- Hi, everyone, Sal here, I was enjoying the view outside,
when you caught me.
Welcome to today's Homeroom Live Stream.
Today, we're going to have a, just an ask me anything.
So if you already have some questions,
feel free to put them into
the message boards on Facebook and YouTube.
And we have team members who will surface questions to me
and feel free to ask literally about anything.
But before we jump into that,
I will make my standard announcements
or reminder that Khan Academy
is a not-for-profit organization.
We can only exist through philanthropic donations.
So if you're in a position to do so,
please think about going to khanacademy.org/donate
and make a donation.
I also want to give a special shout out
to several organizations that have helped Khan Academy
over the years, but especially through COVID,
you can imagine we were already running a deficit pre COVID,
and that deficit only accelerated
as our server costs went up.
We wanted to accelerate a whole series of programs
and content so special, thanks to Bank of America,
Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, Novartis,
and many others for helping us close some
of that gap during this hard time for the world.
But especially COVID is we've tried to support folks,
but we still have a gap.
So anything you can do to support us would be very,
very much appreciated.
So with that,
I am eager to take all of your questions
about literally anything,
so we're waiting for some of the questions to come in.
Sometimes, you know, I have to get more used
to just being comfortable with silence.
So maybe I should just be silent for a little bit
while we wait for some,
while we wait for some questions.
So let's see, I could go to the previous,
ask me thing and find some of the questions
that we have from there.
Let me see if I scroll back to the previous AMA.
Okay, so from YouTube Mananawar Aurora is asking,
hello Sal, I have a question for you.
Do you have distractions
or simply can we manage distractions?
No, I have no distractions.
I'm always laser focused on exactly what I need to do.
No, I have, I have plenty of distractions.
I would say for me, the things that I find myself doing,
when I'm procrastinating is, well, you know,
I would say there's good distractions
and maybe less good distractions.
The good distractions are, I like to read.
And so I'm doing a lot of reading.
I'm actually just started on Viktor Frankl's,
Man's Search for Meaning,
some really profound quotes in here
that I've always heard about.
So I thought I would read the actual book.
So that I would categorize as a good distraction.
It's the type of distraction that you need so
that it expands your mind.
You're not just always laser focused on school
or on work and you can kind of think more broadly.
I, you know,
I am guilty of watching a little bit more TV sometimes
than I should,
but even there there's some good distractions
and not so good distraction.
So anyway, there's that I try to avoid things
like social media and text messages
and that I'm very utilitarian about those things.
I use social media,
some of y'all might've noticed primarily
that just kind of get word out on things that are going on
at Khan Academy or things that folks should know about.
And I'm infamously bad at responding to text messages
from friends and family,
because I find that phones pull you in and make you
and distract you from your life.
So, yeah, so those are,
so I would say generally speaking though,
I do pride myself on being a pretty,
pretty good at not being distracted by distractions.
One of the things that really helps is meditation,
which I've talked about before, which is, you know,
oftentimes your biggest distraction is your own mind.
You're we all have these little parts that are surfacing
from our subconscious reminding us to think about
that or worry about that,
or worry about the future or regret something in the past.
And you need that every now and then,
but every now and then you need a break from all of it
and you just need to be in the present moment,
let your mind still, and just kind of sit in your awareness.
And when you do that, I actually think it makes your,
your brain better at not being distracted in general.
Cause if you can't get distracted by your own brain,
it's going to be a lot more difficult to be distracted by,
by other things.
So from YouTube Humble Harry says,
what is the next revolution in education after YouTube?
Well, Humble Harry, give YouTube credit.
YouTube has created something over evolution.
You know, the other day I had to fix a sink in our bathroom
and I was able to go to YouTube and figure out how
to do it by myself, with the tools we had at home
versus having to hire an expensive plumber.
And obviously there's many other things
you can learn on YouTube.
A lot of our videos from Khan Academy are there,
but you know, one thing I always point out is
Khan Academy is much, much more than the YouTube videos.
That's really, you know,
even when I first made them for my cousins,
that was meant to just be a supplement for the exercise and
the feedback of doing problems.
And so the real part of the learning process is that ability
to work at your own time and pace and do exercises
and get immediate feedback.
