Revolutionary Educational Mastery?

You have probably heard of educator Salman Khan and his Khan Academy. I recently attended a talk he gave for UCSB.

Khan had been a hedge fund analyst. A good family man, he wanted to help his cousin Nadya with her math back in 2004. He tutored her over the phone and was able to bring her up to grade level.

Nadya had been placed on the “dummy track” for math, where she might be stuck for the rest of her school years. Khan called the school and convinced them to let Nadya retake the placement test. She indeed was then moved to the smart kids track.

Khan’s point: Most kids are like Nadya. They are not dummies. But they missed some key pieces of understanding, and they ended up with gaps. The educational system is set up to keep students moving along with their age cohort, with no regard to whether learning has happened. It is more about testing and tracking than about actual learning.

Khan noted that, in ancient times, education was reserved for the few. Alexander the Great had Aristotle as his personal teacher. Perhaps we could all be Great with that kind of learning? But the Industrial Revolution created our system of mass education, and little has changed since then.

Historian Michel Foucault noted, “Is it surprising that the cellular prison, with its regular chronologies, forced labor, its authorities of surveillance and registration, its experts in normality, who continue and multiply the functions of the judge, should have become the modern instrument of penalty? Is it surprising that […] factories, schools, barracks, hospitals, all resemble prisons?”

Khan went on to help 10-15 cousins and friends. It was hard to keep up with demand, so he began recording his lessons as YouTube videos. His cousins said they actually preferred his videos to him in person. They could pause the videos, repeat bits and speed up other bits. He was surprised to discover that thousands of other people were benefiting from his videos.

He quit his profitable day job and created the Khan Academy as a nonprofit. He got funding to create and organize more videos on a wide range of topics.

But there are still times when a tutor would help. He wondered if the new Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools might help. Most educators were in a panic that these AI tools would create powerful new ways for students to cheat. Khan had a different idea.

With funding from the Gates Foundation he was able to create an interface for ChatGPT called Khanmigo. If a student asks Khanmigo for an answer, Khanmigo gently explains it won’t do that. But it will coach the student how to solve the problem, using the Socratic Method.

For the past 100 years there have been attempts to create “teaching machines” to automate teaching, and most have failed. But this time may be different.

Khan’s teaching methods have also led to the idea of the “flipped classroom.” Normally, a teacher stands in front of the class, repeating a lesson. The students then go home to do homework. The flipped classroom inverts this. Students do their “homework” before class by watching videos of lessons. Then they attend class with a human teacher who helps them solve problems interactively.

Preliminary evidence is that the outcomes from the flipped classroom are only slightly better than with the standard model. But student satisfaction is higher.

Khan’s central visionary belief is that almost all students can achieve mastery if some human and/or AI is there to fill in the missing gaps of knowledge. This is a revolutionary change in how we think about our society and how everyone can have a place. As a Star Trek fan, I was delighted when Khan ended his talk with reference to Star Trek economics. An economics of abundance for all.

I will add one more education thought: I was sometimes privileged to travel with my research biologist father. I missed school, but often learned more from the travel. We spend over $23,000/year per student in California. Perhaps part of that could be for travel?