Bill Gates on why the brilliant Khan Academy is a force of social change | Hacker News Reader

Bill Gates on why the brilliant Khan Academy is a force of social change

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95 pointsDanielRibeiro35 comments

Teachers have historically resisted attempts to get them out of the business of pedagogy and curriculum development, which many of them are manifestly unsuited for, and instead have them concentrate on classroom management, progress tracking, and limited individualized instruction.

I'm a big fan of that transition taking place, which may involve taking 100 units of work currently done by teachers (i.e. people who are, aspirationally, highly skilled and highly educated) and replacing it with 40 units of work done by teacher's aides (semi-skilled labor like, ahem, many teachers in the status quo), 40 units of work done by teachers (close to the ideal of today's teachers), and N units of work done by a handful of curriculum experts whose amortized cost per class taught is rounding error next to the teacher's salary.

I mean, last year BCC essentially added twenty full time teachers to the US just by preventing people with masters degrees from preparing for class by cutting construction paper with scissors and then writing on the construction paper with markers for more than an hour at a time. That's hideously inefficient use of resources... and there are still hundreds of thousands of teachers who do it the bad way.

> I mean, last year BCC essentially added twenty full time teachers to the US just by preventing people with masters degrees from preparing for class by cutting construction paper with scissors and then writing on the construction paper with markers for more than an hour at a time.

I love the description and love your HN contributions as much as anyone, but that sounds just a wee bit inflated. I would think BCC purchasers more likely to use the hours saved as leisure rather than as additional professionally productive time. You also dismiss the possibility of these teachers finding another satisfactory program in BCC's hypothetical absence.

(Unless you've already factored out those factors before you arrive at the "20 full time" figure. Then please ignore me.)

My wife and I were discussing tonight the hilarity of the Wisconsin teachers union situation, about how everyone involved (and screaming) seemingly misses the point.

If society wants public school, that is a school that is administered and funded by the government, then by definition you are choosing to have teachers' salaries decided by politicians and bureaucrats. In order to change salaries, legislation is required. In order to enact legislation, you have to form special interest groups (in this case unions) to represent large swaths of voters, as politicians only listen to votes.

Instead, consider the idea of eliminating public school. With all of the money back in the public's pockets instead of in government coffers, the public could choose to fund education in a manner that each individual sees fit. However, the common argument (and legitimate concern) is that poor people would be left out. Poor parents who don't have the money to send their kids to school, let alone GOOD school, are left raising uneducated kids who then end up poor. The idea that charity would solve this problem is not entirely unreasonable, but it seems to be a cop out.

This is where I think the Khan Academy has the potential to have a major impact. With individual teachers teaching small classes, you're required to have many hundreds of thousands of teachers across the country, leading to an extremely high production cost for education. If instead you have groups like the Khan Academy producing educational materials that are easy to consume, available across a huge breadth and depth of topics and easy to distribute, the production costs for education go way down.

The reason that poor people can't afford private school is because private schools are expensive. Using technology allows organizations like the Khan Academy to produce high quality education at a fraction of the cost. I'd love to see private schools set up to take advantage of this material and educate the public without government involvement and its requisite politician silliness.

The other thing that people tend to have a hard time imagining as their independence has been slowly-but-surely squeezed out of them is that this does not have to mean that the only other schooling option is a kid alone in front of their tablet watching Khan's videos at home. Khan's videos are a tool that can be applied in many ways. Five families can band together to trade off on who is watching what on what days and share questions and answers, or a day care organization can use it to bootstrap themselves into an affordable private school. Online companies can bootstrap into having banks of problems, using that as the content. And of course it doesn't just have to be Khan doing this, anybody can.

This doesn't just enable one thing, this and all the things that will happen enable an amazing multiplicity of ways to approach the problem of teaching. (And I started to say "teaching children" but even that is being too specific.)

(This is just one example, there's a lot of others. Too often people think the choice is "government run service" or "people scrabbling for scraps in the street as the wolves howl in the distance", but that's not how it works. Government-run services may not always be a bad idea but they do have a strong tendency to freeze in The One True Approach for decades after they are no longer optimal. 19th-century-style schooling's days are numbered, no matter how much the unions protest in the early 21st.)

Wow, it is really refreshing to see intelligent discussion of education here after mostly seeing little more than vacuous bloviating about it on reddit.

Completely agree, but I believe that change can come only by example.

Majority of people plays safe. There is nothing wrong in that. If someone can show them better choice, not by talking, but by creating better private school for underprivileged kids, they will start sending their kids in such schools.

When some percentage of people accepts that there are more options, I believe that more intelligent debate will emerge.

You assume that the primary role of the regular schools is to educate children, it may very well be that the primary role is to keep children busy so parents have time to work. Even if teaching as a role is replaced, there is still a cost for monitoring children while parents are working.

Being that Khan Academy isn't necessarily a complete learning experience/solution on its own makes this difficult. The most important one: Having a mentor or guide to assist when a student runs into problems or doesn't understand or is misunderstanding.

Of course not; I never meant to imply that the Khan Academy style videos would ever be a drop-in replacement for school. Rather, if the traditional role of teacher is played by someone like Sal Khan, while professionals in the schools serve as mentors or coaches, you could greatly reduce the staffing requirements (and therefore costs) of educational facilities.

Are you seriously suggesting that the average elementary or middle school could "greatly reduce" it's staffing requirements? As someone else pointed out, teachers aren't just there to teach; they also serve as childcare providers.

There's probably scope for reducing staff at high schools, but don't kid yourself that technology is going to provide some magic reduction in the cost of primary education.

Edited to add: I think that making high school more like college in terms of giving kids autonomy and opportunities to do real-world types of activities outside of school would be a great idea, and conceivably could both lower the cost of running schools and increase the value of schools. But this requires much more than technology to enact, there is also an huge cultural and societal component to deal with.

You're right, and to be honest I have little knowledge of staffing requirements for an elementary school. That said, I can't imagine that transitioning from staffing teachers to staffing childcare providers would not result in fewer staff and lower costs.

At the end of the day I just see things like the Khan Academy introducing a paradigm shift in education, allowing us to think about entirely new institutions for educating young children. The idea that we need to keep 19th century education styles in the 21st century is just mind boggling to me.

Heh, well honestly I don't know all that much about elementary school staffing either! But I do know a few things about children, and you simply can't put a large number of them in a space together without adult supervision and expect much educating to go on. Now maybe kids would actually be better off with less learning and more playing, but again without adult supervision of the playing are going to see a lot of destructive behavior. So it's a tough nut to crack.

You might hope that if you managed to replace some of what teachers do with technology you could pay the childcare people less. But it's not like teachers get paid huge amounts of money today. So I'm not sure how much scope you really have for cost-cutting there.

My view is that education is expensive, and growing more expensive, primarily because the field hasn't seen the kind of productivity increases that the rest of the economy has. Some of that might be due to conservatism regarding technology among educators. But a lot of it is simply that kids require hands-on supervision, there is maximum "student-to-adult" ratio that you can't really go over, and so inevitably education costs are going to rise faster than other costs. It's part of the price we pay for a technologically sophisticated economy.

Your last point is exactly what needs to happen. Let me just add that on top of cultural and societal components, there's a massive system (the current school system) that would have to be redesigned as well. The amount of checks and balances to keep that system in place is enormous. I'm convinced that forcing it out is the only way to change it. Khan has definitely provided a good beginning, it just isn't there yet.

Don't forget that the text book companies and other curriculum development companies have a of money and profit tied up in the status quo.

They, too, will fight tooth and nail to prevent something like the Khan Academy's widespread use in public institutions.

Interesting but what about poor people who cannot afford good quality education.

A better way I think would be for people to keep paying what they do in taxes for education but then giving them vouchers for that amount that they could spend at any school.

Socially fair as well as building a competitive marketplace for schooling

Did you read my post? My point is that organizations like the Khan Academy drastically reduce the cost of education while keeping quality high, perhaps even higher than what's in many school classrooms today. Doing so allows more people to afford a good education.

The current public school program is essentially mandatory "education insurance". We as a society want an educated public, so we force everyone to pay for it. The problem is that it's administered by the government, so politicians and bureaucrats decide what's good for children instead of their parents.

The entire situation in Wisconsin would not exist if public school didn't exist and private school was affordable. I think things like the Khan Academy help move us towards that end.

I did read your post. And I think that the Khan academy is doing wonderful things. Both by presenting content in novel ways and also at incredibly low cost. Thats great.

But you seem to be tossing the baby out with the bathwater when you suggest that we put all of the money back in the public's pockets instead of in government coffers. I don't have a problem paying to improve the average level of education. I am just against inefficiency and waste, which is why I suggested vouchers directly back to families.

I guess I would get less than what I put in but thats ok with me.

Just because you "don't have a problem paying" doesn't mean I should be forced to. Public school is not a choice; it's force. And, as we're all too familiar, it's quite often not a very good education, especially in lower income areas.

I have a child and there's no way I'm sending him to government school. I want him to learn everything he can get his hands on, not just what some bureaucrat decides he should learn. I don't want his education focused on passing tests that somehow measure a school's effectiveness; I want him focused on learning.

Vouchers are an admission that public school is broken and that competition is needed. The system is funded by force, not by the market. Instead, I propose that we stop trying to fix a broken system and instead replace it with one that works and isn't governed by politicians.

Unless you describe the entirety of your obligation to society as "force" (All taxes, the requirement to abide by laws, facing ostracisation for failing to be polite/deferent where society deems appropriate) I think your use of the term is disingenuous. I could equally say that "I do not wish to replace a system dedicated to the public good with a system motivated purely by greed" if I wanted to be equally disingenuous.

Personally I believe that the current US educational "reform" movement is presenting a false dichotomy and that education can be reformed and made better without falling back on "Free market makes it better" because demonstrably in many cases is does _not_.

And why not sell our national parks and community parks to say Disney and Chuck E Cheese? Imagine! We could pay whenever we want to take a slide or go for a hike!

Simple access to well indexed/searchable information through the internet was a very positive and disruptive change to education, but didn't really change the way education was delivered. I think education-on-demand and open textbooks are fundamentally going to change how people learn.

It seems that the world would only need a handful of teachers to provide all the basic (and I mean basic) education anyone ever needs. Then we could all concentrate on developing our personal potential, individual talents and performing to the very high levels most of us would be capable of if we could only have enough time. They say it takes 8,000 hours of anything to become an expert. That's never going to happen in a modern school with a curriculum crammed full of obsolete knowledge and subjects. but if we had more experts around who had more time to teach children, the sky's the limit.

While I agree with your premise, there are times you have a question or the teacher's explanation just doesn't click for you. Sometimes you need to be able to have 1:1 learning, however I'm sure there are a number of solutions to this problem.

I would think that it should not be too long before Khan like education is available for every topic sometime in the next 100 years. Once these topics are available, I see distributing these videos to every child in replacement of national school. It's probably overly optimistic to think this could happen without having politicians infecting their ideology into the material but whatever, it's a dream. I would love to join an organization interested in doing just this if there was one.

An interesting interview with Salman Khan:

http://www.bidoun.org/magazine/23-squares/the-math-of-khan-b...

I'm a big fan of Salman Khan and his videos, but I think what he does can be done better.

He is a great teacher, and his ideas of watching lectures for homework and actually working with teachers in class is great.