And if you have a teacher who can support you for them
to know where you are, so when you get to the classroom,
they can dig a little bit deeper in and unstick you.
So I'd like to believe
that personalization and mastery learning, which is,
which are things that Khan Academy's very focused on
are really hopefully helping bringing out a world
where everyone has access to their potential,
whether you know, early learner on Khan Academy kids
or whether you're on kind
of the main Khan Academy for, you know,
that goes all the way through early college.
I think other revolutions in education,
I've talked about some of them, you know,
I have a separate project, it is not a Khan Academy project.
It is a separate non-for-profit called schoolhouse.world
to pair students who need help with tutoring,
with volunteer, vetted tutors were willing
to run group tutoring sessions.
So encourage folks to go there if they're interested
in either being a tutor or a student or both,
but related to that,
we're also thinking about ways to certify your knowledge.
Are there ways that let's say you go on Khan Academy
and you're able to record yourself getting
90% plus on a unit test or a course challenge,
are there are ways to use community to validate that?
And then maybe use that for things like college admissions,
you know, really moving towards
what you could call a competency based system.
So that's another thing that I'm working
on a little bit outside of Khan Academy right now,
but I think that could be a pretty valuable thing
for the world over time.
So, you know, these general ideas, personalization,
mastery learning, education not being bound by time
or space, and then ways to prove ways to get help
from a community wherever you are.
And then also ways to prove what you know,
so that it can get you opportunities
like hire know college admissions or a job
or apprenticeship.
And so, you know, stay tuned,
especially on the schoolhouse.world site
over the next couple of weeks,
you might hear something about
that around college admissions.
Let's see other questions.
So from YouTube, Susanna Garcia Dumangas
who I feel like I know even though we've never met,
but she always asks great questions.
Hey Sal, you mentioned that you went camping.
Can you share a little bit of that trip?
Well, I wish I had kind of made a slideshow at a time.
I could have shared that, but yeah, it was my family.
We went to Yosemite and you know,
the it's called Half Dome Village, now.
It used to be called Curry Village,
but we, you know,
we book it, you have to book it like a year in advance
and we were unsure whether we should go because of COVID
and whether it would be COVID safe, but we went, you know,
we had a little tent cabin, it was pretty, you know, basic,
but it was a great time and, you know, knock on wood,
you know, it all felt pretty safe.
And I think it turned out safe.
This was about a month ago,
but yeah, it was, I can't highly, you know,
I'm probably ruining my own ability to go
to Yosemite when it might be a little bit more quiet,
but I can't highly,
I can't recommend Yosemite enough.
It is really just one of those places where you go
and it's both intimate
because you're surrounded by these huge kind of cliff,
like formations that were formed by ancient glaciers.
So it feels kind of intimate,
but the scale of things are also just massive.
So yeah, we did a little bit of everything, you know,
my wife and I actually, when we were engaged,
we went and this was 18 years ago.
We did Half Dome when we were younger and more and,
and maybe more foolish cause it,
I remember I did it on brand new hiking boots
that hadn't broken in, so my feet hurt for several days.
But this time with the kids, we just, you know,
we didn't go all the way up to Half Dome.
We just kinda went up kind of that four mile loop there.
Then we went to Glacier Point, we,
and then we rented bicycles and we, you know,
in hindsight I should have brought bicycles.
I have a bike rack, but we rented them there.
It's actually a very nice place to bike around in
and weighed in the rivers.
So yeah, it's unfortunate right now.
I think they just had to close it down
because of the fire South of it.
So Yosemite the air is as far as I can tell.
Very not so good right now, but yeah, beautiful place.
So from Facebook, Neyha Dayal says,
thanks for bringing in this wonderful platform for kids.
I'm finding it hard to have a defined curriculum
for both my kids while homeschooling them,
eight and six years old, any pointers?
Well Neyha for your six year old,
well, your six year olds probably at the upper end
of Khan Academy kids.
So for any student who is kind
of just getting their basic literacy,
their basic numeracy or earlier,
I think Khan Academy kids is great.
And the Khan Academy kids team,
I hope is going to be able to move into first grade.
Well, they already have first grade standard.
