Dive Brief:
- Sunday's New York Times Magazine profiled Bill Gates' big idea for history classes across the nation.
- After watching Australian professor David Christian's “Great Courses” series called “Big History," Gates decided he would stop at nothing — even funding the idea with his own money outside his foundation — to get the concept into high school classrooms across the United States.
- After contacting Christian, the two got to work creating a high school history curriculum and aligned website. The program launched in select schools in 2011 and has slowly expanded, with the program being used for free in 1,200 schools this fall.
Dive Insight:
While the Big History project may be a stellar idea, some are uncomfortable with the idea of Gates constantly meddling in the education arena simply because he has the money to do so. His role in funding and promoting the Common Core State Standards was also contentious. As Washington Post columnist Valerie Strauss puts it, "And there you have it. Bill Gates likes something; Bill Gates pays to get it into schools. It may be a good idea. It may be a bad idea. It doesn’t matter, because Gates has the money and clout to inject it into wherever he wants to inject it."
There is a sort of funny moment in the Times article that illuminates this. Gates explains his thought process after watching "Big History" for the first time: “I just loved it. It was very clarifying for me. I thought, ‘God, everybody should watch this thing!’” This idea that everyone should use it because it was clarifying for him is interesting. Not everyone has the money or power to make that happen, or the belief that what works for them will work for everyone else.