The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined (2012) - Plot & Excerpts
This is one of the most exciting books I have read on education in a very long time.I thought this was going to be a braggy piece, about how smart Salman Khan was to have created the Khan Academy. Instead, I ended up in total admiration for his genius and humility. He didn't start out to change the world of learning. Rather, he was just trying to help his cousin recover from a disastrous testing experience. Along the way, he created the best on-line learning system that we've got today. It's totally free, and it's helping to educate literally millions of people.Here are some of the key takeaways. (Many, of course, will be big "dubs" to anybody who has taught.)* Lengthy lectures don't work. We learn almost everything in the first 15 minutes of a passive learning experience (after 3 - 5 minutes of calming down and getting settled).* Our current grading system is ridiculous, and doesn't measure anything of importance. Our testing methods are equally antiquated. We should be testing for competence and creativity, not rote memorization.* Too many kids have big holes in what they've learned, and this causes lots of problems down the line.* Since everybody learns things at a different pace, at different times of the day, in different environments, it makes sense to use technology to capture a person's ideal window of opportunity.* Long summer breaks are counter-productive.* We should be moving from the antiquated models we adopted from the Prussians almost 200 years ago, which enforce a lock-step type of system, and instead be looking at ways to encourage creativity and innovation.And more... You'll want to start volunteering to help spread his ideas after finishing this book. Highly recommended for anyone interested in learning -- which should mean just about every human being. Salman Khan puts forth his vision for education in the 21st century and it is compelling. You can’t help but root for him as he questions some of the roots of our education system like tracking, homework and even summer vacation. His vision for technology’s role in education is well articulated but this book is too short to have everything completely thought out. For example, I’m not sure it’s such a good idea to have how long it took a child to “get” fractions as part of their permanent transcript. Still, I consider this a must read. (As an aside how awesome is it that Salman Khan was a hedge fund analyst but still took the time to tutor his middle school niece? He could have just offered to pay for a tutor but took the time to do it himself. That to me, says volumes).
What do You think about The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined (2012)?
I do love Sal! Heard most of this on his various speeches but super great thing that he's done!
—DorothyJane
Salman Khan's ideas on re-imagining and re-inventing education are visionary.
—gargi
Far less technosolutionist than I thought it would be.
—Miguel
