Oral history of Iranian Islamic schools, Narrator: Mohammad Dadgostarniya

Mohsen Kazemi

Translated by: fereshteh Keshani

When I was a teacher, I had a plan in my class. I always would say to my good students that if they help weak students to get better marks, I''ll give them the same number of positive marks as a kind of reward to them. For example if there was a class that had 10 weak students I would divide them to work with smart students to make progress in their studies and prevent probable educational loss by this plan.

This is a part of 180 pages memoirs of Mohammad Dadgostarniya, one of the worthy teachers of Islamic schools that has been interviewed and compiled by capable researcher, Mahdi Kamoos. Chapters of the book have been arranged on the interview sessions.

First session and last session were held on October 5th 2008 and November 3rd 2008. Dadgostarniya has fluently expressed his memoirs, experiences, analysis and critiques about educational system since 1950s. His narration is the result of his experience, activity in Islamic schools of Now, Borhan, and Jame’e Ta’limat-e Eslami (Islamic Studies School), as teacher, manager and policy maker.

His narration can give a general idea about Sheikh Abbas Ali Islami (founder of Jame’e Ta’limat-e Eslami), Ayatollah Borhan and Sheykh Javad Foomani.
By reading Dadgostar’s memoirs, we will get familiar with education situation in 1950s, and after the August 19th 1953 coup d’état, activities of some political and religious groups such as Tudeh Party and Hojjatiyeh Association and also the influence of SAVAK in educational circles.
In his memoirs Dadgostarniya has expressed the educational structure of Jame’e Ta’limat-e Eslami, role of reading Quran, storytelling and satire in understanding lessons, educational technology and the role of school libraries.
His memoirs also cover the time after the victory of Islamic Revolution. In this period, he has worked as the assistance of educational affairs and deputy general director of Education Administration of Tehran. In his memories after the revolution he has also indicated “military front, cultural front”, “War Staff of Education Ministry”, martyrs’ family and Teachers-Parents Association and etc.

Mahdi Kamoos has mentioned that the interview and editing format of these memoirs are based on oral history methodology. In this part we’ll find out that interviewer has studied about education history in Iran and Islamic schools. He has had seven interviews in the narrator’s office (central office of Jame’e Ta’limat-e Eslami).

Researcher of this work states that the interview has been done without fear, verbal addition, and preserving syntax (structure and grammar), sentences order and the word style, and only informal words has changed to formal ones. He emphasizes that he has done some transferring in text for reserving coherence.

The book has a part called “A look at a life”; this part has been written and arranged by Behzad Tofigh based on Kamoos’s interviews and Ms.þSaboori’s archive interviews.

It is emphasized at the end of the introduction that complete and edited text of interviews has been confirmed by narrator (Mohammad Dadgostarniya) after some changes.

Index, pictures and part of documents are at the end of the book.

“Hedayat Mizan Cultural and Educational Institute” has published this book.