
The Dangerous Mr. Khan - cwan
http://www.nas.org/polArticles.cfm?Doc_Id=2029
======
salmankhan
Hi Everyone,

This is Sal here. I wanted to respond directly on the author's page, but they
seem to be having a problem taking comments.

The reason why I make history videos is that many people I know (many of whom
are quite educated) don't even have a basic scaffold of world events in their
minds (or the potential causality between events). Most American high school
and college students would find it difficult to give even a summary of the
Vietnam War or the Cuban Missile Crisis. Many of these people have sat through
years of traditional history classes (taught through state-mandated books by
"experts"). Even more worrying is many experts who have taken one side or
another of a historical issue and view their viewpoints as facts (this is the
tone of most history books).

If the author really watched my videos, he would see that I start most of them
telling the listener to be skeptical of anything I tell them or anyone tells
them; that no matter how footnoted something is, in the end it is dependent on
people's accounts--the people who weren't killed--which are subject to bias
(no matter how well-intentioned). Very few history books or professors do
this. If anything, they create a false sense of certainty.

As for the "one voice" issue, I don't see how a guy making digestible videos
that inform and encourage skepticism (on YouTube where anyone else can do the
same) are more dangerous than state-mandated text books. I don't see how
lectures that are open for the world to scrutinize (and comment about on
YouTube and our site) are more dangerous than a lone teacher or professor who
can say whatever they like to their classrooms with no one there to correct or
dispute them.

Finally, there is nothing I would like to see more than other
teachers/professors/experts adding their voice to the mix. Rather than wasting
energy commenting on other people's work with pseudo-intellectual babble, why
don't they produce their own videos and post them on YouTube? If someone can
produce 20 videos that seem decent and want to do more as part of the Khan
Academy, we'll point our audience at them. If our students respond, we'll
figure out a way that they can potentially make it a career.

regards, Sal

~~~
chem21st
Sal,

The only thing novel about Khan Academy is accessibility. Its the same old
teacher-centered lectures we've endured for the past hundred years, with a
somewhat more charismatic instructor.

Most of the criticism I've seen of your work isn't "pseudo-intellectual
babble," its merely pointing out what I've stated above, and that it isn't in
line with what research tells us about how students learn. Your challenge for
your critics to produce their own videos misses the point entirely.

I happen to think your videos are fine overall, and while I find some specific
science content oversimplified and focus too much on mechanics rather than
conceptual understanding, it serves very well for student review. For learning
new content, however, I happen to believe that there is a better way.

Please view the video below:

Effectiveness of Science Videos <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eVtCO84MDj8>

While you're there, consider his videos a part of your final challenge.
<http://www.youtube.com/user/1veritasium>

I am very interested in your thoughts about his approach to instructional
videos.

~~~
salmankhan
This "Effectiveness of Science Videos" video that you refer to doesn't even
use Khan Academy videos. Also, don't you think it is ironic to use video to
explain that videos can't explain things?

You're entitled to your opinions. Our #1 priority is the millions of students
who use our content and testify that it is measurably helping them. And to be
clear, they aren't deluding themselves--read our comments and you'll see
student after student using our content to rock any assessment thrown at them.
The data we're seeing in pilot classrooms is showing students performing
several grade levels ahead. We're seeing remedial students using Khan Academy
software leap frogging non-remedial students. Very savvy school districts
(with super demanding parents) that understand results are rolling us out on a
district-wide basis.

As for conceptual understanding, this is what the Khan Academy is all about.
We have multiple videos on proofs and conceptual understanding that are never
touched on in most classrooms. I won't make a lesson unless I can explain the
why and/or why it is intuitive.

As for your "research", what is it tangibly doing for students? Rather than
talk, we think we should build, learn and iterate.

~~~
chem21st
I never said that you "can't explain things" with video. I said that your
videos work very well for review. The medium has changed, but you're doing the
same thing that has always been done. If the goal is to get past a test or
quiz, then I'm sure students love it. But will they understand it in a month?
Two months? A year? They won't come back to leave those comments on youtube.

I simply ask you to watch the video, and respond to it. I think it makes valid
points, and it agrees with the research I've read on how students learn
(Available for free here: <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10126>).

If you truly want to build, and learn (which I certainly want to), don't
flippantly dismiss critiques. Just because all forms of effective teaching
don't go viral on YouTube doesn't mean that they're invalid.

~~~
penguinbroker
I think you're missing the point. Sal Khan isn't trying to replace all
traditional forms of learning. He's not saying that his methodology is perfect
and should be the first options. So picking apart his practices based on
idealistic principles is really irrelevant.

I think all this criticism just further reiterates how amazing Khan Academy
is. Truth is that their will never be an educational system that everyone
thinks is perfect. We are all too unique and absorb information in different
ways. The fact that people are talking about Khan Academy at this global scale
is amazing and only further amplifies it's importance, last time I checked
open source education doesn't generate too much press. So instead of seeking
perfection, which is unattainable, we should focus more on actually doing the
littles things to make knowledge more widespread.

To that end Khan Academy has no comparable peers. Critics can talk all they
want about learning theory and this and that, but fact is that Khan Academy is
really helpful to a lot of people.

If you think you see a flaw in Sal's approach and can do better, than just do
it and we'll see if people like it. You're into education theory, great. Keep
reading and writing about education. Sal Khan is into doing, into helping
people learn so that they can improve their own lives. Kindly get out of his
way.

------
maukdaddy
The comments thus far show exactly what is wrong with HN. HN has become an
echo chamber where we all love certain people/companies/ideas and immediately
dismiss any counter viewpoint.

Instead of immediately discrediting the linked article because they're
"haters" or "threatened", try reading it and understanding their point of
view. I love Khan's work and what he's doing, but at the same time the article
raises some valid points. You learn a lot more by examining both sides of a
story than being a fanboi.

~~~
ThomPete
I read it and normally consider myself pretty open minded. But then you read
things like this.

 __"Here Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective
steeped in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of
cultural relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence. " __

And in my mind the author is exposed.

I am hoping that my son grows up being taught by postmodernist that don't
present history as fact but as I believe it is – a perspective.

I would rather that my son grasp a few things about history and don't get the
exact dates or details right. That he understands what history is as much as
he knows what went into it.

So in my mind the valid points you talk about are nothing but the authors own
idea about mainly his own field which is history. In other words his own
interpretation – how ironic.

I agree that Kahn probably shouldn't be teaching history and I am sure with
time that will be changed. But to claim that he is dangerous is simply missing
the grander scheme of things.

~~~
jcarreiro
> I am hoping that my son grows up being taught by postmodernist that don't
> present history as fact

How else could it possibly be presented? Could you elaborate on what you mean
when you say that history is "a perspective"? Can one change history simply by
deciding to view it differently, somehow?

~~~
michael_dorfman
History is not comprised of a set of value-neutral facts. History is a
narrative constructed out of fact and interpretations, and every history has a
viewpoint.

Without question, one changes history by deciding to view it differently. If
it didn't work that way, we'd only need one history book and we'd be done.

