The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined

by Salman Khan

  Unfortunately, our educational establishment seems to have an abiding fear and hatred of failure, to regard it as a dirty word. In a world of letter grades, a D or an F is a stain; under a system of brittle benchmarks and politically motivated incentives, a “failure” carries a stigma and a penalty. So we lower our standards and water down our expectations in the illusory hope of bringing “success” within the reach of all. But this attitude is both hypocritical and condescending. Not only does it drain the meaning from the true ideal of excellence, but it completely fails to grasp the value of aiming high, even if the result is falling short. Our world needs bold thinking and innovative approaches. Those things are much more likely to be offshoots of big failures than of small, safe, and predictable successes.

  Accordingly, the school I envision would be a place where mistakes are allowed, tangents are encouraged, and big thinking is celebrated as a process—whatever the outcome might turn out to be. This is no magic formula to make kids more creative; rather, it’s a way to give light and space and time to the creativity that already exists in each of us—and that, in some mysterious few who will go on to change the world, rises to the level of genius.

  So then, I hope I’ve clearly presented at least a basic outline of what my imagined One World Schoolhouse would look like and how it would work. It would be inclusive; it would be affordable. It would help to level the educational playing field both within communities and across national borders.

  The school I envision would embrace technology not for its own sake, but as a means to improve deep conceptual understanding, to make quality, relevant education far more portable, and—somewhat counterintuitively—to humanize the classroom. It would raise both the status and the morale of teachers by freeing them from drudgery and allowing them more time to teach, to help. It would give students more independence and control, allowing them to claim true ownership of their educations. By mixing ages and encouraging peer-to-peer tutoring, this schoolhouse would give adolescents the chance to begin to take on adult responsibilities.

  The schoolhouse would not be the most hushed of places; it would be more like a hive than a chapel. Students needing quiet could seek out private alcoves. But the bigger space would buzz with games and with collaborations. Self-paced rather than lockstep learning would encourage students to share their most recent discoveries about the workings of the universe. Lessons aimed at thorough mastery of concepts—interrelated concepts—would proceed in harmony with the way our brains are actually wired, and would prepare students to function in a complex world where good enough no longer is.

  Yes—a complex world, and an interconnected one. The various outposts of our schoolhouse would therefore be interconnected as well, through things like Skype or Google Hangouts. Students and teachers in San Francisco could interact with those in Toronto, London, or Mumbai. Imagine students in Tehran tutoring students in Tel Aviv or students in Islamabad learning from a professor in New Delhi. Is there really any better way to learn a language or have a global perspective than by regularly interacting with teachers and students around the planet?

  In terms of bricks and mortar, the schoolhouse I envision has yet to be built. But the ideas that it is based on have by now been field-tested by millions of online students and tens of thousands more in physical classrooms. The results, whether gathered in anecdotes or measured by hard data, have been extremely gratifying.

  For me personally, the biggest discovery has been how hungry students are for real understanding. I sometimes get pushback from people saying, “Well, this is all well and good, but it will only work for motivated students.” And they say it assuming that maybe 20 percent of students fall into that category. I probably would have agreed with them seven years ago, based on what I’d seen in my own experience with the traditional academic model. When I first started making videos, I thought I was making them only for some subset of students who cared—like my cousins or younger versions of myself. What was truly startling was the reception the lessons received from students whom people had given up on, and who were about to give up on themselves. It made me realize that if you give students the opportunity to learn deeply and to see the magic of the universe around them, almost everyone will be motivated.

  Teaching methods matter; nuanced feedback and assessment matter. But far more important than any particular set of methods and approaches is the fundamental fact that education has to be continually adapted and improved. The current system is rife with inefficiencies and inequalities, with tragic mismatches between how students are taught and what they need to know; and the situation grows more urgent with every day that the educational status quo survives while the world is changing all around it. This is not an abstract conversation; it’s about the futures of real kids, families, communities, and nations.

