It's great to let students use something like "Big History", but the take away for me is that Bill Gates was engaged by it and therefore wants others to use it, instead of finding their own "Big History". Even if that means writing about Vaporwave and using Tumblr & youtube documentaries, student engaging critically with any content that is meaningful to them will help them to become better thinkers and writers. Or maybe I just wish I had dropped out of high school to watch youtube and publish think pieces.
I ended up listening to the whole class after reading this article last fall.
It's a fun course. I recommend it if you have a road trip coming up or are looking for something to listen to on your commute.
The whole curriculum seems like it would be very helpful in developing students' critical thinking skills and jump starting one's curiosity about how the world works – especially big concepts that matter. I never had a high school class that accomplished this – though I had teachers that definitely inspired me – so I can only imagine what the effect would be if those kinds of teachers that taught this course
The problem with broad history is that some things interest some people, some don't. Ideally, you could let students interested in a particular historical topic focus on that.