So if you're a six year old is working on first grade
standards, I highly recommend Khan Academy kids.
It covers reading, writing, math, social,
emotional learning.
So all of the major common core standards you need.
But if your child is a little bit more precocious getting
into second or third grade standards, especially in math,
I highly recommend, you know, doing 20,
30 minutes a day on Khan Academy,
if your six year olds a little precocious, second,
third grade, if you know, they're,
they're still kind of getting over some of
the motor skills of using a keyboard or mouse,
you can sit with them and help them through it,
but let them kind of think through
and struggle through the problems their own.
An eight year old, same thing, get them on.
You can get them on third grade or fourth grade,
depending on their level.
If you're not sure about their foundations,
you can use our get ready for grade level courses so
that you can understand where they are
and fill in the gaps as necessary.
And if on math that they're able to put in,
I would argue 30 minutes a day, engaged,
if you're sitting next to them,
it sounds like you're homeschooling them.
I have a lot of confidence that they're going
to progress a lot in mathematics
and reading there's a lot of tools out there.
Khan Academy has some English and language arts reading,
comprehension things.
There's other tools, Lexia, Raz-Kids, Newsela.
But a lot of it is if you just find kind of Lexile,
Lexile level appropriate reading for your children
and have them read it, discuss it over lunch,
even that can be a big deal on the writing.
Do some journaling, having a writing project of the week,
maybe a blog that you share with friends
and family on social media.
I think that could be really motivating for your kids.
One thing that I've, I really liked,
let me see if I have the books here.
There's a curriculum.
I thought I had some of the books over here.
It's by E.D Hirsch.
And you know,
it's like all things in education is probably more
controversial than it should be.
E.D Hirsch is a little bit,
I guess you could call a traditionalist, you know,
a big believer that you do need the intuition for things,
but you also need a lot of content knowledge.
And, you know, I think he makes,
I think a very compelling argument
that our education system, you know,
traditional education system,
Victorian Era Education was all about memorizing facts
and probably not enough about connecting the facts,
and building an intuition and,
and making things and having creativity.
But sometimes, you know,
the pendulum might have swung too far
where the kids aren't getting enough content knowledge.
And so I'm a big fan
of E.D Hirsch's core knowledge curriculum.
You can get those books, you know,
there's like what,
every fourth grader needs to know,
what every fifth grader needs to know,
what every sixth grader needs to know.
And I actually think you'll enjoy reading them
because they are kind of the essentials
of what you need to know.
But I think you're going to find that there's stuff
that even as an adult, you're like, yeah,
I should have known that in fifth grade, but I didn't.
So I'm a big fan of that as well.
If I were doing a home schooling curriculum,
I would use some combination of Khan Academy,
E.D Hirsch's, A Core Knowledge Curriculum
and then supplement with other enriching things
that I find maybe some other tools.
So from Facebook, Sumith chatter G says,
what suggestions you have for youngsters about money.
So this is something that I have a strong opinion about
because I see so many folks, frankly,
make bad decisions around money.
I would say that the two biggest levers you have, you know,
people are, you are led to believe
that there's all these secrets
and there are these get rich, you know, get rich,
quick schemes or that, you know,
people got wealthy by somehow cutting corners on their taxes
or having incredible lawyers or tax accountants.
And there's these loopholes.
That's not really what really allows folks
to do okay financially.
What really is, you know,
your career is going to make a big difference,
and being able to be kind of gainfully employed.
And then the next one is living below your means.
If you do those two things,
you're going to be fine financially.
And you know, the career one I'll highlight
because I know folks who, you know,
they'll get an education,
but they get a little bit, I would say,
precious about what they want to do in life.
And that you should be,
you should think a lot about what you want to do in life.
But when I say precious, you know,
they might've gotten a degree in something,
but they're like, oh,
I'm not going to apply for a job until it's the perfect job.
And I do sometimes get afraid that it's not of a fear
of rejection, but you know,
you really have to put yourself out there
and be willing to embrace that people are going
to reject you as part of a job search process.
And then once you're in a job, you know,
sometimes the jobs,
especially at the early phases or even at the later phases,
aren't always ideal.
And you know,
there's things about it that will frustrate you.
