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

So long as it is consential

[Karmashock]

I think his "common core" plan has largely backfired because it was rolled out on a federal level and states were pretty much strong armed into it.

I'd be more comfortable with these changes if they were OFFERED and not at gun point.

Our education system could be improved in a lot of ways. But those improvements should be optional to the education systems and not compelled.

Here some people will say "well we didn't force them to do the other thing." but that's often not true because they're often offered a lot of money to adopt new programs. the money they're offered comes from federal coffers. The money in federal coffers comes from everyone. So basically you lose money if you don't sign onto the program because the government will then take money from you and give it to someone else. The only way to get your money back is to adopt the program.

So that's an issue. These cash payouts to states and cities for adopting federal programs needs to stop unless states and cities that do not adopt programs get a relative tax decrease. Such that if a given state didn't sign onto these things they didn't pay for them.

Absent that they're being compelled and I do have a problem with that.

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.

Re:So long as it is consential

[supercrisp]

Common Core as a set of curricular guidelines isn't bad at all. The problems I see are: 1), the "coercion" -- cash-strapped districts really do have to jump at any money, so they rush into implementation; 2) more high-stakes standardized testing; that shit has already dominated and f*cked-up education; 3) corporate domination; Pearson and others stand to make fat, fat stacks of cash on the tests and the materials, and that's why they all poured money into the campaigns. I've seen first-hand what the Person vertically-integrated education ecosystem is like. They sell you shit in development, shit that doesn't work, and shit that's just plain shit. I hate them. NB: college professor at an institution that had a contract to use only Pearson; spouse is in instructional tech and shares my opinion. The best thing we could do is hire more teachers, pay them a little better, and start doing something to reduce the stranglehold that corporations like Pearson have on the education system. Stuff like Kahn Academy is fine, but I don't think online education gives students what they need, which is contact with an educated, adult mentor/teacher. (And, yeah, I know, a lot of teachers we have now don't fit that bill, but that's what young people need.)

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.

should be an interesting history of computers

[Anonymous Coward]

The first computers in the world were invented by Microsoft in 1981 to run the revolutionary MS-DOS operating system, before which humanity had no computers at all. In 1985 Microsoft invented the graphical user interface and the mouse. Microsoft Windows was the most secure operating system in the world, and also the easiest to use with the introduction of the revolutionary Microsoft Bob.

Microsoft would go on to invent the Internet, graciously allowing rival companies to establish a presence on Microsoft's new network. Microsoft created the most loved user interface in the world with the exciting new Windows 8 Aero.

You can purchase exciting new Microsoft products at the following participating retailers near you!

Re:should be an interesting history of computers

[volmtech]

Just last night I downloaded an anatomy textbook from cnx.org, an education site partially funded by the Gates foundation. The PDF of the 1337 page textbook is clear and bright. Free beats several hundred dollars and not an ad in sight.

"He's really not an expert"

[emgarf]

No, he's just somebody that at least occasionally tries to improve the world instead of just commenting on other people's efforts.

The trouble with billionaires

[mbone]

'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."

That is exactly and precisely why it is not a good idea to let billionaires run your country. Having had dealings with billionaires, I can also say that he left out one thing, that such a person is almost inevitably going to be surrounded by a bunch of people (including in the press) who think that any idea he has is worthy of adulation.

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:Hell no

[phantomfive]

FWIW it's the same with all his philanthropy. He's an utter moron. Just watch any talk with him on the same stage as Bill Clinton

I don't think you can call someone who got a perfect score on their SAT an utter moron. Misguided, or confused perhaps, but he's surely got some intelligence.

That's beside the point though, if you had the money, how would you use it philanthropically to make the world a better place?

Re:Hell no

[whereiswaldo]

My personal point of view is that high school history was full of dates and names and difficult for me to memorize. I did not find it interesting, even though on paper my teacher was a published author and one might assume was doing a fine job teaching. Fast forward to my adult life and I have found many sources of interesting historical accounts and am more interested in history now than I ever was. The interplay of different events on different parts of the world is fascinating.

Re:Hell no

[mwvdlee]

This.

What is important is that historical event A caused historical event B, which lead to historical event C. Not whether event A happened in 1674, 1675 or 1676.

Re:Hell no

[lgw]

Really? Evil? I don't buy it one bit. He sold a set of software products that companies wanted to buy. Products that were no fun to support, of course, or for geeks to use in many cases, but let's please not confuse "icky" with "evil".

Right now people are being beheaded in the middle east for the crime of minding their own business while having the wrong religion. That's Evil. Something like 1300 girls we're allowed to be used as sex slaves - raped over and over for years - in a developed nation because of misguided notions of political correctness. That's evil. Windows ME was merely icky.