Sal's interview on the One World Schoolhouse (C-SPAN 2 After Words)

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Kind: captions
Language: en

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Nina: Hi, Sal.

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So, tell us a little bit about your book

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and the journey that you underwent

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before you started the Khan Academy,

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which led you to writing this book.

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Sal:Yeah, well, the book is ...

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Well, it's a little bit about that journey

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but really how that journey informed
what Khan Academy has now become

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and then, how that could inform what maybe

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classrooms could become or
what learning could become

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and not in just a kind of

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pie in the sky kind of way

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but I know, this is really happening

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and it really feels like
we're at this inflection point

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in what's going on in classrooms,.

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This whole

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adventure for me started somewhat,

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actually, very inadvertently (chuckles),

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it was 2004, I was working as an
analyst at a hedge fund at the time.

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I've just gotten married.

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Family from New Orleans is visiting
me in Boston after my wedding

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and it turned out, this one
cousin Nadia was having trouble,

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12-years-old, I had
trouble believing that.

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She's an extremely bright girl.

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Nina: (laughs)

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And when I asked her about,

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actually, her mom who told
me and I asked Nadia about it

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and she said, "Oh, yeah. I'm
having trouble with units."

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and I said,

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"Let me tutor you."

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I think she thought I was just bluffing.

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So, I said, "No, we're
gonna work this out."

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She went back to New Orleans.

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Got her on the phone.

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We ended up using some
tools on the internet

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so that we could see each
other scroll initially

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with a mouse and we got these
little pen tablet things

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and

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long story short, she went
from being a struggling student

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to catching up with her class and
then becoming somewhat advanced

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Nina: (laughs)

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I called her school and I said,
"I really think Nadia needs

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"to retake a placement exam."
and they said, "Who are you?"

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Nina: (laughs)

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but you know, I then started
tutoring her brothers

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and fast forward, two years, we got
around, free tutoring was happening.

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I was tutoring 10, 15
family, friends, cousins

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and it was at that point that a

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and the firm, I was working for,

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it was a firm but it was
my boss and his dog and me.

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We moved to Silicon Valley
and I was telling a friend

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about all the stuff I
was doing with my cousins

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and he said well, and I was complaining
that it's getting hard to scale.

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I still had a day job.

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There's all these students around
the country with time zones

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and etc., etc. and he
said, "Why don't you make

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"some tutorials to come up on YouTube?"

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and I thought that was a silly idea.

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Nina: (chuckles)

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but I gave it a shot and long story short,

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that kind of started
getting a ton of traction.

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People started looking at it.

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[unintelligible] I was also
was working on this little

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software tool for my cousins.

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So there's this view that,
"Hey, maybe this could be

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"an institution to help
people." and so, we set it up,

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as a not-for-profit and then in 2009,
I had trouble focusing on my day job.

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So, I quit and started doing
Khan Academy full time.

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Nina: Also, tell me a little
bit about the Khan Academy.

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What is the business model?

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Let's start with the big,
hairy audacious goal,

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Sal: (laughs)

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and then the business model
that you've based it on.

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Sal: Yeah, so the ...

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Well, maybe I'll go the other way around

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because you know

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when I was starting all of these and I was
sitting in the middle of Silicon Valley.

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I came from a very for-profit-reality.

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There are my friends who are
venture capitalists says,

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"Hey, Sal. You know we could fund this

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"and it could be this double
bottom line business."

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or whatever that means and there
was a lot of temptation there

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and there's nothing wrong with that

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but there was this feeling.

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You know, I was getting all
of these emotional reward

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from these thank-you letters
that people were sending me

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and the sense that, "Hey, I
was making these simple things

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"for my cousin and now you know."

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At first tens of thousands,
hundreds thousands

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and now, million of students
are using it around the world.

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I'd like this stuff to be around
in 100 years or in 500 years.

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I don't want this collection
of software and content

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and this organization.

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I don't want it to skew from
this mission of being able

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to reach these people and so,
when I look at other organizations

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in the universe that are able
to do that last many, many,

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hopefully, centuries and
stay true to their missions,

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it's a not-for-profit where
there is no ownership.

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It's a public charity and so
I said, "Well, I should set

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"this up as a not for profit."

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Not quite understanding what that is

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and I remember when I was doing
that initial paperwork for it,

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the IRS asks you, "What's your mission?"

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and I kind of thought about it
for maybe three or four minutes

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and I said, "Oh, a free world-class
education for anyone, anywhere."

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Nina: Why not? (laughs)

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Well, you never want something
you could just check, it's done.

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It's an aspiration.

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And it was a very delusional
aspirational at the time

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when I was literally
operating out of the closet

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but yeah, and so the business
model is we're not a business,

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we're a 501C3 not for profit but
we still have to sustain ourselves

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and the way we want to because we always
want the learning side of education

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We always want that to
be free because we think

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that's what empowers people.

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It's primarily foundation and
philanthropist-driven so far

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but we do think there are ways
to sustain itself in other ways

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whether it's licensing
content or who knows what?

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We're trying to explore
that but we're pretty true

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to keeping the content free.

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Nina: Sure.

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How many students are
you serving right now?

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How many instructors?

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Can you give me a sense as to how large?

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Sal: Yeah, and so-

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Nina: And what's the typical profile
of someone who comes to your website?

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Sal: Yeah.

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So, the organization itself are 36 people.

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We're still relatively small
but it feels huge for me

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because last year, we were 13 and
a year before that, we were one.

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(laughs) We've been growing
fast but in this past month,

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we've reached 7 million
students, unique students.

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We've reached a total
of 16 million unique.

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That's the way you measure
unique students on the web,

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delivered 180 million lessons, 700
million problems had been done on the site

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and it's students all over the world.

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It's pretty much every
country in the world.

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Someone has used the
Khan Academy in some way.

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20,000 teachers, as far as we can
tell from our data are using it

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in their classes or with their
cohorts in some type of ways.

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It's kind of crazy, I call it,

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it's surreal for where it came from.

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Nina: Yeah, let's talk a little bit about

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how a classroom or a school can use you

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with this concept of a flipped classroom.

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Explain that to our viewers.

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Sal: Yeah, and I'll do two things because

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as flipped classroom has somewhat
been tied to Khan Academy

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and it is an interesting idea
and it is I think a forward step

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but part of the whole point
of this whole book was

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to tell people that we're not
necessarily about this flip.

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We're actually about pushing the
envelope even further than the flip.

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In a flip model, right now, at
home you do problems traditionally.

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That's called homework
and then the classroom.

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A lot of time in a traditional classroom,

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we spent lectures and the
flip is in a [pre-date]

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Khan Academy early on at
these videos out there.

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Some teachers were telling me,
"Hey, you made a decent video

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"on meiosis or on you
know, projectile motion.

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"I don't have to give
that lecture anymore.

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"My students have been watching
it on their time and pace.

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"They can remediate without
taking up class time

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"and then when they go to class,

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" that's when they can either
ask me questions, clarifications

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"and we can do problems together."

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So, what used to be homework, the
problem sets could now be done

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inside the classroom.

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And the advantage there is,
the real learning occurs

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when you do the engagement, when
you're doing the problem sets

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and I think traditionally,
students either don't do homework

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or have trouble doing homework
because there's no one

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at home to help them out.

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Now, they're in the classroom.

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They have the teacher.

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They have their peers, which
is an underutilized resource

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in the classroom.

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Not only to help you but
when you help others,

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you learn a lot better.

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And it also gives the teacher
lens on how the class is doing.

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When you're lecturing, it's very
hard to know where people are.

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I mean you might be able to
pull them, ask a few questions

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but it's very hard.

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A lot of times, the students
are a little bit, blank faces

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but now, if you're doing
problem solving together,

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you can do much more,

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you can understand where
students are and diagnose them

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and so that's the flip.

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What used to be homework in the classroom,

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what used to be

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lectures, are now at home.

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Makes the classroom interactive,

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students can get lectures
at their time and pace.

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Great.

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What I focus on a lot in the book is,

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let's go even further
because still, even the flip,

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assumes that all the students are
going to cover the same material

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at the same pace together
and what I talk a lot about,

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is this

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we've all been indoctrinated in the system

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and when I talk about the
system, I'm not talking about

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what should be the student/teacher ration

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or what charter or private or public.

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I'm talking about the system.

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I'm talking about grouping
kids by age-based cohorts.

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They cover certain subjects in a set pace.

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We grade them based on
their variable understanding

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and then we keep pushing them forward

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and we just assume that's what school is

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but what I go through
great lengths to show is,

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no, this is actually
relatively new phenomena.

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It's about 200 years.

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I mean, it's not that new.

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So, 200 years old that we inherited
from a country that no longer exists.

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Nina: The Prussians (chuckles).

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and even to us, I guess, it was

00:09:20.477 --> 00:09:22.961
during the Industrial
Revolution, was the first time

00:09:22.961 --> 00:09:26.664
that people seriously thought about,
"How can we educate everybody?"

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Before that, it was, you're the
son of a lord and you would get a,

00:09:31.593 --> 00:09:34.730
king and you get a private tutor and
the private tutor was a [goal] standard.

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They're working at your pace
and differentiating it for you

00:09:37.838 --> 00:09:39.802
but now, all of a sudden in
Prussia, there's like, "Okay,

00:09:39.802 --> 00:09:41.856
"we wanna have mass
education. How do we do it

00:09:41.856 --> 00:09:46.232
"in a practical way?" and whoa,
it's the Industrial Revolution.

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Well, how do we do anything
in a practical way?

00:09:47.657 --> 00:09:50.523
We stick them on an assembly
line and as they go through,

00:09:50.523 --> 00:09:52.524
we do something to the
product and then hopefully

00:09:52.524 --> 00:09:54.365
at the end, we have a decent product.

00:09:54.365 --> 00:09:57.497
And so, they essentially applied
the same model to classrooms.

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The kids are in these
brackets based on age.

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You know, it's funny.

00:10:01.095 --> 00:10:04.282
I was talking to a friend
and her child already knows

00:10:04.282 --> 00:10:06.165
how to read and everything and
she was trying to get the child

00:10:06.165 --> 00:10:07.420
into the kindergarten.

00:10:07.420 --> 00:10:08.876
He's like born in October or something and

00:10:09.583 --> 00:10:12.667
and the school said, "Oh yeah

00:10:12.667 --> 00:10:14.663
"he's a very bright kid
but you know, we can't.

00:10:14.663 --> 00:10:16.502
"He's too small."

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and I told my frie-

00:10:17.181 --> 00:10:19.001
and she came back, she's
like, "Yeah, he's too small."

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I was like, "Look, if that's
what they were concerned about,

00:10:21.666 --> 00:10:23.476
"they should be grouping them by size."

00:10:23.476 --> 00:10:28.724
That's (laughs) the obvious
natural, but so that's the model.

00:10:28.724 --> 00:10:32.232
And even the flip is in
the context of that model.

00:10:32.232 --> 00:10:33.974
On week three, we cover parabolas.

00:10:33.974 --> 00:10:37.224
Week four, we cover systems of
equations and even if you have,

00:10:37.224 --> 00:10:38.819
we give students grades.

00:10:38.819 --> 00:10:42.685
We give them a B and that B shows that
they have a gap in their knowledge,

00:10:42.685 --> 00:10:45.617
A C, even a D, you can get an exam
but then you move to the next topic.

00:10:45.617 --> 00:10:47.369
That's usually building on top of that,

00:10:47.369 --> 00:10:49.122
which is pretty much
dooming you to failure.

00:10:49.122 --> 00:10:49.783
Nina: Exactly.

00:10:49.783 --> 00:10:51.968
Sal: And so, what, I advocate strongly

00:10:51.968 --> 00:10:54.593
and we're already seeing this
in schools, trying to experiment

00:10:54.593 --> 00:10:57.996
or moving this direction is, if you
take lecture out of the classroom,

00:10:57.996 --> 00:10:59.934
there's no longer the need for everyone

00:10:59.934 --> 00:11:01.765
to move together at the same pace.

00:11:01.765 --> 00:11:04.514
And as soon as you get
rid of that assumption,

00:11:04.514 --> 00:11:07.267
you can completely rethink
what a classroom can be.