~~~
hugh3
Well actually, history _does_ consist of value-neutral facts, but the sum
total of all those facts is far too complicated for any one mind to
comprehend. This atom moved there, that atom moved here, and so forth. Even if
you scale up to the actions of individual people rather than atoms, we're
still far beyond what we could comprehend... and in any case, most of it isn't
recorded.

Having acknowledged the limitations of the historian's knowledge, though, the
question is what do you do next? A good historian will use the fact that he
can't divorce himself from his own viewpoint as a reminder to be extremely
cautious. A bad one will use it as an _excuse_ to indulge his particular
biases.

~~~
barrkel
I cannot agree. There are so many "facts" that the mere selection of which
ones get recorded already puts an overwhelming bias on the stories they tell.
History is obsessed with narratives, and there is an ineluctable requirement,
when doing history, to create a story where earlier "facts" leads to later
"facts" in a hypothesis of cause and effect. The requirement for a pseudo-
logical story with internal consistency further cherry-picks the "facts",
until you're left with a complete bowdlerization of reality. The truth is,
there are enough "facts" that you can very probably tell a whole lot of
different stories using the raw material, but people have a very strong
disinclination to cognitive dissonance and won't do this. They'll pick one and
stick with it, and argue it against other stories in ego-driven battles, until
a consensus emerges as a sociological phenomenon, rather than a fact-driven
one.

One man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist. Criminals often think
they're justified in the actions they take; in fact, often they must self-
justify their own actions in order to sleep at night at all, so they will have
their own internally consistent narratives. It's extremely difficult to fight
the dominant narrative once it has become accepted.

IMO, the highest value history has is in telling stories about a world which
is different from our own, but for which we have somewhat believable evidence
actually existed. The degrees to which it is different tell us what varies in
human nature, and what stays the same, stays the same. It teaches us to not
take the present moment too seriously as some kind of apex or nadir. But I
don't think it _actually_ tells us a whole lot about the past, per se.

------
icegreentea
Has a point. The Khan Academy approach is very good for maths, and most
sciences. These are cases where you can distil knowledge into a few examples
and cases, and it works well. The viewer now has a working, and accurate
mental model of whatever they were learning, without having to go through
-everything- involved.

However, this approach to history and other topics can be a problem. While
some of the criticism is somewhat overblown, it is valid. Distilling history
and other social sciences down, to the degree that Khan does is very hard to
do properly, and likely to introduce all sorts problems into the mental model
of history the viewer has.

It's not a case of "taking sides" or whatever. But, if the Academy really does
want to be "the classroom of the world", then it -should- go into enough
detail to build accurate mental models. How much stuff do you think people
learn in a classroom, and never have a chance to "relearn". How many incorrect
mental models are formed, and then never corrected until catastrophe. The
responsible thing to do, if attempting to be come the classroom of the world
is to realize that if they are successful, then for many people, the Academy
will be their sole source of information for some topics (as in, not the only
source of information, but the only source that they go to), and teach
accordingly. Either have the lesson be able to provide an accurate and correct
mental model, or make the learner explicitly aware that what they are learning
is incomplete/unprecise/whatever.

~~~
mattmcknight
"Either have the lesson be able to provide an accurate and correct mental
model, or make the learner explicitly aware that what they are learning is
incomplete/unprecise/whatever."

Khan does the latter, it is called an overview. I think this aspect of the
original critic's article displayed his lack of understanding of an
incremental and iterative approach. If we waited until he had completed every
lecture on history, we'd never have any. Given the current state, and even
considering the future state, it is nonsensical to judge it on the basis of
being the "sole source" of information on a subject.

The second bad assumption is that Khan's work is somehow inferior to other
high school teachers' presentations of the subject. In my experience, at a
high school frequently referred to as the best in the US, we barely even made
it through the Vietnam war, and the "mental model" presented was merely a
random collection of facts.

If only this author could see the average high school history teacher in
action, he would be demanding that they stop teaching kids to glue garbage on
a piece of poster board and teach his version of the subject. The difference
with Khan is that it's all out there. He's open for review, and the videos can
be improved.

~~~
BasDirks
"Khan does the latter, it is called an overview."

It is an overview, but absurdly condensed. A skill like calculus can be
thought in brief, clear overviews; you either understand _it_ or you don't.

History is no such _it_.

~~~
nl
Perhaps.

And yet few historically literate people understand the intimate workings of
the alliance system prior to WW1[1] - but it is a vital piece of background
information that explains a lot about what happened.

In my view, "the great powers had alliances and went to war to support one
another" sums it up reasonably well, despite ignoring viral things like the
1839 Treaty of London[2], etc.

For someone studying post-Vietnam US history (say), I think the Kahn summary
might be a reasonable background. Probably not sufficient in itself, but
_reasonable_.

[1]
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I#Web_of_al...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Causes_of_World_War_I#Web_of_alliances)
[2]<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_London,_1839>

------
mquander
The way the author writes, it's as if he thinks there is some superior
alternative that Khan is displacing. Last I checked, there ain't.

Fact is, Khan's videos are considered good because the actual history
education that most students take away from classrooms is even worse. Like
most other subjects, that's what you get when you try to deliver a
comprehensive, objective, detail-oriented education to students who (within a
small margin of error) couldn't give a shit. Never mind the Bolsheviks or the
timeline -- what percentage of randomly sampled American high school graduates
would even know that there _was_ a Russian Revolution if you asked them?

If we can replace zero history with a fifteen-minute-chunk version of history,
I'm for it.

~~~
pg
_it's as if he thinks there is some superior alternative that Khan is
displacing. Last I checked, there ain't._

Yes, that's what I was thinking. The stuff the author quotes sounds bad, but
probably better than you'd get from some teachers I had.

Plus on the Internet kids can watch these videos at any age. His simplified
version of history could be way better than what e.g. an 8 year old might
otherwise have access to.

~~~
rubergly
In the site's current form, I think the fact that a viewer of any age can
watch a history video is actually a bit problematic.

For mathematics, all of the material is broken down into the very basic
components, so it's easy for a video to have a set of prerequisites which any
viewer should understand before watching (with a set of links to the videos
corresponding to those prerequisites).

For a subject like history, the material can't easily be broken down. As the
article points out, a statement like "as you can imagine, Japan did not
produce a lot of its own oil" may be common sense to someone of high-school
age, but an 8-year old may have no understanding of how oil is produced or
where it comes for and the statement may make no sense. This doesn't render KA
as dangerous or useless, just points out a problem which needs to be solved
and which they are certainly aware of :).

~~~
glenra
To me, that a viewer of any age can watch is practically the whole point of
Khan Academy. Kids learn at different speeds and are interested in different
subjects at different ages. Whatever subject you're talking about, there are
some 8-year-olds who could benefit from it. The traditional approach of having
grownups _decide_ what material is suitable for what age is _guaranteed_ to
produce a mixture of kids who are bored and kids who are lost; khan materials
present the promise that kids might be able to learn at their own pace and
according to their own interests. The ones who find history of X fascinating
will race ahead and do related research and file info away for later; the ones
who lack context will probably be bored and lose interest and want to study
something else _and that's okay_.

~~~
strayer
Agreed. Watching Carl Sagan´s Cosmos at age 9 was fascinating, even though a
second viewing, years later, was much more informative.

------
ajscherer
A visit to the wikipedia entry on the National Association of Scholars may
help you understand the author's perspective.