There will be days that your manager says tells you
something that you don't like,
there's parts of your job that you're not going to enjoy.
And if it's miserable, you should,
you should think about making a change.
But if it's, but you know, those,
those aspects of work that feel a little bit difficult,
that feel a little bit frustrating,
that you're a little impatient to,
with those are the ones
that are actually really growing you.
And, you know, as long as you have a manager,
that for the most part is a good person,
but every now and then my kid might annoy you a little bit,
that also will grow, you, grow you.
If they, you know,
sometimes they're growing you in a positive way.
And sometimes you're having to sort with, okay,
that feedback, they give me how much of that is real,
how much of that is in their head or whatever.
But these are the types of struggles
that really make you grow.
But from a financial point of view,
if you're not working, you're really, you know,
the opportunity cost is really, really high.
I remember when I, you know, was leaving college,
I was blown away by a friends of mine that said, oh, well,
you know, I've worked so hard, four years.
I'm gonna take three months off.
And for me,
I looked at the opportunity costs of those three months.
I was like, wait, that's going to be like many,
many thousands of dollars.
And I had a lot of debt and, you know, we,
I didn't have a lot of money growing up.
So I was like, that's not acceptable.
So I remember I graduated on a Saturday
and then I started work on a Monday
and I don't think I've allowed myself to, you know,
I've taken vacations,
but I haven't kind of taken breaks from work since then.
So anyway, that's my two cents.
You might have other viewpoints there, but I've,
I've always been pretty conservative when it came to money,
is that, you know, be employed in some way, shape or form,
if it's not the perfect job,
stick with it until you find another job,
I've never been a subscriber of, you know,
quit a job just cause you don't like it
and then try to find another job later.
And I'll tell you a secret, employers, you know,
sometimes if you have gaps in your resume, they'll say,
okay, was that a gap they were just taking a break
or was that, you know, they'll try to read into things.
So it'll also help you if you don't,
the more that you can avoid those gaps the possible.
And then the other thing is just really,
really live below your means, you know, budget things out,
if you can, but I'll tell you if you really live below
your means even like getting a detailed budget,
isn't as important because you're just going
to naturally save money.
That's the money is going to be helpful for a rainy day,
helpful to save up for a house, pay off your debt.
And if heaven forbid you get, you know, you lose your job,
you get laid off, you have a emergency and you know,
then you have a cushion to rely on.
You know, Khan Academy at some point,
I did have to quit my day job
to work on Khan Academy full time.
But it was because I, you know,
we had lived below our means for many, many, many years.
And we had been able to save up enough money
that it was going to be a down payment on a house,
but it also allowed us to live off of that a little bit as
I've tried to get Khan Academy off the ground.
So that living below your means can also make you
a much more resilient entrepreneur,
whether you want to be a for profit
or not-for-profit you kind of in your mid,
mid or later career.
So from YouTube, ZF says, hello,
I'm a seventh grader that struggles on math.
Are there any crucial things you need to know when solving
math problems and making the most out of math class time?
Well, Z what I would recommend if you're a seventh grader
who struggles in math go to Khan Academy,
I would start with the get ready for seventh grade course.
And I would take the course challenge of the get ready
for seventh grade course.
And if you're struggling in seventh grade math,
I suspect that's because you have gaps from
before seventh grade.
And when you take that course challenge in the get ready
for seventh grade course,
it's gonna sample a lot of the prerequisite skills
for seventh grade.
And so the things, the units, the skills that you get wrong,
go back to those units and try to get mastery in those.
If you can spend 20,
30 minutes a day above and beyond your schoolwork,
I know it's extra work, but trust me, it will pay off.
If you can spend 20, 30 minutes a day,
maybe four or five days a week, doing that,
working at your own time and pace,
trying to at least get familiar or proficient,
ideally mastery in everything on the get ready
for seventh grade course.
And then once you're about 80 or 90% mastered on that move
on to the seventh grade course and just keep working at,
you know, 20, 30 minutes a day.
I strongly believe that you in a matter of months are going
to become much more confident in math
and not only build strong foundations
eventually catch up to your class.