00:11:07.267 --> 00:11:09.231
You can start having everyone
run at their own pace,

00:11:09.231 --> 00:11:11.630
you can leverage class time
when humans are together

00:11:11.630 --> 00:11:13.560
for actual interactivity.

00:11:13.560 --> 00:11:15.534
You can start saying, "Well,
why do we only have one teacher

00:11:15.534 --> 00:11:17.611
"in the room? Why can't we
have two teachers in the room?

00:11:17.611 --> 00:11:19.487
"Why do we have a bell ring?"

00:11:19.487 --> 00:11:20.943
and this bell ringing,
this is like a factory,

00:11:21.804 --> 00:11:23.489
in a 19th century factory.

00:11:23.489 --> 00:11:26.716
Why do we have a bell ringing that's
saying, "Stop what you're doing

00:11:26.716 --> 00:11:29.077
"on chemistry. You must
now start English."

00:11:29.077 --> 00:11:30.053
and we all know.

00:11:30.053 --> 00:11:31.278
Anyone who's done
anything creative because

00:11:31.278 --> 00:11:33.441
that's the best way to stop creativity,

00:11:33.441 --> 00:11:35.691
Nina: You're done.

00:11:35.691 --> 00:11:37.570
Nina: Move on.

00:11:37.570 --> 00:11:39.275
And so, what

00:11:39.275 --> 00:11:41.481
what we've advocating is move to reality

00:11:41.481 --> 00:11:44.522
with possibly the help of
tools like Khan Academy

00:11:44.522 --> 00:11:46.155
so that every student can
run at their own pace.

00:11:46.155 --> 00:11:49.407
Soon teachers have dashboards,
tools that empower them

00:11:49.407 --> 00:11:52.690
and that use class time for
interactivity and creativity.

00:11:52.690 --> 00:11:53.980
Nina: Right, right.

00:11:54.733 --> 00:11:56.527
You touched on this a little
bit but explain a little bit

00:11:56.527 --> 00:12:00.065
about why is it that your
platform has taken off

00:12:00.065 --> 00:12:03.286
and is getting so much attention, when
so many others were kind of trying

00:12:03.286 --> 00:12:05.400
to do the same thing
on the for-profit side,

00:12:05.400 --> 00:12:07.739
some on the non-profit
side haven't succeeded.

00:12:07.739 --> 00:12:09.321
Sal: Yeah, it's an open question.

00:12:09.321 --> 00:12:12.059
It's a question which we're
constantly asking ourselves

00:12:12.059 --> 00:12:14.313
because we know whatever
the secret sauce is,

00:12:14.313 --> 00:12:16.422
we don't wanna lose it
somewhere in the process.

00:12:16.991 --> 00:12:22.101
My best guess of why there's
this initial way of traction

00:12:22.101 --> 00:12:27.850
from 2006 to 2007, even
it continuous to grow is,

00:12:27.850 --> 00:12:30.154
those first videos I
think it was fortunate

00:12:30.154 --> 00:12:33.522
that it was just some guy
making it for his cousins.

00:12:34.322 --> 00:12:36.356
Nina: They were easy to use.

00:12:36.356 --> 00:12:37.818
Nina: Or understand.

00:12:37.818 --> 00:12:38.856
They felt very human.

00:12:38.856 --> 00:12:40.786
And I think the big learning
is, is that people were hungry,

00:12:40.786 --> 00:12:42.774
I wasn't the first person
to make videos on YouTube.

00:12:42.774 --> 00:12:45.769
I wasn't the first person
to think of teaching,

00:12:45.769 --> 00:12:48.040
as soon as radio came out, people
were saying, "Oh, we'll use this

00:12:48.040 --> 00:12:50.222
"to teach the world." and
then TV, "Oh, we'll use this

00:12:50.222 --> 00:12:51.496
"to teach the world." and VCR.

00:12:51.496 --> 00:12:53.062
Now, it's on demand.

00:12:53.062 --> 00:12:56.991
But historically, it was
either a videotape of someone

00:12:56.991 --> 00:13:00.892
at a chalkboard, traditional
class, which feels very,

00:13:00.892 --> 00:13:03.346
it feels distant even when
you're in the classroom.

00:13:03.346 --> 00:13:05.988
You're there, I'm over here,
the next step in the equation

00:13:05.988 --> 00:13:07.595
and you do it like that.

00:13:07.595 --> 00:13:09.514
So, that's very, not very [unintelligible]

00:13:09.514 --> 00:13:10.700
and we make that into video.

00:13:10.700 --> 00:13:11.754
It's even harder to see,

00:13:11.754 --> 00:13:13.538
"What are they writing there?
And I can't hear them."

00:13:14.722 --> 00:13:16.856
and these felt very personal.

00:13:17.332 --> 00:13:18.428
You're sitting next to me.

00:13:18.428 --> 00:13:22.187
I think the other dimension of
it is just a conversational tone.

00:13:23.710 --> 00:13:26.715
I think a lot of people, they
try to make it very polished,

00:13:26.715 --> 00:13:30.221
which is not bad but in that
process, you lose the humanity.

00:13:30.221 --> 00:13:32.611
So, it sounds like your
GPS system you know,

00:13:32.611 --> 00:13:34.215
"The next step with this
equation is when ... "

00:13:34.215 --> 00:13:38.570
and I think hopefully, this
is something that I try

00:13:38.570 --> 00:13:40.533
to put into it is,

00:13:40.533 --> 00:13:42.459
one of the things I
think allowed me to do,

00:13:42.459 --> 00:13:45.826
to kind of thrive in math or
science and then eventually,

00:13:45.826 --> 00:13:49.081
even finance was, I felt like I had a
really holistic understanding of things

00:13:49.081 --> 00:13:52.095
and my basics were really,
really, really solid

00:13:52.095 --> 00:13:54.304
and then my basics in
algebra were really good.

00:13:54.304 --> 00:13:55.792
So, when I went into
calculus, I was like, "Oh

00:13:55.792 --> 00:13:58.577
"this is intuitive." and when
I went to corporate finance,

00:13:58.577 --> 00:14:00.745
I was like, "This is intuitive.
There's nothing new here."

00:14:01.606 --> 00:14:04.582
and you see all the really,
really smart people,

00:14:04.582 --> 00:14:06.003
they're just learning for the next exam,

00:14:06.003 --> 00:14:08.669
memorizing formulas then they
forget it and then when they see

00:14:08.669 --> 00:14:10.874
a related concept, it's
like, "What's this?"

00:14:10.874 --> 00:14:15.216
And so, what I tried in those
early days for my cousins is,

00:14:15.216 --> 00:14:18.336
give a sense of intuition, draw
the connections between things

00:14:18.336 --> 00:14:19.835
so that when they see this new concept,

00:14:19.835 --> 00:14:21.267
it's not some random new concept.

00:14:21.267 --> 00:14:23.087
It's connected to everything
they learned before

00:14:23.087 --> 00:14:26.975
and I get a lot of letters
and I would have assumed that

00:14:26.975 --> 00:14:30.669
that only been appealing to
the motivated kids so to speak

00:14:30.669 --> 00:14:33.859
but I get a lot of letters from
kids that were traditionally,

00:14:33.859 --> 00:14:36.114
disengaged or demotivated
and they said, "That's why

00:14:36.176 --> 00:14:38.737
"I was demotivated. No one
was explaining the why.

00:14:38.737 --> 00:14:40.907
"No one was giving me the connections."

00:14:40.907 --> 00:14:45.532
So, hopefully, that's why people
have been, I guess connecting

00:14:45.532 --> 00:14:46.652
to the content.

00:14:46.652 --> 00:14:49.740
Nina: Yeah, so let's talk a
little bit about virtual education

00:14:49.740 --> 00:14:52.585
and offering the types of
things that you're offering.

00:14:52.585 --> 00:14:56.378
A lot of people are still a
little wary of these reforms.

00:14:56.378 --> 00:14:59.165
They see it as a mechanism to
ultimately get rid of teachers

00:14:59.165 --> 00:15:01.500
in the classroom or reduce class sizes.

00:15:01.500 --> 00:15:03.548
You talked a little bit
about this in the book

00:15:03.548 --> 00:15:05.137
and explain that a little bit.

00:15:05.137 --> 00:15:06.131
Sal: Yeah, yeah.

00:15:06.131 --> 00:15:07.693
No, I think that's a super important point

00:15:07.693 --> 00:15:11.216
because whenever, when we've
learned the last 15, 20 years

00:15:11.216 --> 00:15:14.260
Nina: They think about robot replacement.

00:15:14.260 --> 00:15:16.244
It's like, "Is that going
to replace the physically?

00:15:16.244 --> 00:15:18.355
The Barnes & Noble versus Amazon.com,

00:15:18.355 --> 00:15:19.938
there's a natural contention there.

00:15:21.660 --> 00:15:22.576
That's

00:15:22.576 --> 00:15:25.039
exact opposite of the way I think
is going to happen in education.

00:15:25.039 --> 00:15:28.570
Everything we do is not going
to replace a physical school.

00:15:28.570 --> 00:15:29.409
I have young kids.

00:15:29.409 --> 00:15:31.407
I want them to go to a physical school.

00:15:31.407 --> 00:15:33.075
I want them to get interaction.

00:15:33.075 --> 00:15:38.298
What it will do, is I think, give
all of our children the experience

00:15:38.298 --> 00:15:41.414
that I think every parent and every
teacher or every student wants

00:15:41.414 --> 00:15:44.850
to be a part of, and then even now,
we're going to physical experience

00:15:44.850 --> 00:15:46.493
but we're not leveraging the humans.

00:15:46.493 --> 00:15:48.817
We're going but for the most part,
people are sitting passively there

00:15:48.817 --> 00:15:49.958
and they're listening.

00:15:49.958 --> 00:15:53.905
It's hard for the teachers too
because it's hard to just speak

00:15:53.905 --> 00:15:56.677
for 60 minutes without getting
that connection with the students

00:15:56.677 --> 00:15:59.990
and so, what we're
advocating is leverage tools,

00:15:59.990 --> 00:16:02.514
so you can get maybe information
delivery out of the way.

00:16:02.514 --> 00:16:04.571
So you can get some of the
problem solving out of the way

00:16:04.832 --> 00:16:07.350
but so when people go
and they have class time,

00:16:07.350 --> 00:16:09.581
the scariest class time
with other human beings that

00:16:09.581 --> 00:16:12.370
that's optimally interactive and
not interactive in the web sense,

00:16:12.370 --> 00:16:14.001
interactive in the human sense.

00:16:14.001 --> 00:16:15.863
Class time is all conversation.

00:16:15.863 --> 00:16:19.456
Class time is all peer tutoring
and working with their teacher.

00:16:19.456 --> 00:16:24.092
Class time is all doing
open ended projects and so,

00:16:24.092 --> 00:16:27.091
I talk about this in the book
and I gave a Ted Talk a bunch,

00:16:27.598 --> 00:16:31.133
the irony here is I strongly believe
and it's not just talk again,

00:16:31.133 --> 00:16:33.350
we're seeing this in classrooms,

00:16:33.350 --> 00:16:34.758
is that

00:16:34.758 --> 00:16:36.906
you can actually use technology
to make the classroom more human

00:16:37.444 --> 00:16:38.685
and I'm very careful.

00:16:38.685 --> 00:16:40.344
You mentioned there's skepticism.

00:16:40.344 --> 00:16:41.428
I think there should be.

00:16:41.428 --> 00:16:42.595
I'm skeptical when someone says,

00:16:42.595 --> 00:16:45.235
"Hey, we just ordered
500 iPad for our school."

00:16:45.235 --> 00:16:47.100
and I say, "Well, what
are you gonna do with it?"

00:16:47.100 --> 00:16:48.633
or, "How are you gonna integrate
it into the curriculum?"

00:16:48.633 --> 00:16:51.870
or, "How are you gonna leverage
it to fundamentally transform

00:16:51.870 --> 00:16:54.112
"what's going on?" and
there usually aren't a lot

00:16:54.112 --> 00:16:57.216
of answers there, and so, I
think it is good to be skeptical

00:16:57.216 --> 00:17:01.892
but at the same time, there
is, I think a reason for hope.

00:17:02.553 --> 00:17:05.382
Nina: How do you evaluate
the impact of your courses?

