or even the international businesses in your 00:14:44.899 --> 00:14:47.340 area. If someone were to read a list of them 00:14:47.340 --> 00:14:50.440 50 years from now, categorizing them into active 00:14:50.440 --> 00:14:53.519 and defunct, what story would that list tell 00:14:53.519 --> 00:14:55.360 about the changing world we are living in right 00:14:55.360 --> 00:14:58.139 now? It's something to mull over the next time 00:14:58.139 --> 00:15:00.220 you walk past a school with a foreign flag out 00:15:00.220 --> 00:15:02.600 front. Thank you so much for joining us on this 00:15:02.600 --> 00:15:03.100 deep dive.