Will the Internet render teachers irrelevant? This is a question that some people suggest is not entirely outlandish. With online tutorials like those of Khan Academy receiving rave reviews, some teachers wonder if the only sound we’ll hear in traditional classrooms in the not-so-distant future is the chirp of crickets.
The Khan Academy is revolutionizing the way children are learning math, science, economics and even history. What started off as an experiment by founder Salman Khan to help his cousins with their algebra has exploded into an academy that reaches more than two million students a month.
What is it exactly? It’s a nonprofit organization with a website that has thousands of videos for students that break down the complexities of subjects like algebra or organic chemistry, just to name a few.
The idea began with a single video six years ago when Khan was living in Boston and was remotely tutoring his cousins in New Orleans. He posted a tutorial on YouTube as a supplemental learning tool for them.
But it turned out they weren’t the only ones who saw it. The video received numerous hits and comments from random people all around the world—comments like “First time I smiled doing a derivative.”
It didn’t end there. Khan posted more videos and soon had attracted a huge following. Finally, he realized this was no longer just a side job. He was getting increasingly excited about helping kids understand math and, in his words, as “an analyst in a hedge-fund, it was very strange for me to do something of social value.”
He quit his job, started his nonprofit academy, and today has more than 3,000 videos on subjects ranging from algebra to art history. His mission? To change “education for the better by providing a free world-class education to anyone anywhere.” With more than two million students a month, it seems he is well on his way.
It all sounds amazing. It has the potential to revolutionize education as we know it. But it is exactly this potential that scares a lot of teachers. What if, one day, there were videos for an entire year’s curriculum? This is not unrealistic. If Khan amassed 3,000 plus videos in just about five years, it wouldn’t take long to develop a comprehensive library.
Will we eventually live in a society where kids go to school in their pajamas, sitting at a screen in their living room? Could this eliminate teachers altogether?
Though Khan insists his academy is meant to be supplementary to classroom learning, the implications of its scope and limitless potential suggest it could easily take on Frankenstein proportions. Khan himself joked in a Technology, Entertainment, Design talk, that his cousins “preferred the automated version” of him and suggested that this format provides students with learning “in the intimacy of their own room.”
Is that necessarily a good thing?
Sometimes the line between intimate and isolated is dangerously fine. Are we not complaining about how huge a role technology already plays in our children’s lives? Could this create a situation where children who struggle socially in a classroom setting never have to set foot in a school? Granted, this could be far more comfortable, but would it not also isolate them entirely from other people, taking away any human element in their learning? They would never be challenged to engage with others.
Thus, as more students take online classes than ever before, is it realistic to believe that the Khan Academy is a foreshadowing of the future of our entire education system? I doubt it. And here’s why.
In his TED talk, Khan revealed his commitment to the classroom in a way that should allay teachers’ fears. He talked about how educators all across the world are using his videos as a tool to “flip the classroom.” Yes, they’re essentially turning the classroom upside down, but in a very good way.
Teachers assign Khan’s online tutorials to students to watch at home, and then, the next morning, “what used to be homework, [they] now have the students doing in the classroom.” Thus, the students watch the lecture at home, pausing and repeating at their leisure—they learn at their own pace, not in a one-size-fits-all setting. Khan says the effect is a more “humanized” classroom.
Where students once sat silently in class, forbidden from talking to each other, “now they are actually interacting with each other” and the teachers, doing their “homework” together, he said. Phenomenal.
In a letter to Khan, parents wrote about their 12 year old son who had autism, describing how he’d had “a terrible time with math.” They’d tried everything to help him, but nothing worked. Then, they said, “we stumbled on your video on decimals and it got through…we went on to the dreaded fractions and he got it. We couldn’t believe it. He is so excited.”
If children who hate and struggle with math and as a result think that they’re stupid are able to “get it” with the help of these videos, that alone is worth it. And in countries where parents can’t afford to send their children to school but can access the Internet, the Khan academy has the potential to change lives, communities and entire nations.
Are there drawbacks to this type of learning? Will some children benefit and others not? Invariably. But then again, take one look at any classroom today. Anyone can see it’s an imperfect system. Does this diminish the role of teachers or pronounce them irrelevant? No. It is a tool that could actually provide them more time to engage with their students.
As one admirer said, “I’d been suffering from derivatives for months…and this video turned on the lights in my head in less than 10 minutes, although my mother language is not English!! I’m crying because of happiness, thank you Mr. Khan.”
What teacher wouldn’t cheer reading a comment like that? ■