00:17:05.382 --> 00:17:08.555
Since again, you talked a little
bit about grades in your book

00:17:08.555 --> 00:17:10.137
and how you don't like
the concept of grading.

00:17:10.137 --> 00:17:12.503
How do you know that they
have actually worked?

00:17:12.503 --> 00:17:14.249
Sal: Yeah, and I'll tell you.

00:17:14.249 --> 00:17:16.971
I mean a lot of times, when I
grew up, I remember sometimes

00:17:16.971 --> 00:17:18.639
we meet people who said, 'I
don't believe in grades.'

00:17:18.639 --> 00:17:22.190
and I thought they were these kind of
like granola-bar hippie-type people

00:17:22.190 --> 00:17:26.659
that you know, and now, I think I
appreciate what they were saying.

00:17:26.659 --> 00:17:29.992
Grades, normally when you say
people who don't like grades,

00:17:29.992 --> 00:17:31.853
you really think, they're
being touchy-feely.

00:17:31.853 --> 00:17:33.288
They're not being rigorous

00:17:33.288 --> 00:17:36.115
but actually, they're saying
grades aren't rigorous enough.

00:17:36.115 --> 00:17:39.044
Grades are this thing that
give this feeling of rigor.

00:17:39.044 --> 00:17:41.592
Oh, A, B, A is , "Oh, you
really know your stuff."

00:17:41.592 --> 00:17:42.964
F, "You don't know your stuff."

00:17:42.964 --> 00:17:46.757
One, they're somewhat
arbitrary, depends on the test,

00:17:46.757 --> 00:17:48.235
depends on how it's measured.

00:17:48.235 --> 00:17:51.087
But even more than that,
when you give grades,

00:17:51.087 --> 00:17:52.275
especially, in the sense,

00:17:52.275 --> 00:17:56.184
if you got a C on an exam,
you have obvious weaknesses,

00:17:56.184 --> 00:17:57.730
assuming that it was even a good exam.

00:17:57.730 --> 00:17:59.288
You have obvious weaknesses.

00:17:59.995 --> 00:18:02.732
That should be used as an
assessment to say, "Okay,

00:18:02.732 --> 00:18:04.653
"you need to now improve
on those weaknesses,

00:18:04.653 --> 00:18:06.874
"before we move onto a more advance
topic." like it's common sense.

00:18:06.874 --> 00:18:11.733
Get your basics down but instead,
we use grades as a value judgment.

00:18:11.733 --> 00:18:14.252
"You're smart. You're dumb.
You're fast. You're slow."

00:18:14.252 --> 00:18:17.358
and that's just going to be
a self-fulfilling prophecy.

00:18:17.358 --> 00:18:21.348
So, what we say is, "No, let's just make
sure everyone masters every concept."

00:18:21.348 --> 00:18:23.617
So rather than having superficial
understanding of algebra

00:18:23.617 --> 00:18:27.050
and then moving onto trigonometry,
make sure you really understand

00:18:27.050 --> 00:18:30.628
algebra deeply and then trigonometry's
gonna make a lot more sense.

00:18:30.628 --> 00:18:32.947
It's gonna be a lot easier to learn
and if you master trigonometry

00:18:32.947 --> 00:18:37.188
then calculus is going to
start seeming very intuitive.

00:18:37.629 --> 00:18:40.890
In terms of how we're doing
it, we're working with schools,

00:18:40.890 --> 00:18:43.556
and famously, Los Altos, which
is now using Khan Academy.

00:18:43.556 --> 00:18:47.405
It's probably one of the best,
if not the best school district

00:18:47.405 --> 00:18:52.516
in the country is using Khan
Academy for 5th through 8th grade

00:18:52.516 --> 00:18:55.137
as one of the tools that they use .

00:18:55.137 --> 00:18:57.652
and there we have formal studies going on

00:18:57.652 --> 00:19:01.828
to understand exactly, how this is
impacting students and teachers,

00:19:01.828 --> 00:19:05.050
both objectively on things
like test scores and grades

00:19:05.050 --> 00:19:07.455
but also on things

00:19:07.455 --> 00:19:10.997
subjectively, "Are the teachers
more excited about their work?

00:19:10.997 --> 00:19:13.290
"Are the students more
excited about their work?"

00:19:13.290 --> 00:19:17.166
And then on top of that, we have
3 million problems down a day

00:19:17.166 --> 00:19:18.098
on our site.

00:19:18.098 --> 00:19:20.781
We have this huge number of students,
7 million a month using our site.

00:19:20.781 --> 00:19:23.683
We have this treasure trove
of data on our site itself.

00:19:23.683 --> 00:19:26.783
Nina: Monitoring it on a daily basis.

00:19:26.783 --> 00:19:29.555
Yeah, I mean all these other
web companies are able to do.

00:19:29.555 --> 00:19:31.949
We as a kind of education
not-for-profit can now do,

00:19:31.949 --> 00:19:35.075
using analytics,
optimizing for engagements,

00:19:35.075 --> 00:19:36.660
seeing what kind of learning is going on.

00:19:36.660 --> 00:19:37.825
Nina: Great, great.

00:19:37.825 --> 00:19:41.661
So, tell me a little bit
about, you gave a great

00:19:41.661 --> 00:19:45.165
historical overview of how we
came to educate students today,

00:19:45.165 --> 00:19:46.423
the way we're educating them.

00:19:46.423 --> 00:19:50.445
Did you always hold these
views and know this information

00:19:50.445 --> 00:19:54.606
before you stumbled on the
Khan Academy or this platform

00:19:54.606 --> 00:19:55.807
that you created?

00:19:55.807 --> 00:19:58.925
Or were these things that
you studied afterwards?

00:19:58.925 --> 00:20:01.302
Sal: (laughs)

00:20:01.302 --> 00:20:04.849
Sal: It's been very serendipitous.

00:20:04.849 --> 00:20:06.932
Sal: You know, it's been a combination.

00:20:06.932 --> 00:20:09.728
I actually think it's more of the latter.

00:20:09.728 --> 00:20:12.657
Obviously, all of us has spent
a lot of time in the system.

00:20:12.657 --> 00:20:16.532
I think the whole time,
anybody who knew me growing up,

00:20:16.532 --> 00:20:17.957
I mean, they knew that I was always like,

00:20:17.957 --> 00:20:20.655
Nina: Questioning, right.

00:20:20.655 --> 00:20:21.868
"Why can't I tutor?"

00:20:21.868 --> 00:20:23.325
I used to get reprimanded
for trying to tutor my-

00:20:23.325 --> 00:20:26.978
This is sort of been a
really positive interaction

00:20:26.978 --> 00:20:29.617
and so, this question, you go
to college and you're like,

00:20:29.617 --> 00:20:30.958
"People are sitting in this lecture hall,

00:20:30.958 --> 00:20:32.760
"is anything really happening in here?"

00:20:32.760 --> 00:20:34.921
It seems like all the learning is
happening under the cram session,

00:20:34.921 --> 00:20:37.702
three days before the final
and so, there is always

00:20:37.702 --> 00:20:39.964
these ideas and then obviously,
when I started working

00:20:39.964 --> 00:20:41.468
with my cousins, I started seeing the ...

00:20:41.468 --> 00:20:42.969
my cousins were motivated.

00:20:42.969 --> 00:20:44.967
They were, for the most
part, good students

00:20:44.967 --> 00:20:47.105
but they were having these
huge gaps in their knowledge.

00:20:47.105 --> 00:20:49.582
Nina: It's called Swiss-cheese learning.

00:20:49.582 --> 00:20:53.387
Swiss cheese learning (chuckles)
etc., and so, and very pragmatically,

00:20:53.387 --> 00:20:56.137
I started building these tools
and it's really a process

00:20:56.137 --> 00:20:57.062
of discovery.

00:20:57.062 --> 00:20:59.145
Teachers e-mailing me, saying,
"Hey, we're using it this way.

00:20:59.145 --> 00:21:01.953
"We're using it that way."
and so it's a combination of

00:21:01.953 --> 00:21:04.060
these instincts of like,
"Well, how did I learn?

00:21:04.060 --> 00:21:06.090
"How do other people I know,
who learn things holistically,

00:21:06.090 --> 00:21:10.493
"how did they learn? What
am I seeing with my cousins?

00:21:10.493 --> 00:21:13.177
"What are teachers telling me?"
and then it's kind of getting more

00:21:13.177 --> 00:21:14.574
and more traction.

00:21:14.574 --> 00:21:16.458
I started having people tell
me about a lot of this stuff.

00:21:16.458 --> 00:21:18.175
I mean, I knew a little bit
about the history before.

00:21:18.175 --> 00:21:22.760
I've heard about this whole
committee of 10 in 1890,

00:21:22.760 --> 00:21:24.389
somebody told me about
that in high school.

00:21:24.389 --> 00:21:27.429
But it was interesting
that even the research,

00:21:27.429 --> 00:21:29.804
the reasons why I made
the video so short is

00:21:29.804 --> 00:21:32.200
because YouTube limited
me to 10 minutes but then

00:21:32.738 --> 00:21:34.790
I used to have researchers
telling me, "No, there's actually

00:21:34.790 --> 00:21:38.292
"cognitive research that shows
..." and that's where a lot

00:21:38.292 --> 00:21:39.693
of that research from the book come from.

00:21:39.693 --> 00:21:43.500
Actually people, especially dance
academic content can't pay attention

00:21:43.500 --> 00:21:44.898
for more than 10 to 15 minutes.

00:21:44.898 --> 00:21:47.713
So, it starts as, "Wow,
so why are we doing this?

00:21:47.713 --> 00:21:50.102
"Why are we using class time,
this time with human beings

00:21:50.102 --> 00:21:52.682
"for these hour-long lectures,
sometimes 90-minute lectures,

00:21:52.682 --> 00:21:54.630
"can't we get people to interact more?"

00:21:54.630 --> 00:21:56.348
And the more I did
research, a lot of these

00:21:56.348 --> 00:21:59.842
kind of just basic common sense
ideas [gelled] with research

00:21:59.842 --> 00:22:01.013
and that's when you feel best about it

00:22:01.013 --> 00:22:03.048
because they are common, every,

00:22:03.048 --> 00:22:05.678
it's weird when research tells
you something very non-intuitive,

00:22:05.678 --> 00:22:08.311
but here it's telling you something
very, very, very intuitive

00:22:08.311 --> 00:22:11.510
and the only hard to grasp thing
is that we're indoctrinated

00:22:11.510 --> 00:22:13.346
into a strange model.

00:22:13.346 --> 00:22:14.161
Nina: Right, right.

00:22:14.161 --> 00:22:15.864
It all make sense.

00:22:15.864 --> 00:22:18.067
Tell me a little bit
about your own education.

00:22:18.067 --> 00:22:20.913
I mean something despite
the regiment of the system

00:22:20.913 --> 00:22:22.846
that you grew up in, something
must have gone right.

00:22:22.846 --> 00:22:23.956
Was it a teacher?

00:22:23.956 --> 00:22:27.282
Was it your parents you think
who kind of built this sense

00:22:27.282 --> 00:22:30.675
of inquisitiveness or was it, yeah,

00:22:30.675 --> 00:22:34.265
did you go to a particular
type of school that was open

00:22:34.265 --> 00:22:36.555
to nurturing you as an individual

00:22:36.555 --> 00:22:39.471
and paying attention
to your specific needs?

00:22:39.471 --> 00:22:42.306
Or yeah, did none of
these things work and-

00:22:42.306 --> 00:22:42.793
Sal: Yeah, no, no, no.

00:22:42.793 --> 00:22:44.357
I mean I,

00:22:44.357 --> 00:22:47.013
Nina: (laughs)

00:22:47.013 --> 00:22:48.682
if I go and say that none
of that stuff played in.

00:22:48.682 --> 00:22:51.944
I mean I think there's probably
a bunch of different factors

00:22:51.944 --> 00:22:53.643
and I'm probably forgetting some of them.

00:22:53.643 --> 00:22:56.214
One, I was blessed to have an older sister

00:22:56.214 --> 00:22:59.716
who was a very good student,
so I think that projected,

00:22:59.716 --> 00:23:01.862
when I would walk into a classroom,

00:23:01.862 --> 00:23:04.470
the teachers would remember
my sister and say, "Oh, you're

00:23:04.470 --> 00:23:06.656
"Farrah's sis- you're Farrah's
brother, you must be."

