Khan for Educators: Khan Academy's Mission

- I am Sal Khan, founder of the
not-for-profit Khan Academy.

As you probably know,
we have a big mission,

to provide a free world-class education

for anyone, anywhere.

And we know that the most important people

in that mission are you, the teacher.

And so that's why from the beginning,

Khan Academy has always
worked closely with teachers

to be able to create tools for teachers

so that they can use
it with their students

and allow the students' learning

to happen as well as possible.

And so that's why we're excited

that you are a part of this training.

Because I've always said, if I had to pick

between an amazing teacher
and amazing technology,

I would pick the amazing
teacher every time.

The good thing is we don't
have to make that trade-off.

And so, here at Khan Academy,

we are trying to build tools for you,

tools that will make your life easier,

that will save you time,

and will help you serve
your students better.

- So Khan Academy is an online
educational set of resources.

It is a combination of world-class content

that spans from kindergarten
all the way to 12th grade,

and in some cases, the first
and second year of college.

And then we span across many subjects.

There's two pieces that I
think makes it very unique.

One is not just world-class content,

but it's taught in a way that
is very easy to understand.

We also build a lot of what we call

social-emotional learning
elements into the platform.

'Cause learning is hard.

It can be intimidating.

You could feel under-confident,

you could feel not very smart,

learning something that's very new to you.

So our product of content and software,

the combination of both,

we try to make it so
it's easy to understand,

that it's fun, that's it's
engaging, that it motivates you,

that it helps build your self-confidence

so that you can start
to be a self-motivated,

independent learner, to
be a lifelong learner.

And what makes us unique

is those elements of not just the content

but the social-emotional
learning part of the software,

as well as we have a lot
of built-in intelligence

to know exactly where you are

and all the steps that you need to learn.

So we have this thing
called a Knowledge Map

inside our product that let's you say,

"Gosh, if I wanna learn calculus some day,

"I need to know these
foundational elements first,

"and then I can build on
top," sort of like a house.

We have the foundational elements,

and then you know how to
build the first story,

and then you put the second story,

and we connect all those dots for you.

Our reach and our scale today,

we are in over 190
countries across the world.

We are translated in over 30
languages across the world

by amazing advocates,
volunteers that help us do this

because they believe
so much in our mission.

And it does really take a
village to make that happen.

It is unfortunate there's a misconception

of us wanting to replace the teacher.

Absolutely not.

There is no way that we
can replace the teacher.

They are such an important
part of the student's life.

For us, it's about providing tools

and functionality for the teacher

to empower them, to give them agency,

to be better than they can ever be,

to be more efficient,
to be more effective.

So tools and insights that we can do

to help the teacher so that they can

be the best that they can
be for these students.

The people at Khan Academy are amazing.

I am so blessed to run this company

because the people, I have 200 plus people

whose sole goal is to enable
this mission to happen.

They just want to really
transform the educational industry

to really help those
under-served children.

And that's what they eat,
breathe, and sleep, every day.

- So we're excited that
you're part of this training.

Hopefully, you will find everything

that we are able to provide
to you to be of use.

And we are looking forward

to getting your feedback
about how together

we can better serve you and your students.

Thank you.