Big story on “Big History” cites Greenhills
Fans of The New York Times Magazine may have been surprised, while reading the cover story Sunday, to see Greenhills School credited with helping pioneer “Big History,” an innovative teaching approach being encouraged around the country by Microsoft founder Bill Gates.
The story details how the retired Microsoft CEO, who is in the habit of watching taped university lectures while working out on a treadmill, eventually stumbled on a lecture series called “Big History.” The professor giving the course, Australian David Christian, knit together seemingly disparate threads of human experience to try to arrive at what Andrew Ross Sorkin, the author of the Times Magazine story, called “nothing less than a unifying narrative of life on earth.”
Gates was fascinated, and decided to work to get the course taught in high schools all over the country.
The Greenhills connection to Big History comes through history and social science teacher Tammy Shreiner. Her graduate advisor at the University of Michigan, Bob Bain, is academic advisor for the overall Big History effort. She’s been teaching the course since 2011, when Greenhills was one of only six schools in the country piloting the program.
Learn more about Big History – and Big History at Greenhills – at the following links:
- Greenhills one of only six schools to teach big history in fall
- Bill Gates thanks Greenhills in Big History blog and tweet
- Charlie Rose interviews Bill Gates on Big History