00:23:06.656 --> 00:23:09.662
and I was like in speech
therapy and stuff when I was,

00:23:09.662 --> 00:23:12.597
they would project that and
there's actually now studies

00:23:12.597 --> 00:23:14.466
that show that that projection
has huge implications

00:23:14.466 --> 00:23:15.511
for your own self-esteem.

00:23:15.511 --> 00:23:17.266
That was luck.

00:23:17.266 --> 00:23:20.354
On top of that, I went to just a,

00:23:20.354 --> 00:23:22.645
I would say it was a public
school in Jefferson Parish,

00:23:22.645 --> 00:23:25.720
public schools in Jefferson Parish
right outside of New Orleans.

00:23:25.720 --> 00:23:29.015
I would say it was the average
American public schools.

00:23:29.015 --> 00:23:31.606
All of them, elementary,
middle and high school

00:23:31.606 --> 00:23:34.906
but there were some
incredible teachers there.

00:23:34.906 --> 00:23:39.438
I think in high school in particular,
Mr. Hernandez, Miss Kennedy,

00:23:39.438 --> 00:23:41.906
Miss Kennedy was a journalism
teacher and actually, I would say

00:23:41.906 --> 00:23:45.015
that's where a lot of the ideas that
look, class should not be a lecture,

00:23:45.015 --> 00:23:47.029
class should be working
alongside the teacher.

00:23:47.029 --> 00:23:49.830
It was journalism class, so we
had a product, a creative product

00:23:49.830 --> 00:23:50.999
and newspaper to work on.

00:23:50.999 --> 00:23:53.006
I was the art editor and
she would give us feedback

00:23:53.006 --> 00:23:56.124
and she was like our senior peer
and I remember those interactions

00:23:56.124 --> 00:23:57.877
and a lot of the experience
that I got from journalism.

00:23:57.877 --> 00:24:00.838
I still think about it when
I'm working on Khan Academy.

00:24:01.745 --> 00:24:03.419
I think early in my schooling,

00:24:03.419 --> 00:24:06.169
I think this was key and also lucky,

00:24:06.169 --> 00:24:08.388
I got into you know, I don't
know what they call it now,

00:24:08.388 --> 00:24:10.756
these GT programs and what they did is,

00:24:10.756 --> 00:24:15.527
you have this very structured Prussian
curriculum for most of the day,

00:24:15.527 --> 00:24:17.693
but then one day, a week, they take
you out of a different classroom

00:24:17.693 --> 00:24:19.477
and they take you to these GT classrooms

00:24:19.477 --> 00:24:22.612
and there, you're going to this
classroom, which is essentially,

00:24:22.612 --> 00:24:25.862
the kind of classroom that
ideally, everyone should have.

00:24:25.862 --> 00:24:28.794
It was actually Miss
[Roselle] and Miss [Crouse].

00:24:28.794 --> 00:24:31.103
These two teachers and
they had PhDs in education

00:24:31.103 --> 00:24:34.723
and I remember the first day walking to GT

00:24:34.723 --> 00:24:37.321
and Miss [Roselle] says,
"What do you wanna do?"

00:24:37.321 --> 00:24:39.815
and I was like eight and I was like

00:24:41.368 --> 00:24:43.682
"I like to draw." and then
she says, "Well, you should

00:24:43.682 --> 00:24:46.685
"draw more then." and then she
introduced me to these things,

00:24:46.685 --> 00:24:49.090
different styles, different tools to draw,

00:24:49.090 --> 00:24:51.342
"What else are you interested
in?" and I was like,

00:24:51.342 --> 00:24:54.392
"I like puzzles." and she's like,
"Well, here's some puzzles."

00:24:54.392 --> 00:24:57.105
She would give me these brainteasers
and so she was mentoring me

00:24:57.105 --> 00:24:59.308
and it was self-pace and I
was able to go to my own pace

00:24:59.308 --> 00:25:00.939
and there was other kids
working on interesting things

00:25:00.939 --> 00:25:02.442
and I would get inspired by them.

00:25:02.442 --> 00:25:03.866
Sometimes, we would work on things

00:25:03.866 --> 00:25:06.609
and I think we needed that
breathing room to have re-

00:25:07.439 --> 00:25:10.703
I wonder if I didn't have that
experience early on in my life,

00:25:10.703 --> 00:25:14.246
whether I would have had the
ability to kind of self-direct

00:25:14.246 --> 00:25:17.174
or the ability to say, "Oh,
let me solve that problem."

00:25:17.174 --> 00:25:19.801
No one you know, that's an
interesting thing to tackle.

00:25:19.801 --> 00:25:20.567
Nina: Right.

00:25:20.567 --> 00:25:24.013
So along those lines, do you have
any advice for parents out there

00:25:24.013 --> 00:25:27.387
1st grader, 2nd graders
and I'm asking you this

00:25:27.387 --> 00:25:30.346
because in your book, you also
highlight how a lot of students

00:25:30.346 --> 00:25:33.730
in Southeast Asia, go to
school in order to show off

00:25:33.730 --> 00:25:36.820
what they know, not
necessarily to learn in school.

00:25:36.820 --> 00:25:40.070
Are there habits that you
think parents can start

00:25:40.070 --> 00:25:44.932
to put in place early on, despite how
the schools are approaching education?

00:25:44.932 --> 00:25:47.254
Sal: Yeah, and take everything
I say with a grain of salt.

00:25:47.254 --> 00:25:48.572
I have a three-year-old
and a one-year-old,

00:25:48.572 --> 00:25:50.517
Nina: (laughs)

00:25:50.517 --> 00:25:51.911
of seven or eight-year-olds (laughs).

00:25:51.911 --> 00:25:54.023
I'm proud to get my one-year-old
off of the pacifier (laughs).

00:25:54.023 --> 00:25:56.689
Nina: Well, now that you
know, iPads are very popular.

00:25:56.689 --> 00:25:58.081
Sal: You're absolutely right.

00:25:58.081 --> 00:26:01.379
Sal: I mean my sense, having
kind of gone through the system

00:26:01.379 --> 00:26:03.715
and even we're observing, we're
working with a lot of teachers,

00:26:03.715 --> 00:26:05.302
we're working with a lot of schools now,

00:26:05.302 --> 00:26:06.953
I would say there's a
couple of dimensions here.

00:26:06.953 --> 00:26:08.528
I think it is true.

00:26:08.528 --> 00:26:11.367
Asians whether it's East
Asian or South Asian,

00:26:12.829 --> 00:26:16.397
there is a culture of school
is where you go to show

00:26:16.397 --> 00:26:18.192
what you've already learned at home.

00:26:18.192 --> 00:26:21.275
I think that gives those
students an advantage of having

00:26:21.275 --> 00:26:26.323
this kind of buffer of their
learning stuff maybe ahead

00:26:26.323 --> 00:26:28.235
and I'm not saying that
necessarily has to be the way

00:26:28.235 --> 00:26:30.691
but it is a way to
ensure that your student

00:26:30.691 --> 00:26:33.031
in the Prussian model, doesn't get,

00:26:33.031 --> 00:26:34.931
falls behind and as soon
as they fall behind,

00:26:34.931 --> 00:26:37.199
all of these negative
self-perception things

00:26:37.199 --> 00:26:38.848
and they start to reinforce each other.

00:26:40.078 --> 00:26:43.150
I would do, I mean I'll
tell you what I would do

00:26:43.150 --> 00:26:43.675
with my own children.

00:26:43.675 --> 00:26:47.818
I would do some combination of
engaging them with a lot of the content

00:26:47.818 --> 00:26:49.759
in a way before it becomes stressful

00:26:51.682 --> 00:26:54.178
When I was teaching Nadia, algebra

00:26:54.178 --> 00:26:55.837
when she was in algebra class,
it was stressful for her

00:26:55.837 --> 00:26:57.133
because she's like, "I need to catch up.

00:26:57.133 --> 00:26:58.729
"I have an exam on it."

00:26:58.729 --> 00:27:00.518
When I started teaching
algebra to her younger brother

00:27:00.518 --> 00:27:02.770
who's in 5th grade, he thought it was fun

00:27:02.770 --> 00:27:04.058
because there's no stress here.

00:27:04.058 --> 00:27:05.601
It was just a fun thing
his cousin was teaching.

00:27:05.601 --> 00:27:08.602
At least expose your kids
to the ideas in algebra

00:27:08.602 --> 00:27:10.897
and physics and biology
and chemistry early on

00:27:10.897 --> 00:27:12.730
so that when they see it in school,

00:27:12.730 --> 00:27:14.810
they've already had some exposure.

00:27:14.810 --> 00:27:18.233
The other thing I would say
is, "Don't overschedule them."

00:27:18.233 --> 00:27:20.839
I mean, I think sometimes the
same parents that would, you know,

00:27:21.485 --> 00:27:24.118
the same parents that would
do the teaching ahead of time,

00:27:24.118 --> 00:27:25.869
the same time, will also,
"You have piano lessons.

00:27:25.869 --> 00:27:27.631
"You have soccer lessons.
You have everything."

00:27:27.631 --> 00:27:30.628
and I think there's a
value there definitely

00:27:30.628 --> 00:27:32.646
but if it's complete overscheduling,

00:27:32.646 --> 00:27:37.093
you have the loss of time for the
child to develop their own creativity

00:27:37.093 --> 00:27:38.513
kind of what I had in that GT class.

00:27:38.513 --> 00:27:41.207
Frankly, in the ['80s],
I was a latchkey child

00:27:41.207 --> 00:27:44.411
where my mom, she worked these odd jobs

00:27:44.411 --> 00:27:46.400
and would come along at 6 or 7:00.

00:27:46.400 --> 00:27:47.893
And so, me and my sister
would just hang out,

00:27:47.893 --> 00:27:51.114
some of it was wasted watching TV
but a lot of it was just this like,

00:27:51.114 --> 00:27:52.825
"I wanna build something or I wanna draw."

00:27:52.825 --> 00:27:54.997
We would make up games and stuff like that

00:27:54.997 --> 00:27:56.234
and kids need that.

00:27:56.234 --> 00:27:59.451
They need that free space and
maybe if they're blowing it all

00:27:59.451 --> 00:28:02.647
on video games or watching TV,
you need to push them a little bit

00:28:02.647 --> 00:28:06.548
or do something creative with them
but they need that time for creativity

00:28:06.548 --> 00:28:09.054
and the last thing I would recommend
is that the parents themselves,

00:28:09.054 --> 00:28:11.919
engage in learning because
you set that example.

00:28:11.919 --> 00:28:15.031
If you're 40 or 50 years
old and you're going back

00:28:15.031 --> 00:28:18.535
in learning algebra or
cosmology or English lit,

00:28:18.535 --> 00:28:20.753
it's a sure signal for students.

00:28:20.753 --> 00:28:23.435
Nina: Let's talk about your
vision for the ideal classroom

00:28:23.435 --> 00:28:27.105
or this futuristic vision
that you outlined here about

00:28:27.105 --> 00:28:29.025
what the school of
tomorrow should look like,

00:28:29.025 --> 00:28:33.111
which is a lifelong learning
approach to education.

00:28:33.111 --> 00:28:35.899
I mean, you also talked about the
college of tomorrow to look like.

00:28:35.899 --> 00:28:39.608
I was fascinated by this but
let's talk just about schooling,

00:28:39.608 --> 00:28:42.666
your notions of class size
as the ideal classroom,

00:28:42.666 --> 00:28:46.347
could potentially have
a hundred students in it

00:28:46.347 --> 00:28:50.101
with four instructors roaming
around and helping students.

00:28:50.101 --> 00:28:52.166
We talked a little bit
about grades already

00:28:52.166 --> 00:28:55.001
but testing, this is one of
those topics that comes up a lot

00:28:55.001 --> 00:28:57.944
here in Washington and then with
the discussions on Capitol Hill

00:28:57.944 --> 00:29:02.697
but yeah, how would you
describe that vision for us?

00:29:02.697 --> 00:29:05.800
Sal: (laughs)

00:29:05.800 --> 00:29:09.841
which is not gonna be popular but
yeah, let's delve into this a bit.

