Does Bill Gates Think Teachers are All Miss Trunchbulls?
At school there’s Miss Trunchbull, two hundred menacing pounds of kid-hating headmistress. Get rid of the Trunchbull and Matilda would be a hero. But that would take a superhuman genius, wouldn’t it?
From Matilda by Roald Dahl
Does Bill Gates hold a vendetta towards teachers? Does he see them as Trunchbulls and is he planning on being the superhuman genius to eventually get rid of them? Is this why he wants virtual learning, because computers are easier, in his mind, to get along with than teachers?
I revisited the darkly funny children’s story Matilda where two extreme teacher types are on display. There is the “tyrannical monster” Miss Trunchbull who’d throw you in the cupboard “Chokey” in an instant (a cement walled closet with glass and nails too narrow for you to sit), as compared to the lovingly, adored Miss Honey who treasured everything sunshiny and joyful, which included taking children outside to the playground! RECESS!
I got to thinking about this when I read CNBC’s Andrew Ross Sorkin’s piece in The New York Time’s about Bill Gates and his “Great History Project.” The whole plan to take over history in public schools unfolded in Gates’s mind as he walked on his treadmill listening to a DVD “Great Course’s” tape. Everyone better read it if you care about history instruction, because it will be coming to a high school near you, whether you like it or not, if it isn’t there already.
But Sorkin’s piece really hits me with a particular passage and what Gates says about teachers he once had and grades. Gates is talking with David Christian, the fascinating history professor from Australia whose DVD about history enthralled Gates so much he knew it had to be what public schools taught.
The reporter says:
But his [Gates] curiosity about education is innate and at times obsessive. Without Does Bill Gates Think Teachers are All Miss Trunchbulls?: