Hacker News Reader

Comment by MikeCapone | Hacker News Reader

This. From what I know, teaching is broken in the U.S. (and probably in many other places), and the way incentives and the balance of power is set up, what matters for most decisions on how things work is what is best for teachers, not what is best for students (the documentary Waiting for Superman shows a lot of this).

So it's not surprising to see teachers fighting back and trying to discredit KA, because success for them would mean a loss of status quo for teachers. If you get 99 things right and 1 thing wrong, those who feel threatened by you will minimize those 99 things and blow that 1 thing out of proportion.

View on HN

I am thrilled that KA exists. I have read Khan's book and recommended it to others. I don't see anything in this post about "discrediting" KA. I think the author is making a completely valid point and I hope that KA addresses it soon.

> What we see in these two girls’ thinking is precisely the problem you set out to solve with Khan Academy. But you aren’t solving the problem, Mr. Khan. You are perpetuating it.

> Mr. Khan, you have a team of teacher advisors. If none of them can identify these gaps for you, you need to ask for help from the larger community (and then to reexamine your hiring practices).

> Or you could educate yourself (as we require of all licensed teachers) on what is known about how people learn mathematics.

Which of these contributed to his point? The whole thing is just entirely unnecessarily snide and personal. He has a simple and straightforward point that could have been explained in a concise and conciliatory manner, but he chose to use it as a platform to grind an axe. Also the "open letter to Sal Khan" title is confrontational linkbait. This is just not constructive.

The point that there are gaps that hvae not been addressed? All of them.

Do you have any other suggestions as to how the pedagogical flaws could be addressed, since Khan Academy keeps basing all its exercises on these flawed materials?

Okay, fair enough. The author did permit himself to go beyond constructive criticism and resort to pot shots in a few places. I don't think they invalidate his point entirely -- and I don't see the problem with writing an open letter -- but I agree, the pot shots are unbecoming, and suggest that the author is feeling threatened by KA.

Edited to add: the first quote is blunt, but not, I think, out of line. I do think I detect a bit of condescension in the latter two.

The problem is that without the snideness/personal attack, we wouldn't be discussing the article, and Sal Khan would never have seen it.

Nobody wants to read a boring article about a better way to teach decimals. Sad but true.

That's why I read the article...

> If you get 99 things right and 1 thing wrong, those who feel threatened by you will minimize those 99 things and blow that 1 thing out of proportion.

You nailed it perfectly, mate! ॐ

Could you find some things that he got right?

Oh. I didn't think so.

He also says in his movies that "two plus itself times one" is what "two times one" is. That's right, he gets 2 + 2 wrong.

Are you saying that all of the videos on Khan Academy are wrong?

This reminded me of a quote by Joe Armstrong, creator of the Erlang language. He said, referring to language design in general: "What you get right, nobody mentions it; What you get wrong, people bitch about."

Though I think the original author is making a valid point here, don't get me wrong, and Khan should address the issue.

[1]http://joearms.github.io/2013/05/31/a-week-with-elixir.html

Reply on news.ycombinator.com