00:29:09.841 --> 00:29:10.916
Sal: Yeah, I know there's a lot there.

00:29:10.916 --> 00:29:12.801
I mean the first to mention is

00:29:14.262 --> 00:29:16.298
once you remove lecture from class time,

00:29:16.298 --> 00:29:18.087
you say class time is
time for interaction.

00:29:18.087 --> 00:29:20.016
You can have students
working at their own pace,

00:29:20.016 --> 00:29:23.182
allows you to rethink everything and
so, a lot of the concepts of this book

00:29:23.182 --> 00:29:24.224
and a lot of these are happening.

00:29:24.224 --> 00:29:25.467
I mean there's schools
that we're working with,

00:29:25.467 --> 00:29:27.894
that are doing these things.

00:29:28.694 --> 00:29:30.599
They are experiments for their experiments

00:29:30.599 --> 00:29:34.116
that all the research and all of the
intuition point in that direction.

00:29:34.516 --> 00:29:36.720
Teaching is for the most
part, a solitary profession.

00:29:36.720 --> 00:29:39.441
Nina: It's lonely profession.

00:29:39.441 --> 00:29:40.787
It's lonely, it's lonely.

00:29:40.787 --> 00:29:43.220
And so, you can have a hundred students,

00:29:43.220 --> 00:29:45.384
you're not chaining the
student/teacher ration.

00:29:45.384 --> 00:29:46.627
You might even improve it.

00:29:46.627 --> 00:29:48.546
but you now have four
teachers in the same room.

00:29:48.546 --> 00:29:51.083
Now, if one of them gets sick, students
don't have a substitute teacher.

00:29:51.083 --> 00:29:53.214
Different students are gonna
connect with different teachers.

00:29:53.214 --> 00:29:54.294
They can mentor each other.

00:29:54.294 --> 00:29:56.618
They can do group things
with the teachers together

00:29:56.618 --> 00:29:58.288
but there's a whole
dimension that you can add.

00:29:58.288 --> 00:30:01.475
You could have a physics
teacher, a math teacher,

00:30:01.475 --> 00:30:04.144
a chemistry teacher and a biology
teacher, all teaching simultaneously.

00:30:04.144 --> 00:30:06.185
Students understand
that all these sciences

00:30:06.185 --> 00:30:07.768
and these math actually blend together.

00:30:07.768 --> 00:30:09.865
They're not these siloed subjects.

00:30:09.865 --> 00:30:12.114
They get a holistic understanding.

00:30:12.114 --> 00:30:15.479
The test themselves, you
need some aspect of testing

00:30:16.185 --> 00:30:18.541
but you should be very
skeptical of testing

00:30:18.541 --> 00:30:21.489
because all test measure what they test

00:30:21.812 --> 00:30:24.634
and there's many more [process]
to a human being than that

00:30:25.126 --> 00:30:28.936
and so, the dimensions that
there could be some testing

00:30:28.936 --> 00:30:31.464
to make sure that students
are getting core competency

00:30:31.464 --> 00:30:34.357
and some core skills but
the more important skills,

00:30:34.357 --> 00:30:38.150
which I think are completely
unmeasured right now are creativity

00:30:38.150 --> 00:30:40.234
and you could never get
someone a creativity score

00:30:40.234 --> 00:30:44.390
but you can have someone generate
a portfolio of creative works.

00:30:44.990 --> 00:30:47.188
As an employer, we're hiring engineers and

00:30:47.188 --> 00:30:50.653
when we get these people
great GPAs from top schools

00:30:50.653 --> 00:30:52.435
in the country and they say,
"What have you created?"

00:30:53.188 --> 00:30:54.743
That's what engineer is,

00:30:54.743 --> 00:30:56.111
building new things

00:30:56.111 --> 00:30:57.529
and they haven't created anything

00:30:57.529 --> 00:31:00.196
because they've been on the
treadmill the whole time,

00:31:00.196 --> 00:31:03.252
just trying to finish problem sets
and they're very, very smart people.

00:31:03.252 --> 00:31:07.046
And so, the ideal is that students
over their careers can show

00:31:07.046 --> 00:31:08.042
what they've created.

00:31:08.042 --> 00:31:09.670
It's not like they write
a paper that gets graded

00:31:09.670 --> 00:31:10.805
and gets thrown away.

00:31:10.805 --> 00:31:12.800
They write a paper, maybe gets graded

00:31:12.800 --> 00:31:14.087
and then they keep working on the paper.

00:31:14.087 --> 00:31:15.155
They keep developing it.

00:31:15.155 --> 00:31:16.595
When they're 18, they have a novel done.

00:31:16.595 --> 00:31:18.590
They have a bunch of papers on policy done

00:31:18.590 --> 00:31:20.177
that they can show
people, "This is my work."

00:31:20.177 --> 00:31:21.893
They have computer programs written.

00:31:21.893 --> 00:31:24.678
They build robots and on top of that,

00:31:24.678 --> 00:31:26.760
and this is another dimension,
that's completely missed

00:31:28.190 --> 00:31:30.866
in the Prussian model so to speak is,

00:31:32.850 --> 00:31:34.153
as

00:31:34.153 --> 00:31:36.624
I think in any field, the people
you wanna work with the most,

00:31:36.624 --> 00:31:39.791
are the people who have deep
subject matter expertise

00:31:39.791 --> 00:31:42.129
but are also always willing to help others

00:31:42.129 --> 00:31:44.086
and they have that
communication and that ability

00:31:44.086 --> 00:31:46.256
to empathize and

00:31:46.256 --> 00:31:49.552
in our current system, we make
everyone very focused on themselves,

00:31:49.552 --> 00:31:52.511
"What are your grades? Are
you going to pass the test?

00:31:52.511 --> 00:31:55.312
"Cram for the next
exam." and then the model

00:31:55.312 --> 00:31:57.256
that we're describing, we're
starting to see in a lot of schools,

00:31:57.256 --> 00:31:59.109
let's focus everyone on each other.

00:31:59.109 --> 00:32:00.332
So yeah, you go it your own pace,

00:32:00.332 --> 00:32:01.858
you might be racing
ahead and that's great.

00:32:01.858 --> 00:32:03.927
You're stimulated, you're engaged

00:32:03.927 --> 00:32:06.351
but you also have a chance to
reengage with some students

00:32:06.351 --> 00:32:07.922
who might be having difficulty
and there's two things,

00:32:07.922 --> 00:32:09.438
one, you're gonna be helping that student

00:32:09.438 --> 00:32:12.159
but even better, when you
explain that, hopefully,

00:32:12.159 --> 00:32:14.570
and you develop your ability to explain,

00:32:14.570 --> 00:32:17.408
you'll learn the material better
and you'll learn to communicate.

00:32:17.408 --> 00:32:19.743
You'll learn to empathize and
that actually is measurable.

00:32:19.743 --> 00:32:21.570
I mean you can have
students rate each other.

00:32:21.570 --> 00:32:23.739
You can have people write
assessments for each other.

00:32:23.739 --> 00:32:25.490
"Oh, you know, he understood the
stuff but he was a little bit,

00:32:25.490 --> 00:32:27.488
"you know, he spoke a little
fast." and you could develop

00:32:27.488 --> 00:32:28.655
that aspect.

00:32:28.655 --> 00:32:32.666
I'd imagine the transcript of
the future and I say the future

00:32:32.666 --> 00:32:34.351
when I mean the future
is like actually now.

00:32:35.489 --> 00:32:37.098
Yeah, you would have your test scores.

00:32:37.098 --> 00:32:38.924
Your test scores would actually
show actual competency.

00:32:38.924 --> 00:32:39.846
It wouldn't be grades.

00:32:39.846 --> 00:32:42.948
It would be like, "Yeah, I understand
algebra and I've renewed it.

00:32:42.948 --> 00:32:45.022
"I've renewed that I know
algebra well. I know cosmology.

00:32:45.022 --> 00:32:47.520
"I'm a writer and here's my writings."

00:32:48.104 --> 00:32:50.564
You have a portfolio of your
creative works in multidimensions

00:32:51.856 --> 00:32:55.358
and you have reviews from people
that you've helped saying,

00:32:55.358 --> 00:32:58.394
"Great person to work with. Really
understood the subject matter.

00:32:58.394 --> 00:33:00.870
"Really was able to communicate
well." and those are things

00:33:00.870 --> 00:33:02.933
that I think anyone would
actually care about more

00:33:02.933 --> 00:33:04.455
than just test scores.

00:33:04.455 --> 00:33:06.598
Nina: Right but let's talk a
little bit about what happens

00:33:06.598 --> 00:33:10.014
in this classroom or
school in terms of subject.

00:33:10.014 --> 00:33:13.805
So, you believe that, so right
now, you have to take math,

00:33:13.805 --> 00:33:17.590
you have to take English
language, arts, you start science

00:33:17.590 --> 00:33:19.634
at a certain point in time.

00:33:19.634 --> 00:33:22.839
I mean do you believe that all
these basics should also be taught

00:33:22.839 --> 00:33:25.291
in the school and at what point,

00:33:25.291 --> 00:33:27.515
I mean another question
I wanted to ask is,

00:33:27.515 --> 00:33:29.477
do you believe that all children can learn

00:33:29.477 --> 00:33:31.186
unless they have a serious disability?

00:33:31.186 --> 00:33:34.819
Can they all progress to the
levels that you have progressed to

00:33:34.819 --> 00:33:39.069
if they simply learn and master
and show an interest really

00:33:39.069 --> 00:33:43.081
in the subject matter
that they're studying?

00:33:43.081 --> 00:33:45.421
And specifically,
vis-a-vis the STEM fields,

00:33:45.421 --> 00:33:48.133
which is science technology,
engineering and math,

00:33:48.133 --> 00:33:51.162
which are areas that kids
tend not to get interested in.

00:33:51.823 --> 00:33:53.822
Is it just because they
haven't mastered it well

00:33:53.822 --> 00:33:56.564
and been pushed to understand it early on

00:33:56.564 --> 00:34:00.307
or are there limitations
perhaps in how we are currently,

00:34:00.307 --> 00:34:02.897
trying to get the students
to learn these subjects?

00:34:02.897 --> 00:34:06.280
Sal: Yeah, so on the latter question,
if you asked me 20 years ago,

00:34:06.280 --> 00:34:09.059
I'd have said, "Yeah, maybe
certain people are pre-exposed

00:34:09.059 --> 00:34:11.064
"to math and science and
other people aren't."

00:34:11.064 --> 00:34:13.104
and that made me feel good
because I was one of the people

00:34:13.104 --> 00:34:13.790
who were pre-exposed.

00:34:13.790 --> 00:34:15.541
It made me feel like I was meant to be.

00:34:15.541 --> 00:34:19.082
There wasn't luck but my
experience with my cousins,

00:34:19.082 --> 00:34:21.917
Nadia in particular, but other cousins
and then what we're seeing in schools.

00:34:21.917 --> 00:34:24.703
The schools that are
kind of transitioning to

00:34:24.703 --> 00:34:27.954
this type of a model where all the
students are learning at their own pace,

00:34:27.954 --> 00:34:30.640
building their foundations, we're seeing

00:34:31.393 --> 00:34:33.374
day five, yeah, some
kids have raced ahead.

00:34:33.374 --> 00:34:36.436
Those are the gifted kids and
some kids are falling behind

00:34:36.436 --> 00:34:38.836
like maybe they need to be
remediated and a traditional,

00:34:38.836 --> 00:34:41.352
how you would separate them and
you would actually tell these kids,

00:34:41.352 --> 00:34:42.299
"You're smart."

00:34:42.299 --> 00:34:44.736
You tell these kids either
explicitly or implicitly,

00:34:44.736 --> 00:34:47.318
"Hmm, you're not as smart."
but what we're saying is

00:34:47.318 --> 00:34:49.314
if you keep them together,
but you allow them

00:34:49.314 --> 00:34:50.936
to work at their own pace
so that they're engaged,

00:34:50.936 --> 00:34:52.448
they have mentorship from
each other and the teacher,

00:34:53.355 --> 00:34:55.231
many times, it's actually
quite hard to predict.

00:34:55.231 --> 00:34:56.915
We're trying to predict, it's very hard.