  Is Khan Academy, along with the intuitions and ideas that underpin it, our best chance to move toward a better educational future? That’s not for me to say. Other people of vision and goodwill have differing approaches, and I fervently hope that all are given a fair trial in the wider world. But new and bold approaches do need to be tried. The one thing we cannot afford to do is to leave things as they are. The cost of inaction is unconscionably high, and it is counted out not in dollars or euros or rupees but in human destinies. Still, as both an engineer and a stubborn optimist, I believe that where there are problems, there are also solutions. If Khan Academy proves to be even part of the solution to our educational malaise, I will feel proud and privileged to have made a contribution.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  I would like to thank my wife, Umaima, for loving me and putting up with me; my sister, Farah, for being my first and most influential role model; my mother, Masooda Khan, for everything that a mother does and more; my mother-in-law, Naseem Marvi, for her amazing support; Imran and Diya, for reminding me whom this Khan Academy effort is for; Nadia, for needing help and being willing to work with her crazy cousin; my aunt Nazrat, for believing in me before it was warranted.

  A special thanks to Jeremiah Hennessy and Ann Doerr, for seeing potential early on; and Dan Wohl, for being an incredible role model and affording me the balance in life to make Khan Academy a reality.

  None of this would be possible without the incredible team at the Khan Academy: Shantanu, Ben, Ben, Ben, Ben (yes, all four), Jason, Bilal, Marcia, Jessica, John, Desmond, Charlotte, Elizabeth, Sundar, Matt, Maureen, Marcos, James, Tom, Minli, Steven, Beth, Chris, Craig, Michael, Kitt, Stephanie, Yun-Fang, Vi, Brit, Esther, Ann, Jonathan, Ted, Larry, Eric and Toby.

  I also have an incalculable debt of gratitude to John Doerr, Bill and Melinda Gates, Reed Hastings, Scott and Signe Cook, and Sean O’Sullivan for believing so strongly in our team and vision.

  I thank Richard Pine and Carrie Cook, for convincing me to write a book and guide me through the process. I would also like to thank Cary Goldstein and Brian McLendon at Twelve for their incredible publishing help in turning this into a real book.

  Last, but not least, I deeply thank Larry Shames, for being of great assistance in helping shape many, many thoughts and ideas into a coherent narrative.

  ABOUT TWELVE

  TWELVE was established in August 2005 with the objective of publishing no more than twelve books each year. We strive to publish the singular book, by authors who have a unique perspective and compelling authority. Works that explain our culture; that illuminate, inspire, provoke, and entertain. We seek to establish communities of conversation surrounding our books. Talented authors deserve attention not only from publishers, but from readers as well. To sell the book is only the beginning of our mission. To build avid audiences of readers who are enriched by these works—that is our ultimate purpose.

  For more information about forthcoming TWELVE books, please go to www.twelvebooks.com.

  Notes

  Part 1: Learning to Teach

  1. Joan Middendorf and Alan Kalish, “The ‘Change-Up’ in Lectures,” National Teaching & Learning Forum 5, no. 2 (19
96).

  2. Margaret Gallagher and P. David Pearson, Discussion, Comprehension, and Knowledge Acquisition in Content Area Classrooms, Technical Report No. 480, University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, 1989.

  3. Benjamin Bloom, “Learning for Mastery,” Evaluation Comment 1, no. 2 (1968); James Block, Mastery Learning: Theory and Practice (New York: Holt, Rinehart & Winston, 1971).

  4. T. Guskey and S. Gates, “Synthesis of Research on the Effects of Mastery Learning in Elementary and Secondary Classrooms,” Educational Leadership 43, no. 8 (1986).

  5. D. Levine, Improving Student Achievement Through Mastery Learning Programs (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1985).

  6. D. Davis and J. Sorrell, “Mastery Learning in Public Schools,” Educational Psychology Interactive (Valdosta, GA: Valdosta State University, December 1995).

  7. Guskey and Gates, “Synthesis of Research.”

  8. Davis and Sorrell, “Mastery Learning in Public Schools.”

  Part 2: The Broken Model

  1. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17616757.

  2. Albert J. Harno, Legal Education in the United States: A Report Prepared for the Survey of the Legal Profession (San Francisco: Bancroft-Whitney, 1953), 86.

  3. “High literacy rates in America… exceeded 90 per cent in some regions by 1800”: Hannah Barker and Simon Burrows, eds., Press, Politics, and the Public Sphere in Europe and North America, 1760–1820 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 141; for lower rates in Europe, see 9.

