Welcome to Bring your Own Curriculum!
You're about to build your own curriculum. By the end of this guide, you'll have a live website where you can publish curated learning paths on any topic you're passionate about.
What You'll Create
- A beautiful, responsive website for your curriculum
- A simple way to add and edit lessons
- Automatic deploymentâedit content, and it goes live
- A structure that guides learners through foundational readings
What You'll Need
This curriculum is designed for non-technical users. You'll need:
- A computer with internet access
- An email address for creating free accounts
- A topic you're passionate about (philosophy, design, history, anything!)
- About 2-3 hours spread across multiple sessions
No coding experience required. If you can fill out web forms and follow step-by-step instructions, you can do this.
How This Curriculum Is Organized
| Cluster | What You'll Learn |
|---|---|
| Getting Started | Why curricula matter, how the platform works |
| Building Your Curriculum | Define your topic, find readings, structure content |
| Deployment & Setup | Get your site live, set up the CMS |
| Working With Content | Edit via browser or locally |
| Making It Yours | Customize colors, fonts, and styling |
Work through the clusters in order. Each builds on the previous one.
The Case for Self-Directed Curricula
We're living through a fundamental shift in how knowledge is created and consumed. AI can now generate passable summaries of almost any topic. Search engines surface millions of results for any query. Content mills produce endless "ultimate guides" and "everything you need to know" articles.
In this environment, surface-level knowledge has been commoditized. What remains valuable is genuine expertiseâthe kind that comes from actually engaging with primary sources, struggling with difficult ideas, and forming original perspectives.
This is what a self-directed curriculum provides: a structured path to depth.
Why "Self-Directed"?
The term "self-directed" doesn't mean you're alone. It means you're taking ownership of your learningâchoosing what to study, setting your own pace, and engaging actively with the material rather than passively absorbing it.
A self-directed curriculum is like having a thoughtful mentor who says: "Here are the texts that shaped this field. Here's a sensible order to read them. Here are the key ideas to focus on. Now go do the work."
The curriculum provides structure. You provide the engagement.
What This Platform Enables
This platform lets you create that structured path for yourself or others. Whether you're:
- Learning a new field and want to identify the foundational texts
- Teaching and want to provide students with a clear reading path
- Building expertise and want to document your learning journey
- Sharing knowledge with a community around a specific domain
The curriculum formatâclusters of related lessons, each built around primary readingsâprovides the scaffolding for serious intellectual work.
The Meta-Curriculum
What you're reading right now is a curriculum about building curricula. It demonstrates the format while teaching you how to create your own.
By the time you finish these lessons, you'll have:
- A clear understanding of why this approach works
- The methodology for defining your own curriculum
- The technical knowledge to deploy and maintain it
Let's begin.
Depth Over Breadth
In an age where content creation is heavily automated, going for depth instead of breadth is what distinguishes genuine scholarship from surface-level takes. An earned point of view is worth more than a thousand hot takes.
When everyone can generate summaries and overviews, the value shifts to those who have actually done the readingâwho can engage with primary sources, identify nuances, and form original arguments.
The Wikipedia Method
When we went to school, teachers asked us not to use Wikipedia. What we did was cite the Wikipedia sources instead. This is the root of how digital scholarship in the algorithm age should go.
You start with the things you know you have to learn, and you branch out as you actually develop an understanding and opinions to challenge. The goal is not comprehensive coverage, but depth. Each reading opens doors to further exploration.
Self-Directed vs. Traditional Education
Traditional education optimizes for coverage: survey courses that expose students to many topics briefly. Self-directed curricula optimize for mastery: fewer topics, explored deeply.
A self-directed curriculum is a commitment to genuine understanding. It says: "These are the foundational texts in this domain. I will engage with them seriously, form my own views, and build from there."
Why does depth matter more than breadth in the age of AI?
Hint: Think about what becomes commoditized when anyone can generate summaries.
What's the 'Wikipedia method' of scholarship?
Hint: Consider how you'd use Wikipedia as a starting point, not an endpoint.