00:34:57.315 --> 00:35:00.711
Some of these students were falling
behind, maybe some in algebra class

00:35:00.711 --> 00:35:02.540
and some of them didn't
know multiplication well.

00:35:02.540 --> 00:35:03.986
Some of them didn't know
how to add fractions.

00:35:03.986 --> 00:35:06.415
You give them that opportunity
to really build that foundation

00:35:06.415 --> 00:35:09.348
on negative numbers, multiplication,
exponents, whatever it might be

00:35:09.348 --> 00:35:11.019
and then these kids race ahead.

00:35:11.680 --> 00:35:14.003
Their problem wasn't that they
have some cognitive inability

00:35:14.003 --> 00:35:16.389
to understand algebra, the
problem was that they're sitting

00:35:16.389 --> 00:35:19.104
in algebra class and for some
reason, they didn't understand

00:35:19.104 --> 00:35:21.228
how to multiply or they didn't
understand how to add fractions.

00:35:21.228 --> 00:35:23.526
They're just gonna feel
silly in an algebra class

00:35:23.526 --> 00:35:27.578
and you'll disengage really just
to predict your own self-esteem.

00:35:27.578 --> 00:35:31.158
I'm actually now more
and more convinced that

00:35:31.788 --> 00:35:35.558
pretty much everyone,
barring certain exceptions,

00:35:35.819 --> 00:35:37.062
we don't know where.

00:35:37.062 --> 00:35:37.809
I mean, we're still learning.

00:35:37.809 --> 00:35:39.078
We don't know but

00:35:39.078 --> 00:35:41.771
progress far ahead and we're
even seeing these classrooms.

00:35:42.355 --> 00:35:44.179
We traditionally think motivated kids,

00:35:44.179 --> 00:35:46.200
maybe that's 20% of kids but
as soon as you allow people

00:35:46.200 --> 00:35:49.179
to engage and fill in gaps
without feeling embarrassed,

00:35:49.179 --> 00:35:50.761
they start seeing it's not 20%,

00:35:50.761 --> 00:35:54.291
it's 80 or 90% of kids,
can start to feel engaged.

00:35:54.860 --> 00:35:58.686
In terms of the first question
about like what subjects and how,

00:35:58.686 --> 00:36:01.267
I think it is an interesting and
I talked a little bit about it

00:36:01.267 --> 00:36:05.260
as, the subjects that are taught
now are somewhat arbitrary.

00:36:05.260 --> 00:36:08.058
They were decided in 1892
by the Committee of 10

00:36:08.058 --> 00:36:10.774
mainly university, the
male university presidents

00:36:10.774 --> 00:36:13.695
who did not know about, you know this
was before the Federal Reseve existed,

00:36:13.695 --> 00:36:15.611
the Interstate Highway
existed, knowledge of DNA

00:36:15.611 --> 00:36:17.226
and a bunch of other stuff.

00:36:17.226 --> 00:36:21.028
And they decided that at age
14, you should learn algebra,

00:36:21.028 --> 00:36:22.867
at age 15, you should learn geometry,

00:36:22.867 --> 00:36:25.238
at age 16, you should learn
trigonometry and so on.

00:36:25.238 --> 00:36:27.154
You should learn physics, your
senior year in high school.

00:36:27.154 --> 00:36:28.697
You should learn, I mean
that's when it was decided

00:36:28.697 --> 00:36:30.332
and it hasn't changed since.

00:36:30.332 --> 00:36:31.494
I love all of those subjects.

00:36:31.494 --> 00:36:32.946
I think they're all fascinating

00:36:32.946 --> 00:36:35.443
but I think there are all these questions.

00:36:35.443 --> 00:36:37.787
Should there be more statistics?

00:36:37.787 --> 00:36:39.364
Statistics more valuable than calculus

00:36:39.364 --> 00:36:40.861
or at least as valuable.

00:36:40.861 --> 00:36:44.032
Should there be some
knowledge of economics?

00:36:44.032 --> 00:36:45.255
Who knows what it will be?

00:36:45.255 --> 00:36:47.113
I mean, it's for the society to decide

00:36:47.113 --> 00:36:48.864
but the general idea is

00:36:48.864 --> 00:36:53.452
at minimum, it should be rethought
within the last 120 years.

00:36:53.452 --> 00:36:55.196
There is grounds, the world has changed.

00:36:55.196 --> 00:36:57.636
We should think more about
what these subjects are.

00:36:57.636 --> 00:37:00.860
And even more, I think
and you alluded to this,

00:37:00.860 --> 00:37:03.850
should they even be divvied
up in these siloed subjects?

00:37:03.850 --> 00:37:05.524
These siloed subjects, these are,

00:37:05.524 --> 00:37:07.558
we're indoctrinated into
it, so it's hard for us

00:37:07.558 --> 00:37:09.372
to break our minds from it.

00:37:09.372 --> 00:37:11.323
This is the factory model.

00:37:11.323 --> 00:37:14.378
You're at this machine in the factory

00:37:14.378 --> 00:37:16.472
and so this is what will
be poured into the product.

00:37:16.472 --> 00:37:18.252
Okay, now you're gonna have
the paint applied to you.

00:37:18.252 --> 00:37:20.442
So now, you're gonna have
the chemistry applied to you.

00:37:20.442 --> 00:37:21.505
Now, you move on.

00:37:21.505 --> 00:37:23.727
And for some people that
might chip a little bit,

00:37:23.727 --> 00:37:24.527
that's fine.

00:37:24.527 --> 00:37:26.812
That'll be a cheaper product at the end

00:37:26.812 --> 00:37:28.241
but the reality is this,

00:37:28.241 --> 00:37:34.114
I mean chemistry is halfway
in between physics and biology

00:37:34.114 --> 00:37:37.945
and physics is halfway in between
chemistry and pure mathematics

00:37:37.945 --> 00:37:41.404
and all of them actually, have
an aspect of philosophy to them.

00:37:41.404 --> 00:37:43.693
All of them have an aspect
of aesthetics to them

00:37:43.693 --> 00:37:46.418
and whatever else and
riding can be critical

00:37:46.418 --> 00:37:49.535
and logical thinking
is across all program,

00:37:49.535 --> 00:37:51.777
you can have something like logic,

00:37:51.777 --> 00:37:52.861
which is across everything.

00:37:52.861 --> 00:37:57.134
And so, I think the
reality we're moving to is

00:37:57.134 --> 00:38:00.101
yes, you won't show competency in things.

00:38:00.101 --> 00:38:02.007
So, yeah I understand this domain well.

00:38:02.007 --> 00:38:05.258
So, you can go take an exam
and then renew that exam

00:38:05.258 --> 00:38:07.925
to show that, "Yes, I still
understand that topic."

00:38:07.925 --> 00:38:10.379
but while you're in school,
some might be preparation

00:38:10.379 --> 00:38:13.749
for that particular compentency
but most of the time,

00:38:13.749 --> 00:38:16.526
will be blending it
where you're not working

00:38:16.526 --> 00:38:17.947
to pass an assessment.

00:38:17.947 --> 00:38:19.412
You're working to create things

00:38:19.412 --> 00:38:21.070
and so, in the process of creating things,

00:38:21.070 --> 00:38:24.403
whether it might be a
novel or robot or business,

00:38:24.403 --> 00:38:25.903
you're integrating all of these things.

00:38:25.903 --> 00:38:27.367
I mean anyone who started a business,

00:38:27.367 --> 00:38:30.041
if it's like a tech
business, there's a comp,

00:38:30.041 --> 00:38:32.829
there's art design, there's technology,

00:38:32.829 --> 00:38:34.879
there's quantitative
thinking and there's writing

00:38:34.879 --> 00:38:37.212
and there's just human skills
and you need to integrate it.

00:38:37.212 --> 00:38:39.550
That's what actually
matters in the real world.

00:38:41.180 --> 00:38:45.133
When you break yourself from
this assembly line model,

00:38:45.133 --> 00:38:47.506
you give yourself the
freedom for people to pursue

00:38:47.506 --> 00:38:48.973
these types of things.

00:38:48.973 --> 00:38:52.186
Nina: Why not create a
Khan Academy Charter School

00:38:52.186 --> 00:38:54.778
or even a Khan Academy Private School?

00:38:54.778 --> 00:38:56.388
Sal: Yes, it's-

00:38:56.388 --> 00:38:59.604
Sal: Yes, no.

00:38:59.604 --> 00:39:03.525
Sal: I mean we go back and
forth on that but I am,

00:39:04.109 --> 00:39:05.982
we're thinking about it.

00:39:05.982 --> 00:39:06.757
We're thinking about it.

00:39:06.757 --> 00:39:08.071
Nina: Where would you put it?

00:39:08.071 --> 00:39:09.852
Nina: Which country would you pick to ...

00:39:09.852 --> 00:39:11.752
Sal: Well, for selfish reasons,
I would probably put it

00:39:11.752 --> 00:39:14.537
in Mountain View, California, (laughs)
which would be walking distance

00:39:14.537 --> 00:39:18.162
from, no but seriously,
I think it's interesting

00:39:18.162 --> 00:39:20.542
because, and this shows
the emphasis we put.

00:39:20.542 --> 00:39:23.429
I think a physical experience is
incredibly, incredibly important.

00:39:23.429 --> 00:39:26.546
A lot of people in Silicon Valley
say, "What? You're at scale already.

00:39:26.546 --> 00:39:29.135
"You're reaching 7 million, you're
growing, you're doubling every year.

00:39:29.135 --> 00:39:31.016
"You could reach 100 million
students in five years,

00:39:31.016 --> 00:39:32.973
"maybe a billion in your,

00:39:32.973 --> 00:39:34.892
"and why are you even
thinking about the physical,"

00:39:34.892 --> 00:39:36.830
or, "Why are you thinking
about physical schools?"

00:39:36.830 --> 00:39:39.104
and I always say, "Well, that's
because that's the core."

00:39:39.996 --> 00:39:43.564
And I also think you need, you
might say, "Well, why focus

00:39:43.564 --> 00:39:45.828
"on one school that might be
able to reach a few hundred kids

00:39:45.828 --> 00:39:48.988
"when you're able to reach
hundred million maybe one day?"

00:39:48.988 --> 00:39:52.294
and the idea is if you
can show examples of this

00:39:52.294 --> 00:39:54.947
and there are schools that have
already moved in that direction.

00:39:54.947 --> 00:39:56.360
Los Altos moved in that direction.

00:39:56.360 --> 00:39:58.252
Summit Prep, which is a charter school,

00:39:58.252 --> 00:39:59.361
they've broken down walls.

00:39:59.361 --> 00:40:00.886
They have multiple
teachers teaching classes

00:40:00.886 --> 00:40:02.554
in these kind of epic environments.

00:40:04.892 --> 00:40:07.458
If you show examples of
this, then I think that

00:40:07.458 --> 00:40:09.511
that's what moves the dial forward.

00:40:09.511 --> 00:40:11.175
Nina: So, how much would be the tuition?

00:40:11.390 --> 00:40:14.804
Sal: The tuition would be you know-

00:40:14.804 --> 00:40:17.468
Nina: The new school in
New York, 40,000 a child.

00:40:17.468 --> 00:40:19.017
Sal: Well, you know that's
an interesting thing pe-

00:40:19.017 --> 00:40:22.454
Nina: And it was built without this book
and the vision that [unintelligible]

00:40:22.454 --> 00:40:23.937
Sal: Well, no.

00:40:23.937 --> 00:40:25.954
Sal: The money is fascinating.

00:40:25.954 --> 00:40:27.376
Education is ...

00:40:27.376 --> 00:40:29.751
Someone asked me recently is,
"Can you ever spend too much

00:40:29.751 --> 00:40:32.334
"on education?" and to some
degree, the answer is no.

00:40:32.334 --> 00:40:33.920
I mean it's such an important thing

00:40:33.920 --> 00:40:35.648
but at the same time, if you're
going to spend that much money,

00:40:35.648 --> 00:40:37.756
you have to think seriously
about how you're spending it.

00:40:37.756 --> 00:40:39.190
I've met with some

00:40:40.929 --> 00:40:43.930
officials about this and

00:40:43.930 --> 00:40:47.302
at public level, charter or
private schools and I just,

00:40:47.302 --> 00:40:49.112
regardless of the school, I
say, "How much do you spend

00:40:49.112 --> 00:40:50.248
"per pupil per year?"