The first half of this article makes a reasonably convincing case that Mr.
Khan is a much worse history teacher than math tutor. The second half of the
article makes a totally convincing case that the author understands the
Internet worse than Khan understands anything.

I guess in his nightmare scenario the "algorithms of the Internet" will one
day cause everyone's web-browsers to redirect every request to one of Mr.
Khan's fizzy history lectures where he just glosses right over the moral
infallibility of the US, the inherent superiority of western culture, and the
fact that Jesus died for your sins. The same algorithms will doubtless prevent
the author from creating his own history videos clarifying those topics for
people. After all, Mr. Khan appeared on Charlie Rose!

~~~
edtechdev
Exactly: NAS "opposes multiculturalism and affirmative action and seeks to
counter what it considers a 'liberal bias' in academia"

Quotes from this article:

"Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective steeped in
academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural
relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence"

"A MoveOn.org liberal,..."

This article can be safely ignored, including the author's other article about
how "Online education should serve as a home for orphaned liberal arts and
"boutique" courses."

There are actually more substantive and _constructive_ criticisms of the Khan
Academy out there. But ultimately, we should make sure we don't ignore the
great parts of it, either. After all, one guy recording screencasts and
sharing them on youtube has helped millions of students now with understanding
and doing math and other topics. With no budget and no formal training.

Imagine if we had 1000 or 10,000 Salman Khan's teaching the public online,
with perhaps a little more pedagogical content knowledge
([http://www.tpck.org/tpck/index.php?title=Pedagogical_Content...](http://www.tpck.org/tpck/index.php?title=Pedagogical_Content_Knowledge_\(PCK\))
), and using other tools in addition to just video (simulations, assessments,
etc.).

------
wccrawford
So, their biggest problems with Khan are that he doesn't go into enough detail
and that he doesn't pick sides in the wars?

Wow, that -is- dangerous. He might teach children to think for themselves or
something!

As for the Skinner Box, the internet is anything but. Yes, you tend to only
see things you want to, etc... But there is nothing stopping you from seeing
other things, and most sites will step out of your comfort zone quite a lot.

They honestly believe that somehow Khan's videos could become the -only-
resource for learning about history. Not a chance.

~~~
jeffreymcmanus
It's challenging to think for yourself when you don't have enough information
to make reasoned decisions.

~~~
olalonde
How many people have watched Khan's video who otherwise wouldn't have learned
shit about WWII or the Korean War. I know I learned stuff about the Korean War
myself which I wouldn't have learned otherwise.

------
bbg
+1 for the idea that history is more than an "incoherent torrent of factoids"

I heard Khan say recently on the Colbert Report that he read the Wikipedia
article on the French Revolution as his source before making his video on the
subject.

That's fine for his purposes, but somewhere up the information food chain
someone must actually read the sources, weigh them, interpret, compare, and do
all the other work of understanding and transmitting history. It's hard to
imagine that those 'educated' by Khan can take up this work, or if they do,
that by the time they become competent, they will regard his videos as
anything other than inconsequential in their effort.

However, I do think it's overblown to say that Khan is any more dangerous than
Cliff's notes or similar supposed shortcut to education. And I suspect his
math and finance videos might be quite good, based on the response, and on the
fact that he actually spent time in school learning math and finance. (But I
haven't watched them.)

~~~
alain94040
_his math and finance videos might be quite good [...] But I haven't watched
them_

You may want to try watching a few first. Based on the amount of praise Khan
received on HN, I had high hopes. So I did watch a few, and I was
disappointed. I'm not sure what I was expecting.

I think on HN a lot of people love the _concept_ of online education that Khan
represents, but many have not bothered to seriously try it.

~~~
yummyfajitas
I've tried it. Or rather, my students did.

Back when I was teaching, I know many of my students found Khan more
understandable than me (or at least complementary to me). I started
encouraging everyone to go watch Khan videos and see if they liked them. Many
did, and learned quite a bit from them.

I didn't like Khan that much - his style didn't work well for me. But it
worked for many people. It's a lot to expect a single lecturer to be perfect
for everyone.

What would be really great is if we had multiple Khans, each teaching in
different styles.

------
crux
It's quite apparent to me that Mr. Clemens' political leanings and the
exigencies of blogging culture have worked together to transform a worthwhile
small point into a pretty overbaked big point. Mr. Clemens demonstrates ably,
I think, that Mr. Khan is a lousy history teacher. I haven't taken any of his
science courses, so I can't speak about them, but it's clear that when it
comes to history Mr. Khan lacks the depth of knowledge and fluency with the
facts to teach effectively. So he ends up missing things, leaving things
unexplained, falling back on pop culture depictions, oversimplifying
motivations.

On the other hand—what does this have to do with pretty much anything else? I
think it's not a stretch to see how every deficiency displayed there can be
directly derived from a lack of familiarity with the material. Do you really
need to try to make the overheated claim that being waffly with facts and
simplistic with the human narrative is the result of an academia-enforced
political and epistemological philosophy? Mr. Khan isn't exactly saying, you
know, 'As we learn from a cursory reading of Baudrillard, the concept that the
Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in any meaningful, substantial way is clearly a
fiction of the necessities of realpolitik.' He's just fudging it. Mr Clemens
continues to spiral outward, proposing a grim reality where all our education
is mediated through Facebook and thus (because of the nature of Facebook's
algorithms at the moment) through political conformity, confirmation bias, and
groupthink—which results in Mr. Khan's own pernicious beliefs being beamed,
unopposed, into the minds of our modern youth. All this from “from FDR’s point
of view, Hitler definitely was in the wrong here” and a reference to _Saving
Private Ryan_.

Mr Clemens should have restricted his aim to a more manageable and germane
topic: the unfortunate fiction that we can teach history, or anything else, by
reading out loud from the textbook, or by stringing together a sequence of
pictures of famous people. Teaching is hard, and many people in lecture halls
and seminars all across this great nation do it poorly every day.
Unfortunately, when it comes to World War II, Mr. Khan is a member of their
ranks. I'm not sure that Bill Gates' neoliberal plans for a New World Order
history course necessarily enter into it.

------
synnik
As someone who has been a teacher and trainer of various kinds, removing your
own bias from your teaching does not come naturally or easily. So I think the
points made (while exaggerated) have at least a kernel of validity. However,
ranting on a blog is not a productive response. Instead, I'd document them as
constructive criticism and send them to Mr. Khan directly. I've got to believe
that anyone who is passionate enough about education to put the Khan academy
together in the first place is also willing to hear suggestions on
improvements.

~~~
RuadhanMc
Is removing bias even possible? I mean, even if you succeed from removing your
own personal bias, can you be sure that the person who wrote the material from
which you learned had successfully removed their bias? And the person from
which they learned?

------
tokenadult
On the facts reported in the submitted article, I would have to suggest that
Mr. Khan bring some expert historians (preferably of multiple cultural
backgrounds and different nationalities) on board his project to produce the
history videos. He could well devote his own time to producing more videos on
more elementary levels of math, as elementary mathematics is still very poorly
taught in much of the English-speaking world.

