Margaret Wente has a very interesting story about an American fellow named Salman Khan who has quickly become an educational maven. Here’s one of his videos, which I watched, that is absolutely excellent.
Bill Gates has given him some money to help him form The Khan Academy.
As more & more kids use his videos to actually learn something, watch for teachers unions across America and Canada to actively try to destroy him. 🙁
Just what we need. Another rug rider influencing our children. Do you pander to these people because you’re afraid, or are you just naive?
Coach, you’re an idiot … and missed the point entirely. Did you even bother to spend 10 seconds reading Wente’s article or watching the videos? I bet not.
coach is a moby. maybe even queerbec ndpissed.
back on topic, I would surmise that he reveals his leftard leanings long before the Marxists go on the attack.
I expect our teachers unions collective response to be something like..
“KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNN!!!!!”
Unless I miss my guess, it would seem he promotes using repetition in the teaching of math… GASP!! You mean like it worked for my generation?
The Gates video and his own were top notch stuff.
And yeah, Coach is a moby.
A friend of mine who is a teacher has all his class signed up on it and using it. He says the kids love it and are actually getting well ahead of themselves in learning. The site lessons are actually homework assignments for the kids. He tells me that not only are they doing the lessons but they are doing more lessons than he assigning them.
I won’t be surprised if the local union rep stops by for a chat with him though.
Let me expand upon why Coach’s comment aggravated me so:
Ever since 9/11, and likely before, folks on the Left have made it forboden to criticize anyone if they’re a minority, most especially a Muslim. The general narrative has been, “All minorities are subjugated by the majority White, Christian culture, so to correct for this we will not allow anymore criticism whatsoever!” This is, of course, absolute B.S. and a distinct kind of racism all on its own.
Folks on the right have been saying, and rightly so, why can’t Muslims just be more like us, live our modern ways, treat women respectfully, and stop blowing things up!
So along comes this fellow, Salman Khan, doing precisely what we’ve all been asking him to do and … even more, he’s gone out of his way to use technology and his brains to create an exciting, novel way for kids to learn better – even White, Christian kids – but that’s not good enough for the likes of “Coach” who won’t let Khan pass “Go” because of his skin colour and [assumed] religion.
So I also call B.S. to Coach and his ilk. You can’t have it both ways. If you want to put destructive, hateful morons like Libby Davies and Rachel Maddow and Chris Matthews on a higher plane than entrepreneurs like Salman Khan, then that this is your prerogative. But please don’t go telling anyone you’re a conservative as you’re embarrassing the rest of us who truly are.
My kids already use this as a resource, it’s great to get another explanation after the teacher at school gives it a try. If they still don’t get it they come to me. There’s even a “coaching” role that you can take on the website that you can use to monitor and help your child’s progress….
Yeah, I’ve known about Khan for years now. He adds another way to learn things (aside from, say, reading in a book). It’s actually interesting to watch as the service evolves.
As for whether he reveals leftard leanings or not, I’m inclined to think that it doesn’t matter. Even a broken clock is right twice a day, and the ideology of math is far more rigid than any political ideology.
I had never heard the term “moby” before. Perhaps others haven’t either. Here’s the definition:
An insidious and specialized type of left-wing troll who visits blogs and impersonates a conservative for the purpose of either spreading false rumors intended to sow dissension among conservative voters, or who purposely posts inflammatory and offensive comments for the purpose of discrediting the blog in question.
The term is derived from the name of the liberal musician Moby, who famously suggested in February of 2004 that left-wing activists engage in this type of subterfuge: “For example, you can go on all the pro-life chat rooms and say you’re an outraged right-wing voter and that you know that George Bush drove an ex-girlfriend to an abortion clinic and paid for her to get an abortion. Then you go to an anti-immigration Web site chat room and ask, ‘What’s all this about George Bush proposing amnesty for illegal aliens?’”
The strategy has been frequently attempted on conservative blogs, but has not been nearly as effective as Moby envisioned, since false rumors are easily debunked by fact-checking minions, and cartoonishly extreme commenters often get immediately identified as mobys and banned.
Robert, I also believe on-line ed is fast becoming the issue of our times.
The amount of wasted time during a typical classroom day is criminal. Teaches talking of their! summer off, exposing the virtues of marxism and climate alarmism being a few examples. Not to mention the distractions of allowing the politically correct to hijack education. Not to mention the thousands of dollars a day to run a “modern” school.
I have tried a few of Khan’s lectures as a review, such as Calculus, and found they really do work.
Soon someone will comment – ya, but the kids would not benefit from the ‘classroom experience’. Such as?? a dorky teacher? A bully? A disruptive Hyper Active? An hour wasted with Al Gore’s BS? Peer pressure? An hour on the bus? Instilling a ‘taxes are good’ mentality?