00:40:50.248 --> 00:40:55.603
You ask a private school, some of
them 25,000, 30,000, 40,000 a year.

00:40:55.603 --> 00:40:57.396
You ask a public school,

00:40:58.534 --> 00:41:00.028
some states, it's low.

00:41:00.028 --> 00:41:02.447
It goes down to $5-6,000
a year but most states,

00:41:02.447 --> 00:41:04.950
especially, on the east
coast, it's 10, 15,000.

00:41:04.950 --> 00:41:06.762
New York City public
school is 18,000 a year.

00:41:06.762 --> 00:41:10.135
Cambridge Massachusetts,
$25,000 per year per student

00:41:10.135 --> 00:41:12.179
and I say, "Okay, and what's
your average class size?"

00:41:12.179 --> 00:41:14.845
And they'll usually say, "Some
number between 20 and 30."

00:41:14.845 --> 00:41:18.108
I said, "Okay, private school,
you're charging 30,000 a year,

00:41:18.108 --> 00:41:21.373
"There's 20 students. That's
$600,000 per classroom."

00:41:21.896 --> 00:41:23.876
That's essentially for the te-

00:41:23.876 --> 00:41:26.010
What's directly impacting the students?

00:41:26.010 --> 00:41:27.974
The teacher, the classrooms
and maybe the textbook.

00:41:27.974 --> 00:41:28.847
Nina: That's it.

00:41:28.847 --> 00:41:31.597
Sal: All, I can figure out
is maybe there's 100,000,

00:41:31.597 --> 00:41:33.512
150,000 being spent there.

00:41:33.512 --> 00:41:36.675
Where is other quarter
of a million or $300,000?

00:41:36.675 --> 00:41:38.175
Same thing at any level.

00:41:38.175 --> 00:41:42.420
Why can't we instead use, we can low-

00:41:42.420 --> 00:41:44.564
The private school, I
think for 10,000 a year,

00:41:44.564 --> 00:41:47.075
instead of 40,000, 10,000 a
year, you have 20 students

00:41:47.075 --> 00:41:49.079
or let's say you have 30
students in the class,

00:41:49.079 --> 00:41:50.617
that's $300,000 a year.

00:41:50.617 --> 00:41:52.648
I say pay the teacher 150,000.

00:41:52.648 --> 00:41:55.536
Make teaching, you know a lot
of people pay lip service,

00:41:55.536 --> 00:41:57.546
"Oh, we should you know,
teaching should be on par

00:41:57.546 --> 00:41:59.885
"with the doctors and
engineers and lawyers."

00:41:59.885 --> 00:42:01.834
I said, "Well, that's a nice lip
service but if you really believe that,

00:42:01.834 --> 00:42:04.925
"pay teachers the same as
doctors, engineers and lawyers."

00:42:04.925 --> 00:42:08.436
That's the best signal to society
that you're actually valued

00:42:08.436 --> 00:42:10.053
but the money is clearly there

00:42:10.053 --> 00:42:12.760
and then it will have to
get cut from all the stuff

00:42:12.760 --> 00:42:14.117
that's not impacting the students.

00:42:14.117 --> 00:42:15.624
All of the, I don't know.

00:42:15.870 --> 00:42:19.211
Every time I ask this to people, I just
do this back of the envelope calculation.

00:42:19.229 --> 00:42:20.686
I mean this is what I used
to do in my old career.

00:42:20.686 --> 00:42:21.985
I used to speak to CFOs.

00:42:21.985 --> 00:42:24.142
I say, "Oh, you're making
this much, what am I missing?"

00:42:24.142 --> 00:42:25.566
and the same exact question.

00:42:26.766 --> 00:42:31.450
15,000 a year times 30
students is $450,000 a year.

00:42:31.450 --> 00:42:32.979
The fully loaded cost of the teacher is

00:42:34.517 --> 00:42:36.316
less than half of that plus to see,

00:42:36.316 --> 00:42:37.952
where is that money going?

00:42:37.952 --> 00:42:40.662
And so, I think you could
do a very good model

00:42:40.662 --> 00:42:43.090
for what public schools are spending.

00:42:43.090 --> 00:42:45.999
Definitely, some of the more,
the systems are spending

00:42:45.999 --> 00:42:48.094
$10,000 plus.

00:42:48.094 --> 00:42:52.472
Nina: So, talk a little bit about
how Bill Gates came to discover you

00:42:53.425 --> 00:42:56.639
and I just thought that
chapter was so interesting

00:42:56.639 --> 00:42:59.668
and yeah, I mean what was it
like to find out all of a sudden

00:42:59.668 --> 00:43:02.523
that Bill Gates was watching your videos

00:43:02.523 --> 00:43:04.374
and what went through your mind?

00:43:04.374 --> 00:43:06.036
Sal: I still wake up in the
morning sometimes wondering

00:43:06.036 --> 00:43:08.273
whether that was all made up or a dream.

00:43:11.103 --> 00:43:12.740
The site have already gotten traction

00:43:12.740 --> 00:43:17.624
but the summer of 2010,
our first donors and/or

00:43:17.624 --> 00:43:19.006
started sending me text messages

00:43:19.006 --> 00:43:21.208
that Bill Gates was at
the Aspen Ideas Festival,

00:43:21.792 --> 00:43:24.484
telling the whole audience
that he uses a site

00:43:24.484 --> 00:43:27.135
that he thinks is great
called The Khan Academy

00:43:27.135 --> 00:43:28.856
and he uses it with his
kids and he uses it himself,

00:43:28.856 --> 00:43:32.306
which made me a little nervous
because those were just for Nadia

00:43:32.306 --> 00:43:35.604
but then you know (laughs)
and I didn't know what to do.

00:43:35.604 --> 00:43:36.802
I was like, "Do I reach out to him?"

00:43:36.802 --> 00:43:40.348
I mean, I don't think
he's listed or he's ...

00:43:40.348 --> 00:43:43.191
but then his, two weeks
later, chief of staff called

00:43:43.191 --> 00:43:45.237
and said, "You know you might
have heard Bill's a fan."

00:43:45.237 --> 00:43:47.865
and I was like, "Yeah,
yeah. I heard that."

00:43:47.865 --> 00:43:50.780
and they said, "If you're
free, we'd like to fly you up."

00:43:50.780 --> 00:43:53.452
and I was looking at my
calendar's completely blank

00:43:53.452 --> 00:43:54.874
and I said, "Yeah, I
think I could make it,

00:43:54.874 --> 00:43:57.041
"make some time for Bill.
I gotta cut my nails

00:43:57.041 --> 00:43:59.713
"but other than that, (laughs)
my schedule's flexible."

00:43:59.713 --> 00:44:02.882
And I went up and I
really articulated this,

00:44:02.882 --> 00:44:04.673
look, the time it was mainly,

00:44:04.673 --> 00:44:06.715
the videos I was doing but I
was like, "Look, if we could get

00:44:06.715 --> 00:44:09.423
"some resources." and I was
dreaming about a five-person team

00:44:09.423 --> 00:44:10.351
and some office space.

00:44:10.351 --> 00:44:12.425
That was the dream at that point.

00:44:13.148 --> 00:44:15.581
We could build out the
software that I started doing

00:44:15.581 --> 00:44:18.072
with my cousins so
students can get practice,

00:44:18.072 --> 00:44:18.892
they can get feedback.

00:44:18.892 --> 00:44:20.233
We just started building
a community on the site,

00:44:20.233 --> 00:44:21.522
so the students can help each other.

00:44:21.522 --> 00:44:22.775
We can build task ports for teachers

00:44:22.775 --> 00:44:26.216
so that they could use
it to diagnose students

00:44:26.216 --> 00:44:27.883
and leverage class time more effectively

00:44:27.883 --> 00:44:33.323
and him and then later Google as well,
they were strong believers in that.

00:44:33.323 --> 00:44:34.642
Nina: Great.

00:44:35.688 --> 00:44:39.513
You talked a little bit
about talent and creativity

00:44:39.513 --> 00:44:43.039
in your book and we talked a
little bit about this earlier on

00:44:43.039 --> 00:44:45.843
but do you think, in
the advent of all this

00:44:46.550 --> 00:44:48.837
not advent but since,
a couple of years ago,

00:44:48.837 --> 00:44:51.160
there were books focused on talent.

00:44:51.160 --> 00:44:54.443
Talent is Overrated,The
Talent Code, you name it

00:44:54.443 --> 00:44:57.603
Sal: (laughs)

00:44:57.603 --> 00:45:00.158
who I'm trying to foster
into a talented individual.

00:45:00.158 --> 00:45:02.011
Do you think talent and
creativity are things

00:45:02.011 --> 00:45:05.961
that can be in fact, you
know, taught to children

00:45:05.961 --> 00:45:07.809
Sal: I don't think they're,

00:45:07.809 --> 00:45:10.840
Sal: I'm not sure and frankly,

00:45:10.840 --> 00:45:14.817
Nina: What's your thoughts?

00:45:14.817 --> 00:45:16.601
I ...

00:45:16.601 --> 00:45:18.408
My sense through both
(chuckles) observation

00:45:18.408 --> 00:45:20.290
and just even seeing
what was happening there,

00:45:20.290 --> 00:45:22.681
is it's not something that's taught

00:45:22.681 --> 00:45:24.580
but it's something that can be untaught.

00:45:24.580 --> 00:45:28.955
It's not something that it's not,

00:45:28.955 --> 00:45:30.933
and it can be fostered
or it can be suppressed,

00:45:31.656 --> 00:45:32.972
both talent and creativity.

00:45:32.972 --> 00:45:35.012
And I actually think probably all,

00:45:35.012 --> 00:45:37.263
I think everyone is born with creativity.

00:45:37.263 --> 00:45:40.512
I mean there's not a
two-year-old on the planet,

00:45:40.512 --> 00:45:42.973
who, if you introduce a
new object into the room,

00:45:43.373 --> 00:45:46.433
will not walk up to that object
and manipulate it in every way,

00:45:46.433 --> 00:45:48.979
taste it, feel it, see what they
can do with it, pour something,

00:45:48.979 --> 00:45:50.479
There's not a two-year-old on the planet.

00:45:50.479 --> 00:45:51.679
There's not a five-year-old.

00:45:51.679 --> 00:45:53.281
Actually, most five-year-olds will still,

00:45:53.281 --> 00:45:55.014
a new object in the room,
they will engage with it,

00:45:55.014 --> 00:45:56.928
a new idea, they'll ask questions about it

00:45:56.928 --> 00:45:59.764
but then something happens
where they're taught

00:45:59.764 --> 00:46:01.124
to become more passive.

00:46:01.124 --> 00:46:02.835
To some degree, they are in an environment

00:46:02.835 --> 00:46:05.497
where questioning is not always cool.

00:46:06.035 --> 00:46:08.985
They're so overwhelmed with work,

00:46:08.985 --> 00:46:10.981
whether it's soccer practice or homework

00:46:10.981 --> 00:46:14.150
that there's no time for them to
kind of just think about something.

00:46:14.150 --> 00:46:15.324
The class is moving on.

00:46:15.324 --> 00:46:17.717
They can't think about, "Wait,
why am I carrying the one?

00:46:17.717 --> 00:46:20.002
"Why does that make sense? It
seems just like a formula to me."

00:46:20.002 --> 00:46:21.417
They don't have time
for that type of stuff

00:46:21.417 --> 00:46:25.495
and so, all of these
things, fall from this idea

00:46:25.495 --> 00:46:27.338
of just breaking from this Prussian model,

00:46:27.338 --> 00:46:29.384
breaking from this one
pace fits the lecture.

00:46:29.384 --> 00:46:30.852
As soon as you take that out,

00:46:30.852 --> 00:46:32.007
now, all of a sudden,
you can start saying,

00:46:32.007 --> 00:46:34.398
"Hey, why we can't we let a student ..."

00:46:34.398 --> 00:46:36.234
You know, right now, there's
a 16-year-old some place

00:46:36.234 --> 00:46:39.680
in the country, who has just some insight,

00:46:39.680 --> 00:46:43.691
like, "Maybe cancer can be addressed
in ... maybe this is what cancer is."