<http://math.berkeley.edu/~wu/>

ftp://math.stanford.edu/pub/papers/milgram/report-on-cmp.html

<http://www.math.wisc.edu/~askey/ask-gian.pdf>

------
astine
The author's complaint seems to be that the Khan Academy's history lectures
give an overly simplified view of history and that this, along with their
availability, will make them more attractive to students who, the author
fears, will watch Khan Academy videos in lieu of studying the topics in depth.
This, he fears, will lead to a cultural forgetfulness of what the author
considers to be the important moral lessons of WWII.

It's an important objection. There is a real tendency towards laziness among
human begins and an easy availability of a simplified history _could_
discourage people from deeper study. A simplified history from only one
viewpoint is even worse. But I think he's pointing the finger in the wrong
direction. Wikipedia is already a far greater threat on that matter and their
are plenty of simplified versions of history available, some even taught in
schools. Sal is only example of this (and possibly a product as the author
alludes.) The proper solution would be more, and more in depth videos from
other perspectives. I know some people who might be willing to do just that...

------
TeMPOraL
The thing I remember was almost always missing in the education process I went
through right up to the university was _the big picture_. A brief summary, a
TL;DR, an idea, an answer to questions like "what does it mean?" or "why
should I care?".

My experience with education is that for most of the time, we are being taught
'the form', not 'the contents'. It was after I've watched SICP video lectures
that I finally understood many computer science concepts that I was being
taught (read: forced to memorize for the exam) at university and even in high
school.

I strongly believe in what Einstein said: "If you can't explain it simply, you
don't understand it well enough." If Khan can summarize almost entire XX
century into a 15-minute talk while staying correct with the facts, then
that's great. It's what we call a 'high level overview'. It might be not
sufficient, but it's a good start, as it constructs a skeleton which makes the
details stick easier in our brains.

~~~
tokenadult
_The thing I remember was almost always missing in the education process I
went through right up to the university was the big picture._

What do you think the learner's responsibility is in the educational process?
I am a teacher, and I do attempt to provide both big-picture ideas and
detailed supporting facts and examples as I teach my students. (I try to
elicit a lot of those from my students themselves, with a discussion format
with lots of questions and answers as I present new concepts.) But I would
hate to be in the position of my high school American history teacher, who was
frequently interrupted by one of my classmates who would ask, "How am I
supposed to write that down in my notes?" When I was in university studies, I
read a very interesting book called Speaking and Listening

(It may be this book on Google Books, but I am not completely sure:

[http://books.google.com/books?id=sOp5MbE6-jYC&q=Speaking...](http://books.google.com/books?id=sOp5MbE6-jYC&q=Speaking+and+Listening&dq=Speaking+and+Listening&hl=en&ei=RpnvTbvlHuHr0gH_nOnzDA&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=1&ved=0CC0Q6AEwAA)

as it has been a long time since I read the book)

in which I learned about the style of note-taking that many people call
"Cornell notes"

[http://lsc.sas.cornell.edu/Sidebars/Study_Skills_Resources/c...](http://lsc.sas.cornell.edu/Sidebars/Study_Skills_Resources/cornellsystem.pdf)

<http://coe.jmu.edu/LearningToolbox/cornellnotes.html>

<http://coe.jmu.edu/LearningToolbox/printer/cornellnotes.pdf>

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cornell_Notes>

in which it is the note-taker's responsibility to sum up what the lecture
means and what the main points are. Taking that approach was very helpful for
me in my university studies and especially in my postgraduate professional
school studies. I think Einstein too would agree

<http://learninfreedom.org/Nobel_hates_school.html>

that ultimately it is up to the learner to seek understanding of the main
points of any subject.

~~~
TeMPOraL
Thanks for the link to "Cornell notes".

I don't think we should assume that learner has _any_ responsibility in
educational process - at least not when talking about kids. Keep in mind that
from their perspective it looks more like them being locked up in classroom
against his will, and it's only up to school to try not to kill his interest
in the world around him.

I agree that if a learner cares enough to actually think about what was told
on the lecture - to come up with his own understanding, to summarize on his
own, etc. he will benefit greatly. One can't really understand anything
without doing some mental work on his own.

If we talk about mature learners, than yes - they have a big responsibility in
the educational process and they take it (sometimes in spite, not because of
their tutor). But still, we can help them by conveying our ideas well. And it
is especially important when dealing with children, as they don't give a damn
about anything until proven interesting. It's actually quite understandable.
Because, well, why should they care?

------
hnhg
Okay, so the first part of this is nitpicking the obviously impossible task of
summarising the history of the world (perhaps it was Khan's intention to
simply get students interested in the subjects so that they could study them
further), and then the second part verges on parody by putting together some
poorly connected thoughts and trying to pass them off as an argument.

If this is representative of the type of person against the Khan Academy, I'm
for it even more.

------
bstar
I agree strongly with the Author's issues with presenting history in this
manner. History is a living document of clues that are merely interpreted by
us- very little is fact.

I've been studying Egyptology for about 6 years now and it's amazing what
perspectives have changed in that time. We're even starting to see stories now
that are challenging the "Out of Africa" theory. Whenever I hear a
teacher/lecturer describe something historical as fact, it makes me cringe
because so much is left to interpretation.

Khan doing history in this manner is dangerous. But at the same time, the ways
our schools do history is dangerous as well. Presenting singular perspectives
and presenting them as fact only breeds misinformation.

I believe khan academy is superb for math and sciences, especially for quick
overviews of concepts. But the format is absolutely terrible for presenting
historical topics. Understanding history requires reading from many resources
and coming to logical conclusions. A copy/paste job from wikipedia is simply
pathetic.

------
scythe
>I pulled up his video “U.S. History Overview 3—World War II to Vietnam”

Well, there's your problem. If you concern yourself primarily with US History,
as Khan does (and declares what he is doing), you're going to necessarily
ignore a lot of non-US perspectives, like, y'know, Leningrad, Churchill, the
rape of Nanking, Japan's lack of oil reserves, the whole bit. The real
question is not whether Mr. Khan did a poor job of explaining US History, it
is whether the idea of teaching "$country history", when we concern ourselves
primarily with foreign affairs as Mr. Khan does, whether focusing on the
actions of $country in an era of global politics gives a skewed and ultimately
inaccurate perspective. The answer to that should be a rather obvious 'yes'...

I do doubt however that Mr. Khan truly hopes to achieve or at least does not
really believe that he can achieve a monopoly in education. Perhaps his format
will be copied but I doubt his lectures themselves will become the _status
quo_ especially if they are as lacking in depth as the example shown (I am not
really familiar with the Khan Academy). The graver problem shown in the
article does not really concern the Khan Academy but rather our method of
consuming information from a general standpoint, and the dangers of the
personalization of news; but this is a rather tired complaint, and the author
does not suggest a novel approach for combatting it.

------
eyko
I believe it's still a very good way to get students to actually _read_ a
book. In 15 minutes, Khan does a great job, and the author of the article...
well, he fails to get that.

The idea behind it is getting children __interested __in history enough that
they would pick up a book. It's not, as I understand it, the only account of
history they're expected to have. And to think otherwise is to think stupid.

~~~
michael_dorfman
_In 15 minutes, Khan does a great job_

A great job of what, exactly?