Rothschild’s, Willy Gates will do anything for them.
The Khan videos are very good. There is a great deal of basic knowledge that kids need to learn, knowledge that has not changed in centuries. Delivering that learning via Kahn’s method is excellent. Some of that knowledge is hard to even get in public school today because so much time is wasted teaching irrelevant material.
It’s just such a shame that an utter sleazebag like Bill Gates is meddling in this. Everything that man has ever touched has turned into something mediocre, and that will happen with Kahn’s stuff as well.
Bill Gates and Salman Khan are crazy idiot leftards. Probably trolls, too. This project is doomed to failure.
Great video Robert, thanks a bunch. I got onto that TED site when Vίtruvius was posting his distinguished lecture series. Fascinating stuff on there.
I’ve been wondering how to get my elementary aged children to have a greater regard for mathematics.
They grow weary of me drilling them with problems at the dinner table and I tire trying to come up with creative methods of keeping their interest.
The Khan Academy looks like a good resource for all of us.
wow, the mobys and trolls are in full force today.
what’s the matter, missing the Katrina/Bush halcyon days?
Excellent points Robert. I’ve been following Khan’s site for some time now & have used his math videos to help tutor my kids.
The current education system is simply a big union, big government credentialing/socializing racket. It needs competition; it needs breaking up.
Internet learning, as part of a home-school program, has been proven to produce superior students who do much better at the university level than public school graduates.
A most interesting response from the Leftard trolls: Coach, Blanks, & Alex. So let’s see here, someone is trying to actively improve the knowledge of children but because his approach appears to be an improvement over the ways of the dinosaur Teacher Unions, he needs to demeaned & belittled.
To summarize then, this trio of Leftists are: Regressive, Racists, Don’t Care About Children, Don’t Care About Learning, Don’t Care About Knowledge.
I’ve just started an Ayn Rand book called “The Return of the Primitive”. I wonder of these three morons are mentioned by name?
Well said Robert @ 1:24.
I hate the socialist Communist Soviet and socialist Nazi systems with a passion, but in the last century the vast majority of Russians and Germans were good people that just wanted to live and feed their families. The point being, most brown people are also good people and this century many of them are being used.
The Khan Academy lectures sound very interesting and I will pass this information on to my teacher son-in-law.
Max for the win.
Alex for the Barack Obama Civility Award.
Robert W., I always find that frownie-face you do very endearing. I think if Armageddon broke out tomorrow, your post would go: We’re all about to perish in a nuclear holocaust. 🙁
Don’t take that the wrong way. I like it.
Anyway, teachers will attempt to destroy anyone that actually teaches because then they’re out of a racket. I don’t really think anyone learns much in school anyway. If they learn stuff, it’s usually from their parents, or reading. Or the internet, I guess. I actually think highschool should be abolished.
Mobys are closely related to “concern trolls” – you know, “as a concerned, Chistian Conservative, I feel that I must vote for the Democrats this time around”. As for that bald, icky musician (I thought Eminem finished him off years ago) – wow, is Moby ever a dick. Seriously, how ugly and dishonest. No wonder lefties are so paranoid, if that’s the way they operate themselves.
Interesting way to teach. I liked the video. Since the kids are the last arbiters of what they like. This guy is doing well. Which means the Unions will have to DiG for dirt to discredit him.
After all you don’t want the bad teachers to be shown for what they are.
I found this concept a good one. I hope more folks pick up the baton. I can think of a few of mine that would have been great online.
“So let’s see here, someone is trying to actively improve the knowledge of children but because his approach appears to be an improvement over the ways of the dinosaur Teacher Unions, he needs to demeaned & belittled.”
He’s a commie pinko leftard! Trying to brainwash our kids with his EEEVilution and Globull Warming hocus pocus. I can’t believe you guys are falling for it!
Math is learned by doing math problems, not reading books, playing games, or anything else, and Khan clearly has this insight at the core of his system. Having the worked out solutions showing all steps is absolutely essential, so the student can correct any misunderstandings on their own. He also is correct in saying that 80% scores in math indicate the student has a scant understanding of the material, that is insufficient for the student to build on. ( 95+% is more like it.)
Systems like Khan’s are presently available with college textbooks ( Math XCel is an example ), in which the student is presented with similar problems until he gets a string of them right, and the student can not move to the next section before they have gotten several right.
The biggest enemy of k-12 education are school boards, who in league with other governmental bodies personally run the schools through a vast administratitve bureaucracy ( in most districts, more than 45% is spent on administrative expense at the district, not the school level ). If teachers had free rein in the classroom, calculators would never be seen in the classroom in the first 8 or so grades, and non-performing students would never get passed to the next level, simply because they had sat in a classroom for a year.
Khan made a very cogent point: student teacher ratios are just a very crude, inexact and essentially useless proxy for what really matters in teaching: ( at 14:49) student to valuable human time with the teacher ratio.