But I would guess that you're probably going to get ahead
of your class and the reason why I'm so confident here
as I've seen this over and over again,
my first cousin that I was tutoring Nadia,
she was your age when I started tutoring her in 2004,
she was 12 years old.
She was a seventh grader and she didn't think
that she was a good in math.
And there was no Khan Academy at the time.
You know, just me as her cousin was, was what,
all that was all that existed of Khan Academy.
But I worked with her 20 minutes every day
for her to get that help.
Yeah, that's the thing I would recommend.
Another thing, you know, I talked about schoolhouse.world.
Feel free to go there.
We're accepting kind of these registration process.
If you want to be to participate in group tutoring,
that's a project outside of Khan Academy.
But look for that for some extra tutoring,
if you're interested.
So let's see Nischala from Facebook,
how to help kids not make silly mistakes in subjects
they understand well.
This is a good question.
You know, I think, you know,
it's easy sometimes to get over confident.
I was definitely one of those kids that somehow wanted
to go through my math test really fast.
And then I would be like upset when I got a question wrong
because I made a careless error or,
or I didn't read the prompt correctly.
You know, that's a skill of just being,
having an attention to detail.
And so, you know,
I think the best way to not make silly mistakes is to keep,
take, getting practice with things
and that when you miss things,
because you made a silly mistake,
that's a good part where your brain says, ah, brain,
we've got to stop doing that.
We got to start reading the question prompt a little bit
better, or we got to not rush the question and make sure,
and maybe check our work a little bit.
Cause it's a very,
very valuable skill in life, generally.
Obviously if one day you're designing a bridge
or you're operating on someone,
even if you know what you're doing,
if you're rushing through it,
or if you didn't read the directions properly
or if you didn't do the analysis exactly right,
it could be a disaster.
So it's an important skill,
but you know, that's what Khan Academy's there for.
Cause you're going to get as much practice
and feedback as necessary.
You know, I've,
I sometimes watch my own kids on Khan Academy.
You know, they know the material on that third question,
they get it wrong.
It's like, oh, that was just a careless mistake.
I was just like, yeah, it was a careless mistake.
So you have to learn to be more careful, which is a,
which isn't, which is a skill above
and beyond the academics as well.
From Facebook Resh Mahaidha asks,
our college is going to be obsolete.
What about ingenuity, ethics and morals
taught at legendary institution or institutes?
I don't think college is going to be obsolete.
I think there,
I think some form of college will always exist.
I think college is going to adapt and I think there's going
to be alternative paths, you know,
right now the narrative is you pretty much have
to go to college in order to have a,
a decent shot at a middle class
or an upper middle class lifestyle.
And that is for the most part true, I think.
But we're also seeing that the cost of college is so high
that people are going and getting a lot of debt.
Sometimes they don't graduate
because they might've not had strong foundations
going into it or they do graduate
and they're underemployed or they're not,
they're having trouble getting a job for various reasons.
You know, they major in, you know,
some degree and they thought, hey, I can, you know, it's,
I can become a whatever doing that.
But then realizing that the job markets
maybe a little bit more difficult than expected.
And so I think all of that says,
are there other paths that could be,
maybe it doesn't even have to be instead of college,
it could be on top of college.
You know, you went to college, you didn't get the skills,
you need to get a job.
There could be another path where you can get those skills
and then get an apprenticeship, get a job.
Hopefully those paths are lot cheaper than college.
And for some folks,
they might just go straight into those paths
and say, look, given the opportunity costs,
given the constraints in my life.
It's just really important for me to get that,
that gainful employment sooner, sooner than later,
I also think colleges are going to adapt, you know,
right now colleges,
whether it's two years of community college,
associate's degree or four years in a regular college,
you know, they've kind of just been engineered around, okay,
let's keep people here for four years
and then fill it up with things, some of which is useful.
Some of which is not.
I'd like to believe that colleges will unpack
that a little bit.
That things will be a little bit more unbundled
that employers won't just say,
do you have a bachelor's degree?
They will say, what are the skills you developed?
And they might not even care as much,
whether you spent four years or two years
or got kind of the Meta-diploma.
They care more, whether you built the skills that you need.
And those don't have to all be quote hard skills.
A lot of what happens in college is a socialization
being part of a community,
having peers around that push you.