~~~
eyko
Of getting you into the narrative, interested enough to wonder – "what led to
the cold war?" or things like that. I haven't seen the video, I've only read
the article, and from what the author writes... it seems he goes directly into
events without building / contextualising too much. But events are interesting
(like the space race) to children, and they will probably be more interested
once they've got a timeline of a few anecdotes, than if they started with a
dense lesson for each topic.

I see it as investigative learning: you get some facts, a few events, a few
ideas... and you're curious. You want to get more knowledge or discover the
truth behind something, then you try to fill those gaps with evidence (in this
case, with more historical facts?).

I wouldn't dismiss Khan just because he doesn't go into detail with aspects.
For example, the holocaust... it that the only thing that we remember from the
WW2? In fact, Allies and Russia did not go to war because of the holocaust, so
why is it so important that he mentions it? Is everything else so "not"
important in WW2? If I were giving an account of it, I would even be praising
Germany's technological advancements as a nation and comparing them to their
contemporaries.

~~~
michael_dorfman
My question, then, is: is his lecture better, worse, or about the same as we'd
expect in, say, a typical undergraduate history lecture?

 _I wouldn't dismiss Khan just because he doesn't go into detail with aspects_

I wouldn't dream of doing that-- there's only so much detail one can fit into
a brief lecture. The problem (if there is one) is one of selection and
interpretation.

------
tibbon
It seems to be pretty nitpicking. He says things that plenty of educators
would likely say in describing events such as, "as you'd imagine".

His point about FDR's viewpoint of Hitler's invasion of Poland is really weak
and I just don't get it. Everything actually _is_ relative. The Germans
probably thought it was just as fine (if not moreso) to invade Poland as in
the US Bush thought it was ok to invade Iraq. Of course history is written by
the victors. Had Germany won, it would have been written as a good action from
their perspective.

So in 15 minutes he doesn't dig into terribly much detail. Let's face it, even
after a teacher spends an entire semester going over this with 8th graders, in
10 years time do they remember all the details? Details are something that can
come after interest is solidified. Pushing details on 8th graders misses the
larger point often as it is buried in dates, maps, names and such. If you get
them hooked on the main point, they will find the details.

------
hillel
To the author of the article, Mr. Clemens, and other academics annoyed by Mr.
Khan's compressed description of important topics, I ask the following
question:

Other than criticize this new source of education, what are YOU doing to
address the needs of people hungry for learning other than continuing on the
same well worn path that you've been on for decades?

Professional academics whining about Khan Academy ignore the fact that their
customers are telling them something by flocking to Khan's videos. They're
saying that higher education today doesn't always meet their needs, and they
need these services packaged, priced, and delivered in new ways.

If Mr. Clemens doesn't like Khan's treatment of a particular topic, how about
recording your own video that does it right.

It does seem easier to criticize and keep to your own cloistered little world
rather than put yourself out there and try to innovate. But that's just my
perspective.

------
natural219
I think this article is very interesting, if only to get a look at what
objections might exist to an educational paradigm similar to KA. If we're
serious about fighting for an efficient education system, we must be prepared
to answer objections like this.

He brings up a few valid points that I haven't thought of before. Presumably,
as systems like KA are adopted the _amount_ of total educational material
decreases, as individual curricula are replaced by a standard set of
materials. This decreases diversity in the type of education available for
students, which can be seen as a good or a bad thing. I bet the author would
be all for the system if the videos were "conservative" and they were
replacing curricula of "liberal" educators teaching our children filthy
subjectivist lies.

------
Apocryphon
The article is full of FUD, but Khan himself probably shouldn't be teaching
humanities (like history) or social sciences (other than for his own
specialization, economics) or the life sciences (and any other discipline he
is not too familiar with).

------
jlgosse
The only real problem I have with the Khan Academy is that they appear to be
using a mouse to write notes on the digital chalkboard. This is incredibly
messy and really hard to understand.

For example:

In the first video on motion, Sal is going on and on about the topic, and is
doing a wonderful job. At the same time, he's writing notes. This would be
fine, except the first '=' he writes looks like a 'c', and then in his first
example, he is literally saying "D is equal to fifty.", while clearly, his
writing looks more like "d=60".

Seriously, couldn't Bill Gates buy some new tools for Sal? It really takes
away from the production value when I see this.

~~~
spicyj
The newer videos have more sophisticated drawing and recording software; he
simply hasn't redone the old ones. Example:

[http://www.khanacademy.org/video/object-image-height-and-
dis...](http://www.khanacademy.org/video/object-image-height-and-distance-
relationship?playlist=Physics)

------
Revisor
If the Khan Academy were the final station in someone's education, as the
author silently presumes, that would be bad. It's simplified and sometimes
wrong as the article points out (though no educating institution gets
everything right) .

If on the other hand Khan Academy were the FIRST station in education:
igniting passion for a subject - as it does for some people in math and
economy - inspiring people to explore further and read more about it, mending
the damage done by our institutional education!

Than that would be a great achievement regardless of the mistakes,
simplicities and even the ideological leaning.

------
jmarbach
While this article does argue against Mr. Khan being the one and only teacher,
it does not refute the effectiveness of his teaching.

This is exactly why every teacher should be delivering their course content in
the same format as Khan. I am in the process of building a platform for any
teacher to manage learning online in the same way that Khan has been so
successful. I've been fortunate to be receive support on this transformation
in education as recipient of the Thiel Fellowship: 20 Under 20. Visit
<http://ingenic.com> to follow my progress.

------
Jason_Wilmot
How many brick and mortar history teachers are doing a far worse job than
Khan? Probably a lot.

Ok, so the content can be tightened up, but that's not why Bill Gates is
excited here. Take the Khan concept, pick the worlds finest educators in
respective fields, build the content, and distribute. That's the game changer
here.

------
pontifier
I was at the Singularity summit in SLC this weekend and had the privilege of
hearing Mr. Shantanu Sinha (president of Khan Academy) speak. One of the
questions from the audience after his presentation was about how they plan to
teach subjects that are more open to interpretation than math.

His answer (according to my notes) is that they are working on it, and it is a
challenge to eliminate bias. He stressed that they have just recently grown to
8 employees thanks to the recent funding, and that they are doing their best.

Their overall vision is one of enabling true mastery of subjects by enabling
students to proceed at their own pace, and expand upon on a topic only after
mastering the prerequisites (switching from percent knowledge in fixed time to
complete knowledge in variable time). The eventual goal is to change the in-
class focus from data transmission to social interaction, learning
interpersonal skills, communication, leadership, and teamwork.

I was sceptical about Khan academy, but I believe that with sufficient funding
and attention they will be able to create a curriculum that is at least as
good as what the average student gets now, and probably much better. They have
also started experimenting with A/B testing using analytics on their 2 million
students to find the most effective ways to teach.

------
rsheridan6
Khan Academy is mostly about math, and it shouldn't be judged almost solely on
the basis of one history video. I have my 7 year old doing math well beyond
what they've taught him in school using Khan Academy.

