Bill Gates Wants To Remake the Way History Is Taught. Should We Let Him?

theodp (442580) writes With his Big History Project, the NY Times' Andrew Ross Sorkin reports that Bill Gates wants to remake the way history is taught (intro video). Last month, the Univ. of California system announced that a version of the Big History Project course could be counted in place of a more traditional World History class, paving the way for the state's 1,300 high schools to offer it. Still, not everyone's keen on the idea. "Is this Bill Gates's history?" asks NYU's Diane Ravitch. "And should it be labeled 'Bill Gates's History'? Because Bill Gates's history would be very different from somebody else's who wasn't worth $50-60 billion." Of the opposition to Gates, Scott L. Thomas of Claremont Graduate University explains, 'Frankly, in the eyes of the critics, he's really not an expert. He just happens to be a guy that watched a DVD and thought it was a good idea and had a bunch of money to fund it."

Comments

Re:So long as it is consential

[dfenstrate]

I really think school districts ought to start performing audits of the expenses associated with receiving federal money. Some districts have found, for example, that if they opt out of the federal school lunch guidelines championed by the first lady, the programs are quickly back in the black. Less wasted food, more purchases, and no time spent verifying compliance for grant money. The federal funds were insufficient to cover the losses associated with the mandates that came with the money.

I suspect a lot of federal school mandates would end up the same way. Ditching federal money might allow for a number of compliance administrators to be cut from a school district, and give teachers more time to do their jobs.

Hell ya

[Snotnose]

Anything is better than the way I was taught history. In high school it was nothing but names and dates. No context, no motivation, nothing.

About 30 years ago there was a show called Our World on TV. It gave context, explained motivations, and in general made history pretty damned interesting. Too bad the show only lasted 1 season.

Then I had a college history class. Yep, back to names and dates and not much else.

History can be interesting, the way it's taught in school is a sham.

Re:Is the history he teaches incorrect?

[houghi]

Nothing more so then in teaching history.

When I was 15 I moved from one country to another in Europe with (almost obviously) overlapping history. It amazed me how differently the outcome of wars would be explained, depending on what side they wanted to let me learn.

Even though all facts were correct, the emphesis on what happend was greatly different. Often it was more about battles and not so much wars.

What it learned me was that I should ALWAYS doubt what is being said and get information from at least both sides.

So much so that I wonder if the story of LotR is not so much that the winners wanted segregation (of hobbits, elves and other races) where the losers were fighting for unity and equality and were just represented in an evil way by the winners.

Re:Hell no

[Half-pint HAL]

In this case, though, he's not wrong. History is too often taught as a series of snapshots of a given time. But you cannot understand the changes of borders in continental Europe without a deep understanding of geography -- you need to understand river systems as the "motorways", and the shift of river systems to being seen as "defensible borders". It's this whole system that leads to the dissatisfaction with cross-border ethnic groups like the Basques and the Catalans. The France-Spain border is now defined by mountains, but when travel by sea was quicker than travel by land, a mountain range was inconsequential to a people with good access to coastlines. And just try to consider Caesar's campaigns and the differences between transalpine and cisalpine Gaul without understanding the Alps and the Massif Central.

This is not Gates's history class, it's a university professor's history class.

Re:Hell no

[ColdWetDog]

You are better off reading the Baroque Cycle. It's much more entertaining and even partially correct.

Re:"He's really not an expert"

[Kohath]

He should stick to curing diseases like malaria. Schools are too mixed up with politics, money, and government control of peoples' lives.

If he wants to help with education, he should fund scholarships so more parents could send their kids to a school of their choice.

Re:That depends...

[MisterSquid]

Does Bill Gates have any credentials to show he is an expert in the field of teaching history?

Gates doesn't even have an undergraduate degree.

Nothing he's so far achieved among his many considerable accomplishments leads me to believe he understands anything about the requirements of rigorous intellectual thought or well-constructed rational arguments.

Re: So long as it is consential

[JWW]

Yes, but the corporations don't come and shoot you if you don't choose to give them your money.

Progressives always argue against BIG corporations and they always argue FOR the largest and most powerful organization on the planet being given MORE power. Their blind faith in the state is terrifying.

Re:Hell no

[crunchygranola]

I don't think you can call someone who got a perfect score on their SAT an utter moron

Bill Gates did not get a perfect SAT score. He got a very good one, 1590 out of 1600, but not perfect. Being a billionaire does not entitle you to score inflation.