And I try to think that's the part of college
that it will be the hardest to replace with,
you know, I guess you could say just pure technology.
I think technology in conjunction
with a really good community and peers can, you know,
might be a really good model for some folks.
And I think some colleges are already thinking
about blending in that way.
So, The Friendtastic from YouTube,
when is AP computer science A coming on Khan Academy?
So we do have AP principles,
Computer Science Principles on Khan Academy.
So that already exists, but the, you know,
the computer science and I always forget the A,
the B on the terminology, we don't have those yet.
You know, I hope in the future,
that is something that we might be able to address,
but unfortunately it's not currently on the roadmap.
So let's see other questions,
from Facebook Bernie Killingsworth.
How do you fit all that knowledge in your brain?
Because you seem to know about just about any,
and every topic.
Well, you know, Bernie,
I'm glad that I was able to project that impression.
And what I would say is I actually think most people's
brains are capable of, I mean,
the brain is this incredible instrument
that we don't understand.
I mean, we're really,
if you really think about it, your sententiousness,
your consciousness, you know,
that part that you're aware of is sitting on top
of or within, however you want to conceptualize it.
This incredibly sophisticated tool called your brain.
And I've over time learned to actually not view
my brain and my subconscious as me.
I've started to view it as my helper.
And so, you know, even when I have a hard problem, I don't,
I don't hit my head against the wall.
I don't get frustrated if I don't have a solution
immediately, or if I'm having trouble learning something,
I just try to think about it a little bit.
And then I say,
okay, I'm gonna delegate this to you brain.
And then I do tend to find in, you know, 48 hours,
it just kind of says, okay, here's a memo,
here's the solution, have you thought about this?
I'm like good job brain, you know, pat on the back,
you know, I don't know how to treat my brain just yet.
You know, here's a little, you know,
Scooby snack for you, but it works.
You know, I found that sometimes we've all had
the experience where you have trouble remembering a name or,
you know, who sang that song or some fact,
instead of getting frustrated about it now,
I just say, you know what, brain, you know,
you have to figure it out,
go into the deep archives, you know,
get it to me within the next hour or so.
And that your brain actually does tend to do
that type of thing.
And we all know folks who, you know,
you might not view as kind of the jeopardy,
the jeopardy champion or the, you know, the academic person,
but they know all sorts of facts about
whatever it's video games or pop culture,
or they memorize a song lyrics or whatever it is.
So our brain can store a lot, a lot of information,
not just information, but connections and intuition,
which is really, I think how the brain processes things,
I think even facts exists because of connections
that it's able to draw with other,
with other facts or other knowledge,
however it's represented.
So what I would say is, you know,
keep giving your brain practice and delegate to your brain,
challenge your brain.
And then I think you'll see and actually get enough sleep.
And I think you'll see that your brain actually,
as you know, as your friend can do a lot of this a lot,
a lot more than you suspect.
Yeah, that's the best I can.
And, you know, I,
and you would also be surprised
if you're just a curious person
and you're always just looking, you know,
reading and looking up and looking at geography
and listening, you know, watching documentaries,
you'd be surprised how many interesting facts will all
of a sudden surface from your brain at various times.
And, you know,
I've had the extra luxury of have been able to being able
to make a lot of content that obviously I was exposed
to for most part in school,
but now I get to revisit at a deeper level and, you know,
just that exercise also,
I think draws a lot more connections
and makes it a lot more easy,
easy to surface when I need it.
So let's see, yeah, maybe one, one or,
one or two, so SmartBear wants me
to make more meditation videos.
I should do that, I should do that less.
So I consider that done SmartBear.
I will make more meditation videos.
From YouTube, Rahath Ali says,
how do you keep yourself motivated
and stop yourself from procrastinating?
So I procrastinate like everyone else, you know,
I am guilty of reading articles on Quora on how
to escape from bear attacks.
My Quora feed seems to give me a lot of information on how
to escape animal attacks.
And I think because I click on them,
it's giving me more information on how to escape
from animal interactions or, you know, you know,
animal battles that might not have been possible,
but in someone's imagination Quora,
I do tend to click on that.