00:46:43.691 --> 00:46:48.678
and too bad, the bell's gonna ring
or they have an AP test the next day

00:46:48.678 --> 00:46:51.016
or they have an exam, he's like,
"Oh, I have too much work to do."

00:46:51.016 --> 00:46:54.758
I have, I quote, an admissions
officer in the book talked

00:46:54.758 --> 00:46:57.287
about she was interviewing
a bunch of people

00:46:57.287 --> 00:46:59.237
who are coming to a very
elite college and said,

00:46:59.237 --> 00:47:01.592
"What do you daydream
about?" and one student said,

00:47:01.592 --> 00:47:02.709
"We don't daydream about anything

00:47:02.709 --> 00:47:04.367
"because it doesn't help
us to get into college."

00:47:05.043 --> 00:47:08.499
And it's tragic for that child
but it's tragic for society

00:47:08.499 --> 00:47:12.257
because it's those daydreams
that eventually lead to actual,

00:47:12.257 --> 00:47:15.175
I'll tell you know, Khan
Academy exist to a large degree

00:47:15.175 --> 00:47:19.305
because my boss at the hedge
fund, a very nontraditional

00:47:19.305 --> 00:47:22.640
for that field, had a
strong belief in life, work

00:47:22.640 --> 00:47:27.011
in balance and so, I had time to
daydream about the Khan Academy.

00:47:27.011 --> 00:47:28.798
I had time.

00:47:28.798 --> 00:47:31.941
And my wife was a medical resident
so I felt bad sitting in bed

00:47:31.941 --> 00:47:38.042
and watching TV and so, I was
able to think about this problem

00:47:38.042 --> 00:47:42.178
and make resources and I think
anyone is capable of doing that.

00:47:42.178 --> 00:47:45.257
We just have to give them the time
and the breathing room to do it.

00:47:45.257 --> 00:47:47.505
Nina: Especially now, since
it appears, I don't know

00:47:47.505 --> 00:47:48.756
if this was in your book or

00:47:50.124 --> 00:47:51.776
I heard it from Tom Friedman.

00:47:51.776 --> 00:47:55.079
I mean most of the jobs of
tomorrow are gonna be jobs

00:47:55.079 --> 00:47:58.089
that are gonna be created,
not jobs that currently exist.

00:47:58.089 --> 00:48:01.249
Sal: Yeah, exact- if you go, you
know, the Prussian model started

00:48:01.249 --> 00:48:03.525
in the Industrial Revolution
and Industrial Revolution,

00:48:04.140 --> 00:48:07.152
we needed probably more
educated people than we needed

00:48:07.152 --> 00:48:08.990
in a kind of an agrarian civilization.

00:48:08.990 --> 00:48:10.818
We needed people who
could read the directions

00:48:10.818 --> 00:48:13.738
and have the discipline of the
assembly line and all of that

00:48:14.153 --> 00:48:16.586
but there's also, there's
a certain passivity

00:48:16.586 --> 00:48:18.084
that you also had to implicate.

00:48:18.084 --> 00:48:21.039
In the farm, there's a certain
independence and freedom to it.

00:48:21.039 --> 00:48:22.863
All of a sudden, in a
factory, you're doing this

00:48:22.863 --> 00:48:24.713
over and over again and

00:48:26.143 --> 00:48:28.735
one can debate whether
it was explicitly done

00:48:28.735 --> 00:48:31.258
but there was an element of
instilling that passivity

00:48:31.258 --> 00:48:35.631
in indoctrination so that
people could be good workers

00:48:35.631 --> 00:48:37.475
but now, we're [in reality],

00:48:37.475 --> 00:48:38.711
Before the pyramid was like this,

00:48:38.711 --> 00:48:40.859
you needed a few knowledge workers
who are doing creative things

00:48:40.859 --> 00:48:42.949
and then you needed a mass of labor.

00:48:42.949 --> 00:48:46.982
Now, the pyramid's kind of inverted
where we need a lot of creative people.

00:48:46.982 --> 00:48:50.069
In fact, all of the real
careers now are creative focused

00:48:50.069 --> 00:48:52.813
and open ended and you need very few,

00:48:52.813 --> 00:48:56.037
you need very little physical
labor and in that reality,

00:48:56.513 --> 00:49:00.987
we're training people for this
while we need (laughs) the opposite.

00:49:00.987 --> 00:49:04.007
Nina: Right and so since, we
are in the nation's capital,

00:49:04.007 --> 00:49:05.752
do you have any advice for congress

00:49:05.752 --> 00:49:06.980
or the president?

00:49:06.980 --> 00:49:08.601
How can they best

00:49:08.601 --> 00:49:11.838
help bring this vision to
life, understanding that?

00:49:11.838 --> 00:49:13.462
Sal: Yeah, you know and this is,

00:49:13.462 --> 00:49:14.681
it's an interesting
question because we do meet

00:49:14.681 --> 00:49:16.980
with state officials and
federal officials and

00:49:16.980 --> 00:49:20.036
even in other countries,
ministries of education,

00:49:20.036 --> 00:49:21.990
and the one thing that I
don't want to happen is,

00:49:21.990 --> 00:49:25.028
right now, it's been a very
grassroots grounds up thing.

00:49:25.028 --> 00:49:26.815
People of word of mouth, Khan Academy,

00:49:26.815 --> 00:49:27.880
people have been using it.

00:49:27.880 --> 00:49:28.893
Parents have been telling parents.

00:49:28.893 --> 00:49:31.060
Teachers have been telling
teachers and that's good

00:49:31.060 --> 00:49:33.730
because that way, these are
people who wanna make it work

00:49:33.730 --> 00:49:35.148
and they figured out and they tell us ways

00:49:35.148 --> 00:49:36.534
to make it work better.

00:49:36.534 --> 00:49:39.488
As soon as you make it top
down, I think it becomes,

00:49:41.780 --> 00:49:42.750
no one likes it anymore.

00:49:42.750 --> 00:49:44.607
And so, we want this
to be very grassroots.

00:49:44.607 --> 00:49:46.606
What I really tell people is
just tell people about it.

00:49:46.606 --> 00:49:48.506
Tell people, [tell them]
they have a free tutor.

00:49:48.506 --> 00:49:50.716
Tell teachers that look,
there might be another model

00:49:50.716 --> 00:49:52.437
that you probably will enjoy more.

00:49:52.437 --> 00:49:54.095
There are ways to reach more students

00:49:54.879 --> 00:49:57.906
and on top of that, and
I'm serious about this,

00:49:58.536 --> 00:50:01.137
I think they should set an example.

00:50:01.137 --> 00:50:03.963
It's become too, it's too
easy now in our society

00:50:03.963 --> 00:50:06.109
for people to say, "Oh,
I'm not good at math."

00:50:06.109 --> 00:50:07.963
And they'll say it out
loud like 6th grade math.

00:50:07.963 --> 00:50:09.936
"Oh, I don't know. That's
math. I don't understand it."

00:50:09.936 --> 00:50:12.309
No one will say, "Oh, I can't
read at a 6th grade level."

00:50:12.309 --> 00:50:14.023
or, "I can barely write."

00:50:14.023 --> 00:50:16.859
No one says that but people say,
you'll hear politicians say that.

00:50:16.859 --> 00:50:18.366
You'll hear CEOs say that.

00:50:18.366 --> 00:50:20.492
You'll hear people in the press say that

00:50:20.492 --> 00:50:22.782
and I think that messaging should change

00:50:22.782 --> 00:50:24.574
and frankly, the only
way that it could change,

00:50:24.574 --> 00:50:26.004
is if they directly engage with it.

00:50:26.004 --> 00:50:29.343
I mean it's shocking how many people
are engaged in education policy,

00:50:30.189 --> 00:50:31.748
where they don't know the
subject matter themselves.

00:50:31.748 --> 00:50:33.209
They're like, "Oh, I'm
not good at math but

00:50:33.209 --> 00:50:35.506
"this is how we should
test math teachers."

00:50:35.506 --> 00:50:36.874
It's like, that's crazy.

00:50:36.874 --> 00:50:40.125
You yourself should engage in the
content or get a depth in the content

00:50:40.125 --> 00:50:41.876
and that'll be a huge signal to society

00:50:41.876 --> 00:50:44.265
and I think it also help inform policy

00:50:44.265 --> 00:50:45.978
and I think the more they do that,

00:50:45.978 --> 00:50:48.387
they'll realize that it's a
lot less about taught down,

00:50:48.387 --> 00:50:50.351
a lot less about the controls.

00:50:50.351 --> 00:50:53.209
The controls that they do, every
iteration of ed reforms is just

00:50:53.209 --> 00:50:56.399
about more controls on
teachers and it might

00:50:56.968 --> 00:51:03.365
de-risk some of the weaker players
but it also handicaps all the rest

00:51:03.365 --> 00:51:06.574
and so it kind of gets into
this culture of everyone getting

00:51:07.312 --> 00:51:09.825
to mediocre and what we really
need to do is go the other way.

00:51:09.825 --> 00:51:11.503
Be much more grassroots.

00:51:11.503 --> 00:51:13.708
What I point on this book,
that's an American thing

00:51:13.708 --> 00:51:16.824
that we're a country that's
focused on creativity,

00:51:16.824 --> 00:51:18.901
we're a country that's focused
on people taking ownership

00:51:18.901 --> 00:51:21.821
over their lives but our school
system is a Prussian one.

00:51:22.282 --> 00:51:24.816
One that's about passivity.

00:51:24.816 --> 00:51:28.434
One that's about authority and
everything about this book is,

00:51:28.434 --> 00:51:31.024
let's make our school
system more American.

00:51:31.024 --> 00:51:32.685
Nina: Yeah, so any final thoughts?

00:51:33.761 --> 00:51:38.659
If you were sitting with President
Obama at the White House,

00:51:38.659 --> 00:51:41.985
aside from asking him to
use his bully pulpit more,

00:51:41.985 --> 00:51:44.929
Sal: I'm somewhat serious about it.

00:51:44.929 --> 00:51:46.360
Sal: I will ask him to ...

00:51:46.360 --> 00:51:50.166
This is somewhat a different dimension
but we talked about this in the book.

00:51:50.166 --> 00:51:53.086
I would ask him to make content for us

00:51:53.086 --> 00:51:56.029
because I think what's happening
right now is the public discourse.

00:51:56.029 --> 00:51:58.506
It's so disjointed in
these 30-second soundbites

00:51:58.506 --> 00:52:00.086
that you can't have a chance to go deep

00:52:00.086 --> 00:52:02.999
on either side of the aisle and right now,

00:52:03.614 --> 00:52:07.130
the main adult learning
happens on the 24-hour news.

00:52:07.130 --> 00:52:08.434
It's in this 30-second soundbites.

00:52:08.434 --> 00:52:09.900
So, no one really understands the issues

00:52:09.900 --> 00:52:12.303
and it just becomes very
emotionally, charged.

00:52:12.303 --> 00:52:15.721
And this form factor, this
way, it's a chance for Obama

00:52:15.721 --> 00:52:19.015
to really explain why he
makes the decisions he does

00:52:19.015 --> 00:52:21.470
and maybe the opposition
to really explain why

00:52:21.470 --> 00:52:24.228
and get to it and diagram it out
and even have a quiz afterwards

00:52:24.228 --> 00:52:25.643
to make sure that people are retaining it.

00:52:25.643 --> 00:52:27.557
It would kind of fill
in that gap in learning

00:52:27.557 --> 00:52:28.910
that frankly, people are creative.

00:52:28.910 --> 00:52:31.583
Some of our most popular videos
are about Credit Default Swaps

00:52:31.583 --> 00:52:35.026
or the Healthcare Plan
or the Electoral College.

00:52:35.026 --> 00:52:36.672
These are gaps in people's learning

00:52:36.672 --> 00:52:38.215
and adults of any age want to learn that.

00:52:38.215 --> 00:52:41.046
Nina: Yeah, well, it was a
pleasure reading this book.

00:52:41.046 --> 00:52:42.000
It was nice meeting you.

00:52:42.000 --> 00:52:43.009
Thanks for joining us.

00:52:43.009 --> 00:52:44.255
Sal: Oh, it was a pleasure.