This man will not just be a target of unions; he will: the union’s silent partners in sidelining Khan and any like him will be school boards, who become unimportant if they lose the huge budgets they have created under the present inefficient system. The only reason most school systems survive is their monopoly. They certainly would not have their current market share ( over 90% ) if the parent controlled the tax dollars through a voucher system.
Alex, I’m curious what prompts a Leftard like you to come on here and pose as a conservative?! Do you work for the NDP or the Communist Party of Canada? Are you paid for such work on a Sunday afternoon?
Wow! The trolls are really out today! Frustrated about the “Irene”
squib I suppose. But trolls never understand the way conservatives
think. They work from a model which is radically incorrect. A key element
of this fallacious model is that conservatives are bigots.
Mr. Khan appears to provide good sound lectures, that are
very clear, not to mention bright and cheerful.
I am going to suggest them to my third year students
this coming semester (basic calculus as review, and vector
calculus). We shall see. The lectures should help some of them at any rate.
Khan’s commentary on banking and economics shows that he seems to have Austrian leanings, which is very refreshing.
This academy does everything that is just wrong, It emphasises rote training, (wrong), assigns marks or rewards (wrong), removes all political ideology (wrong), allows for one one one mentoring (wrong), makes the student a willing participant in their learning (wrong) and reduces the absolute authority of the teacher (wrong) and so it will not be long before the STF, BCTF, OTFFEO, CTF-FCE and ATF jump all over this academy. I mean calling the founder a rug rider will be nothing compared to the fury they will bring down.
I went through the modules on mortgage based securities and I found them a straight forward explanation without the ideology pronouncements.
I recommend everybody have a look at these modules and judge for themselves, even those experts in the education field.
I went through some of the modules on calculus and organic chemistry.
Very clear explanations.
I also like things Khan promotes, particularly repetition (i.e. reviewing and doing exercises until one gets the idea/topic 100%).
Wow! Videos of good old fashioned lessons like those that used to be done on the blackboard. Only these are better because you can back them up, repeat them, and use again as review. A student can actually learn at his/her own pace. Another advantage is that there is no live human there to cause stress to the student. Many students are afraid to show someone that they don’t understand something, so they never ask. I am a former math/science teacher and think these vidoes look great and would be very useful.
One should really pay attention to someone like Alex, what a huge intellect being able to adroitly insert the word “retarded” into posts and totally miss the whole point of most of Kate’s posts.
Takes a special talent that does.
To save Alex from having to google the definition of adroitly,
Adroit – 1 adroit quick or skillful or adept in action or thought “an exceptionally adroit pianist”;
Your Mamma just called you upstairs for cookies and Milk.
In his video Khan also promotes computerization of the educational system, i.e. students are monitored with respect to how they are doing on their exercises, which problems particular student has difficulty with and how each of them “think” –mathematically or otherwise. It is done to help teachers to concentrate on the problems particular student has and to help them not to waste their time. But if we extrapolate this idea of having computerized records of what student is able to do and how he/she thinks, it can lead to very detailed monitoring of the population. Particularly because this system is computerized, i.e. conducive to hacking or available to governmental/private organizations. So I liked his videos and many of his ideas but I am in two minds regarding close computerizing monitoring of the students’ work –it could be very beneficial and benign but it could be used ….otherwise.
****
As for Alex I think he thought that if he put words like “leftard”or “troll” everybody would say “YAY, they are leftists, they idea are worthless”. LOL.
Thank-you for his link, Robert. Very interesting.
Browsed a few of his videos, he’s fairly accurate and gets the core elements. He has a sort of reader’s digest learning center. I liked the one about communism where he points out that in many ways the current US is less capitalist than the reformed communist giants China and Russia.
I never took Calculus in university. Always wondered what I missed. I’m excited to go find out, at the Khan Academy.
Occam, interesting insight. I never watched that one but several years ago I briefly dated a woman from mainland China. We got into a few discussions about which was more socialist, Canada or China. I naturally said “China” but then she methodically pointed out to me item after item after item that more than a little showed that my gut reaction notion was likely incorrect. Ditto for the U.S. vs. China.
Ouch. All this dumping on teachers. We are not all part of the big conspiracy to make life miserable for everyone and to turn all our students into leftards. At least allow some latitude here.
I LOVE this guy’s approach. If I were still teaching, I would not find it threatening at all to recommend him to my students. He’s easy, very clear, conversational, repeats the important ideas (you hear it once and then focus the next time he says it). He’s sequential, logical, ties things together. A real teacher is delighted with anything that increases a student’s opportunity for success. I never treated my job as a turf war or a platform for my ego. I wanted students to succeed and if I wasn’t the right vehicle for them, I tried to find one that was. Many of my colleagues were the same. Surely you can allow that the screaming idiots on the clips showing Wisconsin union twits don’t represent all teachers. Perhaps even the most jaded among you can remember at least one decent teacher in your life, or know of one teaching your kids right now. And I agree that some of the best teachers don’t hold an Education Degree, but the way some of you talk, you would think that holding such a degree automatically disqualifies the holder from being a decent teacher.
