"Khan" he turn the system upside down?

Like a lot of people, math was always the bane of my existence. Back in school, I used to curse every number invented and every problem I couldn’t solve (which was more than half the exercise book). My teachers could not understand how I could make a math problem look like an English essay. My father (a patron of the mathematics) could not understand how any daughter of his could ever be so terrible at it. It was just a matter of numbers and genes, he said. But in the end, no amount of tears and tantrums (not my own, I was quite apathetic to it all) could get me to solve a math problem correctly, so I was glad to be rid of the subject as I entered college.

Recently however, I had to give a standardized test which required me to reawaken that long lost cause and actually solve math problems, something I had happily not done in 5 years. All those years of painful attempts at number crunching came rushing back and I had no choice but to try and relearn things I had given up on years back. 

That is when I heard about Khan Academy (www.khanacademy.org). It is a site that provides thousands of free ten minute tutorials on math (and on other subjects too like history, accounts, economics, etc), starting with the very basics and continuing into college level math and calculus. The videos are all made by an Indian-American named Salman Khan, who was initially a manager at a hedge fund, but gave up his career to become “Bill Gates’ favorite teacher”. The learning experience is enhanced with practice sessions that allow the user to solve as many generated problems as they need to get 10 correct in a row before they attain proficiency in that topic.

Needless to say, I was able to learn a lot of math all over again, and math didn’t seem as terrible to me as it did for most of my life. But going beyond the initial satisfaction of using the site, I began seeing its potential in turning the education system quite literally upside down. One of Sal’s (as he calls himself) main objectives is to do this very thing. He believes that the actual learning of the lesson would become the homework while the solving of problems (traditional homework) would become the class work. He believes that students prefer this method of studying because they can study at their own pace, pausing and rewinding the teacher if they wish too. And then, once they have studied the lesson at home, they can come to class and solve problems in front of the teacher where the teacher can give personalized attention to each student’s difficulties and help them where needed.

The academy has immense potential in changing the educational system as a whole. The traditional methods of teaching, where a bored teacher drones on in front of 60 odd and equally (if not more) bored students who are all sleeping or day dreaming, will be eliminated. The learning would become a “human” experience where the student has an almost one-on-one connection with the teacher and has the liberty to pause, rewind, skip or fast forward the teacher on their own time, in the comfort and security of their own room.

However, the down side of this type of education is that a child firstly must have access to a computer and internet both in school and at home. This is still a problem in most developing countries of the world like our own. However, this problem seems to be solving itself over the years with the infiltration of computers in almost every nook and cranny of the world.

But then, to what extent will a child from a lower economic background benefit from such education? Even if such students were somehow to acquire free means of internet and access to a computer even at home, how is it to give time to study? Not just in India, but all over the world and even in countries like the USA, students who come from lower economic backgrounds often work after school hours to help make money for the family or even for themselves as pocket money. The school hours are the only time they have to learn. For them, this upside-down system would not be as beneficial as it is for people who have full and free access to computers and internet.

One solution to this problem would be to allow the students to learn in class as well as practice later in class or at home. This would create a completely new method of schooling which would be a round-the-clock method where the student could access his profile on the site at any time even outside class to practice, though the main learning would take place in the classroom. This system however, is not upside down, but merely a 24/7 transformation of the present day system. This would change the traditional length of education as well with some students speeding through a year’s syllabus in a month and some students taking double the amount of time. However, it would create a standard syllabus that would be common for all. Also, it would make the profession of teaching almost obsolete.

The site and the academy come highly recommended by a dedicated user like me. But to what extent it will be able to “invert” the system remains to be seen. Happy learning!