So those are, that's kind of one of my,
maybe not so good distractions,
but there's some interesting facts I learned
from there as well.
But you know, the way that I avoid procrastinating is I try,
you know, every day I have,
I have a list of things that I need to do,
and some of them are more blurry and, you know,
my brain might say, oh, I don't want to get started.
Cause I don't know how hard it's going
to be while some of them are a little bit easier,
like making my bed or going for a run or meditating or,
you know, just getting ready.
And I find that if I,
if I'm pretty good at getting some of the low hanging fruit,
I make my bed, I go for my run, I do this or that.
Then I kind of build a momentum, I start proceeding myself.
And that day is like, this is a good day.
This is a productive day.
So don't be afraid of diving into that.
You know, that thing that you have to write
that you aren't sure how hard it's going to be or that one,
you know, you know.
Digging into that one domain that you would need
to make a video on that you, at first,
you don't fully understand what you should, jump into it,
it's gonna be fun and I find that most, you know,
building that momentum and then just keeping moving
and just forcing yourself to start does goes a long way
to stopping the procrastination is my best advice.
So maybe one time for one more question from Jean Wang,
Facebook, conversations about college with my high school,
senior goes sour.
How should I talk to my teenager about college,
especially during this time?
Well, Jean, you know,
take everything I have to say with a grain of salt.
My kids are five, nine and 11.
So I haven't had that college conversation yet.
I have talked about it with cousins and other family,
friends who are the same age as your child.
But, you know,
I think there's always the advantage when you are like the,
the uncle or the cousin or the family friend versus
when you're the parent.
You know, I think kids tend to roll their eyes
a little bit more with parents.
But one thing that I try to remind myself is,
you know, when you talk to them, try not to make it about,
you know, what you are telling them to do.
It's more about that you really see them as a human being
and you want to understand what's, you know,
where's their mind and, you know, listen to them,
listen to what they're thinking.
And I think the more that you,
and I'm not saying that you're not, but, you know,
really understand, you know,
how are you thinking about things?
And if they're kind of saying, hey, mom is like,
she's just trying to push me because all of her friends,
kids went to college or went to that college.
And you know, she's worried about
what they're gonna think,
then I think a lot of kids,
especially with a rebellious streak
might check out a little bit like, mom,
don't worry about it.
Don't worry about it, mom.
But if it's like, hey, mom's actually kind of seeing me
for myself and realizing that I might have, you know,
a different path, but you know,
I think deep down inside, most kids, most people, you know,
I say, well, you know, okay,
they see me and maybe they do have something
that's interesting that I could learn from,
because I am actually a little bit insecure about some
of these big life changes or decisions
that are in front of me
and maybe mom can help me out.
So that's my best advice is try
to keep it as Socratic as possible.
Kind of more on the question asking than on the advice side.
Not that I'm saying that you're,
you're telling your child exactly what to do, but I've,
I've been in experiences where I've had someone else,
well-wishers say you need to do this.
And why aren't you thinking about that?
And I think all of us are our egos tend
to kind of fight against that.
It's like those force fields you see
in science fiction movies,
that if you hit it really hard, you bounce off.
But if you go in slowly,
the force field doesn't know what to do.
So that's my best advice.
You have to really have real conversations with them
and then, and then see, and then see what surfaces,
another thing that I've been toying with is, you know,
making videos about your advice
and just sharing it with your, you know, with your family,
because sometimes people don't want advice in the moment,
but, or they don't want to give you the satisfaction
that they're taking your advice.
But if your advice is just sitting there
and they know about it,
everyone has their moments of insecurity.
And they're like, well,
maybe I am curious what mom has to say about that.
And then it has time to sink in and they don't have
to feel like they have to rebel
against whatever's being told.
So anyway, that's my pop psychology.
I'm completely unqualified to give, to answer that question.
So anyway, thanks everyone.
It looks like we're all out of time.
Again, this is always a lot of fun, but thanks for joining.
And then tomorrow we're gonna have a Kristin Dicerbo,
who's Khan Academy's Chief Learning Officer,
and we're gonna talk a bunch about, as you can imagine,
learning, especially learning right now
in these very interesting and trying time.
So thanks everyone for joining today's live stream.