------
mbesto
It seems a bit strange that Mr Clemens [1] who is a English teacher that
teaches online courses is commenting on issues concerning online teaching in
history. Regardless he does bring up some very valid points that have plagued
history scholars for centuries, but offers no real solution. I suppose the
title "The Dangerous Mr. Kahn" that suggests that Mr. Kahn is dangerous to
history education is a bit too sensationalist to suggest that he is any more
dangerous than today's media, school teachers, disagreeing historians, and
countless other attempts to present historical information in a categorical
way. Everything is up to interpretation.

My interpretation of his overall point is that "no one person should control
the messages of history". There is definitely some work to be done by Mr. Kahn
in this regard and given his very open mind I don't doubt he already has
considered this.

[1]- <http://www.mpcfaculty.net/david_clemens/default.htm>

------
lekanwang
I was quite disappointed by his non-technical lectures as well, and hope they
improve.

But, even if they are improved, almost every student watching that lecture
will miss a big part of the humanities--being with peers, actively engaging in
group discussion, and finding responses to questions by actively synthesizing
information. Having an interesting discussion is like finally coding something
interesting with a new programming language you just picked up. Learning the
facts or the syntax isn't the point.

Khan has the vision that these videos will be used in conjunction with
classroom teachers, but with roles reversed from the current school system--
students will watch lectures on their own time, and in class, they will engage
in discussions and doing practice problems. This seems to be the part that was
missed in the article, and much of the discussion here. If that symbiosis is
executed correctly (and the lectures are improved), this could be powerful.

------
richcollins
I don't think he gets that Khan isn't the big idea. The market can select for
history teachers that are better than Khan. The big idea is that many won't
need universities moving forward.

------
hasaneducation
From the article, Khan lectures on things he knows nothing about. Is that the
revolution in education everyone is so excited about? Getting teachers that
don't know the subject matter? His background is math and engineering, his
history knowledge he gets from movies and his biology, he gets from pondering.
Charlatan, definition of.

Khan on history of D-Day: "if you’ve ever seen Saving Private Ryan it starts
with this and it’s probably, you know, I’ve never been in, never been on . . .
never stormed a beach, but I can imagine it is probably the most realistic re-
enactment of what it was like to storm the beach at Normandy"

Khan on Entropy: In a recent talk he explained how he prepared for his lecture
on entropy: "I took two weeks off and I just pondered it, and I called every
professor and everyone I could talk to and I said, Let's go have a glass of
wine about entropy.

~~~
ern
_and his biology, he gets from pondering..._

 _Khan on Entropy: In a recent talk he explained how he prepared for his
lecture on entropy: "I took two weeks off and I just pondered it, and I called
every professor and everyone I could talk to and I said, Let's go have a glass
of wine about entropy."_

I'm sure you realise that entropy is not a concept from biology, but it isn't
clear from your comment.

Since he has a background in engineering, and therefore a reasonable physics
and chemistry grounding, I would guess that he had his "glasses of wine" and
pondering to make sure he covered all the bases, and thought of a helpful way
of explaining it.

Have you watched his lectures on entropy? Is there anything wrong with them?
I'm sure constructive criticism is better than calling him names and picking
on his research methods.

------
JabavuAdams
I think the Khan methodology works very very well for elementary math, and I'm
a huge fan of the automatically-generated practice problems. These are more
valuable than the videos IMHO.

It's valid to point out that other subject matter may not be well presented by
this kind of approach.

On the other hand, it's early days. So fast-forward 20-years when you can
download a video-game from Khan Academy that will teach you about Vietnam or
the Korean war that is exhaustively researched and curated by a hobbyist and
veteran (from both sides) community.

Imagine downloading an interactive demo that shows that even if you target an
airstrike to within 1m in an urban area, fragments will travel 500 m into
neighbouring apartment blocks.

That would be better than kids learning their military history from CoD.

------
ph0rque
I think this article points out a weakness that has a rather simple solution:
Khan should bring experts in other fields with a knack of teaching well into
the academy.

Also, sometime in the near to mid-future, the platform should open up to allow
anyone to submit their own video lectures.

------
ashbrahma
I agree that there are some valid points however history books have also been
written by someone or a group of people with a certain viewpoint. Facts are
sometimes suppressed in support of their viewpoints.

------
Dramatize
Kahn's videos are what magazines are to books.

It's much more accessible/enjoyable to read a PC magazine than read a
technical document. They expose topics to a much broader audience.

I loved the French Revolution videos.

------
rweba
The entire success of Khan Academy rests on providing simple quick
introductions to different topics. If Khan made the videos longer or went into
more details the students would get bored and it might as well be a History
channel documentary or a NOVA science show (fun for certain people but
unlikely to capture the interest of many 8th graders).

As to this specific video I actually thought it was very good - precisely
because of Khan's conversational breezy style that managed to keep my interest
even though I was quite familiar with these events. A longer lecture would
have me closing the tab pretty quick and I imagine the same reaction from the
target audience.

Lastly, Khan Academy videos in their current form are probably not going to
replace the entire educational system, but if you want to get a quick
introduction to a certain topic they seem to be effective. For example I just
watched this video a few minutes ago and approximately doubled my knowledge of
diabetes: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rPLjSY00JlE> and I would guess some
of the viewers have similar increases in their knowledge in other topics. THAT
is where Khan Academy currently excels and it is a perfectly worthwhile
contribution.

------
sradnidge
When presented with '1 + 1 = 2', some people will be interested enough to ask
why, and others won't give a fuck. Same goes for 'Hitler invaded Poland'. It
doesn't mean one person is better or worse than the other, they're just
different.

The real problem will arise when people stop being interested. And when that
happens it won't be the fault of the Khan Academy or wikipedia or the Internet
or TV or video games or religion or <insert favoured target here>.

------
drhodes
One of the author's gripes:

    
    
       Unfortunately, he does not explain what a Bolshevik
       is nor how or why the Bolsheviks overthrew the Russian 
       empire, nor why it matters but no dilly-dallying, just
       fast forward and bingo...
    

This is a limitation of the 1-way set in stone nature of video. It could be
addressed by augmenting the lecture with an interface similar to an
interactive-movie-game at the arcades circa 1993 called Dragon's Lair
(<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dragons_Lair>). A concept similar to "pick your
own adventure" books but with video.

For instance, if some lecture L is about ideas A, B, C, D, and there is
another lecture B+ in the library that specifically targets B in detail, then
there could be an option presented to the user around the timestamp B to
divert to B+ in depth, then come back to C. The important part is that the
material is relevant as decided by the user. If they decide B+ isn't what they
wanted, they could cut right back to C immediately.

------
colbyolson
I think the problem is bias.

Math can be taught without bias, as numbers can only be seen as numbers. There
are only a few ways you can teach maths. When you teach history, it brings in
a plethora of views, opinions, and bias. There will always be someone saying
"hey wait a minute, you forgot <fact>.", and I'm not sure there's a way around
that. At least not in history.

------
tatsuke95
Entertaining read.

I agree with the assertion that The Khan Academy, via brief video clips, may
be a terrible place to learn history (though it is GREAT for other subjects).

But as others have noted...who cares? The internet is filled with opinions and
falsities, far more "dangerous" than anything on Mr. Khan's site, that pass
themselves off as "history". It's just a matter of degree.

------
joshaidan
"Imagine the consequences if his videos did become the DOS or Windows of
education: tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of young minds,
all fed by Mr. Khan’s fizzy version of history. Not only would all students
absorb the same value judgments, goofy comments, and cultural relativism, they
would also conclude that Mr. Khan’s factoids constitute knowledge of history.
"

Isn't the simple solution to this problem is to hire other teachers than just
having Mr. Khan do everything? In addition to Mr. Khan, hire some Japanese,
Germany, and Russian history teachers so we get another perspective in
addition to an American one.

Perhaps Khan Academy should become the universal platform for teachers from
around the world to deliver their curriculum. Then we would have a much richer
education system with a plethora of perspectives--which would even beat our
current system of one teacher teaching everything in a classroom.

------
anandkesari
The postmodern approach of teaching history as a perspective is flawed in that
this perspective should be developed by the student and not fed to them by the
teacher. How can a student develop perspective without knowledge of facts? How
is this different from dogma?

------
peterwwillis
Uh. Would citing sources of information with pop-ups in the videos help?
Perhaps links to online books or wikipedia articles (which I realize
potentially creates a loop of false references, but whatever)

------
palguay
I looked up the author of the article. He is a professor , I wanted to see
what his great book course was about, I could not access it and Khan academy
offers me Instant access , this is something that the people in academics like
him do not seem to understand why kids love khan academy. BTW here is the
course and I am definitely not interested in it
[http://www.mpc.edu/academics/Humanities/GreatBooks/Pages/Gre...](http://www.mpc.edu/academics/Humanities/GreatBooks/Pages/GreatBooksCourses.aspx)

------
bh42222
Oh no, a 15 minute summary of the history form WWII to Vietnam isn't thorough
Well, I, never!

In all seriousness, I am not sure what the author's point is. Summaries lack
detail? Short things are short?