But, he cannot teach everything. The world is full of fantastic teachers, but ultimately only the students can recognize who they are. I have recently launched a simple online platform, organized like a textbook, for the Salman Khan's of the world to contribute any form of instruction for a given subject or to ask questions and give answers, ranging in form from Youtube videos to hand-drawn diagrams, where the community will rate what is good and what is not. This will filter the mediocre content, and eventually, only the highest-quality submissions will remain. As an incentive, I have pledged to give every penny earned via advertising through June to the top 10 highest rated submissions. I am currently testing the idea with Calculus 1, Physics 1, Linear Algebra, and Classical Mechanics. I am young, stupid, naive, and have limited web design skills, and I could really use any kind of help or input with this, particularly in forming curricula. It is still a work in progress (in every aspect), and you can see it at ForgetTheTextbook.com

I never heard about the Khan Academy but as of today I am a fan! I have always wondered how we can make advancements on education using technology and especially love the "learn at your own pace" and what you want to learn. I think this is a fantastic concept and looking forward to the involvement of it

While the Khan Academy is a great resource for teachers, parents, and self-motivated students, the idea that it is a revolutionary replacement for schools is a pipe dream. The 'Academy' boils down to a bunch of admittedly well-done videos and a chatroom. And I'll bet the vast majority of children who use it are motivated by the desire to do better in their 'real' school. Kids don't know what they don't know, and simply piling a bunch of videos in front of them with no guidance is hardly a substitute for our public (or private) school system. I think what Khan is doing is great, but it's essentially just a well-executed set of study aids.

Khan academy is a huge step forward, delivering key concepts in video forms. However, this approach only goes so far. Human interaction becomes important when higher-level concepts are introduced. For example, I can't imagine getting through my O.S course without the help of TAs, office hours, etc. Recreating that experience on-demand would be the holy grail.

what's the name of the software/tool that he(Khan) uses to write ?

http://www.khanacademy.org/about/faq#equipment

He used MS Paint for a long time (seriously).

But apparently he's upgraded to something called SmoothDraw3 and a Wacom Bamboo Tablet.

http://www.khanacademy.org/about/faq#equipment

This has been a thought running through my mind for a while. The Khan Academy is fantastic! I've had a few great teachers/professors in my time, but I still think of him as the best. I would love to see Rosetta Stone style software mixed with his lessons.

Personally I was really interested in pursuing opportunities in educational software a while ago (If changing the world is your goal as an entrepreneur education is a pretty low hanging fruit) So I went to one of my old teachers. She has won several awards over the years, and is the kind of person open to new ideas. I decided to spend a few hours with her to learn how school has changed, and how we can use technology to make learning better. Going into the conversation I had the idea of a social network for students/teachers. However while talking I soon learned that what she really wants, and what would really help is more data. Students take various assessments, but the tests are fairly infrequent. In the time between assessments things change for each child, but the progress of the lesson may not proceed in proportion. It was at this point I changed my way of thinking. I don't think the most efficient education is had by retrofitting new technologies into the classic classroom. Instead like Khan described, the role of the teacher could be shifted to software that guides a student through learning while tracking their progress, repeating concepts as needed or advancing difficulty in a very dynamic manner. The teacher can than transition into a role as a guide, perhaps helping students learn more offline, helping students find answers to questions etc.

That's exactly what needs to happen. The teacher as a knowledge spout doesn't make sense anymore in most places since we can get the knowledge from 100 other sources faster and probably better.

In addition and regards to your assessment point -- I agree assessments still need to happen, and perhaps even more regularly than now, but there needs to be a shift in the mindset around the purpose of the assessment. It's common to think of assessments as the primary method of getting "grade/mark points" and that's it, however the most beneficial part of assessing are the learning aspects.

Assessments:

1. Give the student a chance to use the knowledge they now have and strengthen it as a result,

2. Figure out where the student is for the benefit of the "teacher"/"guide" to better guide the student in further learning and,

3. Help the student figure out where they are themselves and where they're struggling and doing well.

And hopefully burdened with less administrative tasks and armed with more data that tracks progress and speed of learning, teachers can act more as a curator of knowledge (and guides, as you described) that cater more specifically to the needs of each student. It could very well be that in a few years, our children are bombarded with more educational content that they know what to do with, and the roles of the teachers will also rightfully shift.

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