Kudos to Mr. Khan. But many of the math teachers I encountered in my career were equally as good. Had to make to with colored chalk instead of a fancy graphics pad, but the result was much the same. And Mr. Khan doesn’t have to tell Johnny to shut up and stop disturbing the rest of the class.
Kudos for this post, Robert W. & some really good commentary too. 🙂
rita, yes, I distinctly remember three or four teachers who had a very positive impact on my life during my school years from 1958 until 1960. Unfortunately it is the leftist unions that control the system today and force the good teachers to toe the ideological line. The good teachers have to get their views across discreetly.
That proves it. This whole site is just a front for commies. You’re pretending to be good God Fearing Conservatives when you’re all godless leftards. SDA is a false-flag operation! Well enough is enough! Tell your NDP paymasters that we’re not falling for it any more!
Well I notice Robert is from Vanc, also the most left-tard place possibly on planet earth.
So yes my comment must be that of a left-tard when I mention Rothschild and Gates, if you can’t see the signs of David Rothschild all over that Kahn guy you aint so smart after-all. If you don’t know who I’m talking about then you are as ignorant as any left-tard.
rainbow’s and love
these “do gooders” are taking your place in education and you like it that way.
Wow! Khan can even teach you all about the benefits of the Geithner and Obama Stimulus plans.
http://www.khanacademy.org/#geithner-plan
http://www.khanacademy.org/#current-economics
I wonder if he has anything to say about Hayek or Friedman.
Robert/Occam
I have listened what Khan tells about Vietnam War and Chinese communism (aka Chinese capitalism).
Unfortunately he does follow current liberal thinking.
In the video talking about Vietnam War there is not a word about Russian help for communists in North Vietnam, nothing about Russian advisers (only abt American advisers for anti-communists), no mention why catholic Vietnamese were running away from North Vietnam, no mention of what Ho Chi Minh was doing to his own people.
As for Chinese communism – it is true that Canada and the US are practically – not theoretically – more socialist than PRC, but then China is more communist then US and Canada i.e. the party truly rule and people do follow instruction from Party in Beijing.
Chinese internally have capitalist economy with admixture of communist kleptocracy. However economy is led by communist party, i.e. communists hold leading position in all major businesses/banking institutions and Party can force businesses to do what it wants even if it is harmful for that particular business or corporation (ex. Chinese baned export of rare earth mineral to Japan because China had quarrel with Japan over fishing rights or the refusal of the Party to stop the selling of adulterated milk because of 2008 Olympics, with the tragic result ~ 1000 children were hospitalized, some of which died )
As for external trade — it is hardly a capitalism, (see: Chinese currency, Chinese trade in Africa and so on)
Larry’s comment made the old brain box click on this one.
It is the ability to rewind and see where that “step” came from. Nothing frustrated me more than sitting in math class taking notes and then missing how something was derived while I was jotting down the previous step.
I encountered Khan’s Academy some time ago. I thought his maths, sciences, and economics videos were very good. He prefaces some of the history videos with caveats that students should take in as many sources as they can rather than just him or only one, which is commendable. He avoids promoting any obvious political agenda, something rare on the web.
I like his approach, and would recommend it to students who need supplementary tutoring, especially in math, which appears to be his forte.
rita, well said. Thanks.
KHAAAANN!
Sorry.
Anyway, teachers should see it as both a moral and professional obligation to do what they can to make a student understand a concept. If Salman Khan’s methods are effective, welcome him in.
rita
with all due respect… teachers collectively are complacent in the thievery of the bought and paid for education of our children. furthermore they are also collectively complacent in the brainwashing of our kids. Individually, teachers may feel powerless, but they are complacent none the less.
Teachers are exactly who we think they are. Remember Wisconsin?
Max
That could be the best comment evah! I’m sure the Phantom will get a great chuckle.
Yeah Mamba, Eminem crushed him! I spoke with someone years ago and he said “I listen to techno” and my reaction was “nobody listens to techno” and the guy was taken aback. According to this guy, not only did eminem kill moby, but he also did untold damage to this guys music genre, so we all owe him twice. Funny that.
“And Moby? You can get stomped by Obie
You thirty-six year old baldheaded fag, blow me
You don’t know me, you’re too old, let go
It’s over, NOBODY LISTENS TO TECHNO” – eminem
regarding coach and the trolls: “get these wack mother-fcukers off stage; where the fcuk is Kanye when you need him?”