~~~
crux_
One of the author's points is that the essence of history is "who & why", not
"what & when," and that Khan is completely omitting that essence in his
summaries.

~~~
enry_straker
The whole point of a Summary video of history, and what is tested in class for
most students, is the what and when - not the who and why.

Also, from reading the original scare-mongering article based on a single
video viewed by the author, i didn't get the feeling that he was complaining
about the lack of 'who and why' but rather libruls like Khan and Gates are
taking over the world and throws in a irrelevant point about personalization
engines in google and facebook.

~~~
crux_
Yes, the article read like something produced by The Heritage Foundation; but
that doesn't mean it cannot have some valid points along the way.

As to your first sentence, one of the largest weaknesses of the entire essay
is that most every criticism being applied to Khan could be applied equally to
traditional education; the fact that something is tested for in class
certainly doesn't make it the best thing to be learning.

------
crux_
Completely and totally off topic, but I find the popularity of the "filter
bubble" concept fascinating.

It's not as if the vast majority of us didn't already manually create deeply
effective filter bubbles, after all; but now that we can blame it on
algorithms rather than our own nature, it's much easier to talk about.

(( Once upon a time I thought the internet would be a cultural/ideological
melting pot, but it was clear a decade ago that it was having the opposite
effect.... ))

~~~
pjscott
Is it a bad thing that people are diverging into a greater multitude of more
varied filter bubbles than ever before? It should be fine, as long as you can
easily travel among bubbles. Back when filter bubbles were more geographic and
cultural, it wasn't so easy to poke your head out and see really different
worldviews. With the internet, it's easy.

People use the phrase "melting pot" like it's a good thing, but I don't _want_
to be melted in a pot.

~~~
crux_
> it wasn't so easy to poke your head out and see really different worldviews.
> With the internet, it's easy.

That doesn't really matter if nobody does it -- and it turns out to be even
_easier_ to find (& stay in) communities that simply echo & reinforce your
worldview.

As for the rest, I think you're just being contrary for the sake of being
contrary. It seems fairly obvious that one of the least intellectually healthy
things out there, from individuals all the way up to societies, is to be
surrounded solely by people who agree with you. Isolation breeds ignorance and
extremism.

------
hook
It is a lot easier to write an essay critique than it is to sit down and fix
the problem by recording your own set of video lectures that teach people what
you know.

------
flavy
I like to think of Mr Khan efforts as something similar to those of the mentor
in Sophie's World. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sophies_World> He can teach
the audience on how to think about subjects, but I doubt he can be deep on all
of them. This is very helpful but is not scalable. I wonder how this effort
will become mature if it continues to get funded and promoted.

------
Symmetry
While I think that the criticisms in this piece were misplaced, its very
possible that there are better free history resources out there. I've very
much enjoyed the History According to Bob podcast series, for instance, but
those would probably be too in depth for teaching kids, except the overview
episodes. <http://www.summahistorica.com/index.htm>

------
aufreak3
Math and hard science learning can be reasonably measured by the kind of
objective testing that KA does, however that is inadequate for subjects like
history. Knowing about a bunch of events says nothing about the "lesson". I
wonder how KA plans to address that, if at all.

IMO, it'll be good if KA focuses on the hard basics like mathematics. (By
"hard" I don't mean "difficult" btw.)

------
spencerfry
I watched a few of the Khan Academy videos. They're fun and entertaining and
you may even learn a little, but they don't cover anything beyond the surface
of a topic. I think the Open Yale videos where you can watch a full semester
of a Yale professor's class are far more informative: <http://oyc.yale.edu/>

------
dendory
I went there expecting teachers whining about a new teaching model, but seeing
what the videos really are like, and the things said, I fully agree with the
article. I think having a full video based classroom for everyone would be
good, but Mr Khan seems to be doing a rather sloppy job filling every topic in
the world by himself.

------
bsiemon
It seems like teaching how to research and read about history would be better
than short narratives about various periods.

------
iwwr
Uh oh, Mr. Khan is not reactionary enough for the tastes of someone like
Clemens:

 _Here Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective steeped
in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural
relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence._

------
Rustee
After reading the article I feel it 'attacks' Sal individually and not the KA
as a whole, quoting vocabulary used by him. "Historical velocity is achieved
through words and phrases such as “essentially,” “fast forward,” and “as you
can imagine.”

------
torque2
Khan's physics videos are no better. Excerpts below from my series taking a
critical view of Khan Academy: <http://bit.ly/khancritic> ...

Ironically, Khan's TED talk is in stark contrast to two previous TED talks:

* Dan Meyer - Math Curriculum Makeover <http://bit.ly/DanMeyerTED> * Sir Ken Robinson - Do Schools Kill Creativity? <http://bit.ly/SirKenTED>

According to Dan, today’s math curriculum is teaching students to expect (and
excel at) paint-by-numbers classwork, robbing kids of a skill more important
than solving problems: formulating them. How does Khan Academy foster problem
posing and creativity?

If your philosophy of education is sit-and-get, i.e., teaching is telling and
learning is listening, then Khan Academy (and flipping) are more efficient
than in-classroom lecturing.

But why lecture at all? TRUE progressive educators, TRUE education visionaries
and revolutionaries don’t want to do these things better. We want to DO BETTER
THINGS.