  4. John Taylor Gatto, “Against School: How Public Education Cripples Our Kids, and Why,” Harper’s, September 2003.

  5. Sharon Otterman, “In $32 Million Contract, State Lays Out Some Rules for Its Standardized Tests,” New York Times, August 12, 2011.

  6. Winnie Hu, “New Recruit in Homework Revolt: The Principal,” New York Times, June 15, 2011.

  7. “Do You Have Too Much Homework?” moderated by Holly Epstein Ojalvo, “The Learning Network,” New York Times, June 16, 2001.

  8. Stephen Aloia, “Teacher Assessment of Homework,” Academic Exchange Quarterly (Fall 2003).

  9. National Center for Education Statistics, “Education Indicators: An International Perspective,” http://nces.ed.gov/pubs/eiip/eiipid25.asp.

  10. Harris Cooper et al., “Does Homework Improve Academic Achievement? A Synthesis of Research, 1987–2003,” Review of Educational Research 76, no. 1 (Spring 2006).

  11. Sandra L. Hofferth and John F. Sandberg, “How American Children Spend Their Time,” Journal of Marriage and Family 63, no. 2 (May 2001).

  12. Jenny Anderson, “Push for A’s at Private Schools Is Keeping Costly Tutors Busy,” New York Times, June 7, 2011.

  13. Cathy Davidson, “iPads in the Public Schools,” Duke Today, January 26, 2011, http://today.duke.edu/2011/01/ipads.html.

  Part 3: Into the Real World

  1. “Learning Styles Debunked: There Is No Evidence Supporting Auditory and Visual Learning, Psychologists Say,” press release, Association for Psychological Science, December 16, 2009, http://www.psychologicalscience.org/index.php/news/releases/learning-styles-debunked-there-is-no-evidence-supporting-auditory-and-visual-learning-psychologists-say.html#hide.

  2. Royal Society, Brain Waves Module 2: Neuroscience: Implications for Education and Lifelong Learning, Policy document 02/11, February 2011.

  3. Marcia L. Conner, “How Adults Learn,” http://agelesslearner.com/intros/adultlearning.

  4. Malcolm Knowles, The Adult Learner, 5th ed. (Woburn, MA: Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998 [originally published 1973]).

  Part 4: The One World Schoolhouse

  1. Virginia Heffernan, “Education Needs a Digital-Age Upgrade,” New York Times, August 7, 2011.

  2. “Teachers Skipping Work,” World Bank, South Asia, http://web.worldbank.org/WBSITE/EXTERNAL/COUNTRIES/SOUTHASIAEXT/0,, contentMDK:20848416~pagePK:146736~piPK:146830~theSitePK:223547,00.html.

  3. http://gradeinflation.com/stanford.html.

  4. “What Do You Do for Fun? (Extended),” Bloomberg Businessweek, May 24, 2004, http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/04_21/b3884138_mz070.htm.

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  CONTENTS

  Welcome

  Epigraph

  Introduction: A Free, World-Class Education for Anyone, Anywhere

  PART 1: LEARNING TO TEACH

  Teaching Nadia

  No-Frills Videos

  Focusing on the Content

  Mastery Learning

  How Education Happens

  Filling in the Gaps

  PART 2: THE BROKEN MODEL

  Questioning Customs

  The Prussian Model

  Swiss Cheese Learning

  Tests and Testing

  Tracking Creativity

  Homework

  Flipping the Classroom

  The Economics of Schooling

  PART 3: INTO THE REAL WORLD

  Theory versus Practice

  The Khan Academy Software

  The Leap to a Real Classroom

  Fun and Games

  Taking the Plunge

  The Los Altos Experiment

  Education for All Ages

  PART 4: THE ONE WORLD SCHOOLHOUSE

  Embracing Uncertainty

  My Background as a Student

  The Spirit of the One Room Schoolhouse

  Teaching as a Team Sport

  Ordered Chaos Is a Good Thing

  Redefining Summer

  The Future of Transcripts

  Serving the Underserved

  The Future of Credentials

  What College Could Be Like

  Conclusion: Making Time for Creativity

  Acknowledgments

  Notes

  Newsletters

  Copyright

  Copyright

  Copyright © 2012 by Salman Khan

  All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at permissions@hbgusa.com. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.

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  ISBN 978-1-4555-0839-6