Chapter: Re-inventions
In 2006, Salman Khan started educating people across the globe for free. From his closet in Mountain View, California, he videotaped mini-lectures on topics ranging from simple addition to vector calculus and Napoleonic campaigns. He’s a math, science and history teacher for millions of students, yet none of them have ever seen his face.
The idea behind Khan Academy was born when Khan was tutoring his cousin Nadia in mathematics using Yahoo!’s Doodle notepad. When other relatives and friends sought similar help, Khan decided it would be more practical to distribute the tutorials on YouTube. His lectures became a huge success. Every day, the videos were viewed around 70,000 times – double the entire student body of University of California, Berkeley. His viewers were diverse, ranging from rural preschoolers to Pakistani engineers.
Three years later the students prompted Khan to quit his job in finance, and asked him to focus full-time on the tutorials. Khan did as they pleased, and turned Khan Academy into a full-time occupation. Today, the academy has a video library with over 3,000 videos in various topic areas and over 140 million delivered lessons. Since its launch, the Khan Academy website has recorded more than 16 million page views.
Mark Halberstadt discovered the Khan Academy in 2007. He watched all the videos on calculus, trigonometry, physics and arithmetic, and in 2010 he decided to go back to school and get a degree in Electrical Engineering. Previously a self-described “straight C student” whose original Grade Point Average (GPA) was in the 2.0 region, Mark now got a 4.0 GPA (the best grade) for the entire year. He even got perfect scores on both his calculus final exams and chemistry. He says he couldn’t have gotten the same help from anywhere else.
Is Khan Academy showing us the future of education? Backed by Google and Bill Gates among others – Khan wants to improve education worldwide, and his work has already made a huge impact on many peoples lives.
Possible Moral
The biggest weakness in many countries school system is that it’s standardized, so students who are not suited to learn from the pedagogy used are being left behind. Khan Academy is amazing, not because it replaces teachers but because it bridges the gaps that teachers can’t possibly fill within the constraints of standardized teaching. The students of Khan Academy have the ability to watch the videos repeatedly, instead of having to ask the same questions over and over to a teacher, which may make them feel embarrassed or stupid. They also have the ability to review things they “should have” learned weeks, months or maybe even years ago. As a supplement to regular teaching, I hope these tutorials make it into every classroom.
Story from We All Need Heroes: Stories of the Brave and Foolish.
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We All Need Heroes
Short StoryHey there! Here you'll find a collection of mixed stories from my debut book 'We All Need Heroes', which celebrates people with brave and innovative ideas. The finished book is filled with a huge mix of inspirational and fun short-stories of people...