Rather than instructing students with Khan’s videos, teachers should be
inspiring them to figure things out on their own and learn how to create their
own knowledge by working together. For example, instead of relying on lectures
and textbooks, Modeling Instruction in Physics emphasizes active student
construction of conceptual and mathematical models in an interactive learning
community. Students are engaged with simple scenarios to learn to model the
physical world. In comparison to traditional instruction, Modeling is
extremely effective — under expert modeling instruction high school students
average more than two standard deviations higher on a standard instrument for
assessing conceptual understanding of physics.

Watch one Modeling class in action: <http://bit.ly/ModelingPhysics> . In the
clip, the teacher says, “I don’t lecture at all. Instead, I create experiences
for the students either in the lab or puzzles and problems for them to solve
and it’s up to them to try to figure that out.” I’ve often wondered why this
type of teaching hasn’t gotten more attention in the media. Maybe because the
teacher is using simple things like whiteboards and bowling balls rather than
shiny iPads and SmartBoards?

While Khan argues that his videos now eliminate "one-size-fits-all" education,
his videos are exactly that. I tried finding Khan Academy videos for my
students to use as references for studying, or to use as a tutorial when
there’s a substitute teacher, but the physics ones aren't very good. They
don’t use a lot of the multiple representations that are so fundamental to
learning. Concept development is minimal, and he unknowingly plays into
student misconceptions. His videos do not align with proper Physics Education
Research. Teachers improve via reading up on pedagogy and getting feedback
from mentors & students. Where is Sal's feedback? Where's the pedagogy?

The research that Khan chooses to ignore is summarized in this one book, now
available as a free PDF: "How Students Learn: History, Mathematics, and
Science in the Classroom" <http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10126>

~~~
salmankhan
2 million unique students are viewing our videos every month by choice (as
opposed to being forced to attend class by the state). Read any of the
thousands comments on our YouTube or Facebook page and the underlying feedback
from students is that they are finally getting the "why" at the Khan Academy
as opposed to the "memorization-paint-by-numbers-what" in their classrooms. Do
we think we're ideal? No, we're constantly using data and feedback to iterate
on our content (and unlike traditional lectures and textbooks, we actually
have data on usage and comprehension).

If you truly believe you have a far better way to teach physics, you really
should let the world see how you do it. Make Youtube videos and point us to
them. We're looking for other great teachers that are consistent with our
mission and resonate with students.

~~~
torque2
Hi Sal,

The whole point is not who can make better video lectures. The point is why
lecture at all?

I wish the world would see my YouTube video about Modeling Physics (and
resources) here: <http://bit.ly/ModelingPhysics>

I wish the world would see my 13 other videos showing Modeling Physics in
action: <http://vimeo.com/channels/modelingphysics>

I wish the world would read my post on pseudoteaching:
<http://bit.ly/MITpseudoteaching>

I wish the world would read my posts on standards-based grading, which allows
my students to show growth and mastery in physics: <http://bit.ly/SBGposts>

One of my pseudoteaching posts talks about how forward thinking universities
like MIT (your alma mater) are switching from lecture-based physics to a more
interactive model like Modeling. The research on Modeling is there, please
don't ignore it: <http://modeling.asu.edu/modeling/Mod_Instr-effective.htm>

More research --> The 3 key principles from "How Students Learn: History,
Mathematics, and Science in the Classroom" are:

#1. Engaging Prior Understandings - "If students’ preconceptions are not
addressed directly, they often memorize content (e.g., formulas in physics),
yet still use their experience-based preconceptions to act in the world.

#2. The Essential Role of Factual Knowledge and Conceptual Frameworks in
Understanding - "What novices see as separate pieces of information, experts
see as organized sets of ideas."

#3. The Importance of Self-Monitoring - "Appropriate kinds of self-monitoring
and reflection have been demonstrated to support learning with understanding
in a variety of areas. In one study,15 for example, students who were directed
to engage in self-explanation as they solved mathematics problems developed
deeper conceptual understanding than did students who solved those same
problems but did not engage in self-explanation."

You can read the entire book for free:
<http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=10126>

Modeling Physics does all 3. Your videos are 0 for 3. Badges do not count as
"self-monitoring" in any meaningful sense.

You also have no hard data (as of yet) as to the effectiveness of your videos.
Just anecdotal comments from students. You have no controlled studies. In
fact, controlled studies show that video lectures are rather ineffective. See
Derek Muller's video abstract and research: <http://bit.ly/KhanEffectiveness>

I'm not trying to be mean. I think your videos can be a resource for some
teachers/students. But using video as the primary method for content delivery
is ineffective.

We should not have to "flip" lectures and HW in order for students to be more
interactive in class. When inquiry is done right, the interaction is already
built in.

I'll stop there, before this gets too long.

Thanks for your time, Frank Noschese (aka torque2)

~~~
buyx
_In fact, controlled studies show that video lectures are rather ineffective._

I would assume that studies comparing a competent physics teacher to a video
instructor would show the former being more effective.

However, there is a shortage of competent physics instructors. There is a
(possibly bigger) shortage of competent maths teachers. I am speaking from my
more extreme experience in South Africa, where most of the teachers are
abysmal. Expensive video-based instruction helped me achieve a respectable
mark in physics/chemistry, most of my peers lacked that privilege and did very
poorly. Even at university, things like differential equations, linear algebra
and calculus were not particularly well taught - most professors are not
really good at teaching, and in my case, they were teaching in a second
language (Afrikaans speakers teaching English speaking students). The Khan
Academy would have helped me even at the undergraduate level.

I have posted to HN in a related thread about video instruction in South
Africa [ <http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=2351100> ]. People have been
doing it for years here. I would recommend a controlled study in South Africa
using KA, or The Learning Channel videos by William Smith (NOT run in an elite
private school, but at an average township school) before we write off video
based instruction as "ineffective".

------
cstefanovici
Of course Khan lectures are not all encompassing just like his lecture on IPOs
aren't but they provide a great deal of entry level knowledge.

If the author ever imagined that WW2 could be explained in one short Khan
Academy video his expectations were wrong not Khan Academy itself.

Personally, I believe he is a spiteful fool afraid of a revolution in
education.

~~~
hugh3
_Personally, I believe he is a spiteful fool afraid of a revolution in
education_

Please refrain from name-calling.

On one hand, you're rightly pointing out that one fifteen-minute video by one
guy can never be an all-encompassing summary of thirty years of world history.
And you're right.

But then you're talking about the Khan Academy as being some kind of
"revolution" in education, even though the Khan academy still consists of
fifteen-minute videos by one guy. This is the article's point -- there's some
pretty serious limits to what we can expect out of a Khan-Academy sort of
model. He's done a great job with introductory mathematics, but there's a
_crapload_ of work that would need to be done to make it an adequate source
for other subjects.

------
kerryiob
My own thoughts on this issue along these same lines:

[http://www.kerryob.com/2011/06/08/concerns-on-khan-
academys-...](http://www.kerryob.com/2011/06/08/concerns-on-khan-academys-
goals/)

------
chrisjsmith
I think the conventional "educators" are feeling threatened because concise
education in tolerable chunks is looking more attractive than toiling in
lectures and massive tomes for hours over minor details. The Internet age has
destroyed verbose teaching finally.

Facts are important. Details are for the interested.

------
bigwally
David Clemens (the author of the article) should read the text books presented
in American high schools.

People who live in glass houses shouldn't throw stones.

------
bpourriahi
Haters

