WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:02.000 [ Documents / Educational System / Work ] 00:00:02.000 --> 00:00:06.121 After an Identity is assigned to you, without your knowledge. 00:00:06.260 --> 00:00:08.938 you will be sent to an organization called: 00:00:09.015 --> 00:00:11.000 An Educational System 00:00:11.430 --> 00:00:13.892 It differs a little, from country to country 00:00:14.030 --> 00:00:18.123 considering the culture, but more than that, a country's budget. 00:00:18.768 --> 00:00:23.152 So i will refer to the educational system from the country where I was born. 00:00:23.660 --> 00:00:28.460 The differences are, almost, less important, considering the similarities. 00:00:35.799 --> 00:00:40.261 Kinder-garden lasts about 3 or 4 years, but can vary. 00:00:40.415 --> 00:00:46.776 In kinder-garden I learnt many stories, tales, things related to imagination. 00:00:46.915 --> 00:00:53.476 Why? I don’t know, nobody told me. I still have no idea why. 00:00:57.000 --> 00:01:04.230 Well, You must understand that today, we expose children, to artificial values 00:01:04.338 --> 00:01:08.153 first: boo boo said the cow, baba said the sheep. 00:01:08.276 --> 00:01:11.253 When you bring up children with that kind of garbage, 00:01:11.376 --> 00:01:15.361 they can learn Geology, children can learn Engineering, Mathematics. 00:01:15.500 --> 00:01:19.130 Children are capable to learn the same thing adults are. 00:01:19.238 --> 00:01:23.400 It takes just as much garbage, that you fill the kids head with. 00:01:23.600 --> 00:01:28.600 and you keep pumping information into their heads, that is unreal. 00:01:28.743 --> 00:01:31.784 and then you expect them to be able to think later on 00:01:31.923 --> 00:01:38.046 Children can learn and read at very early age, they can understand complex things. 00:01:38.200 --> 00:01:43.353 Like continental drift, they can understand volcanos, nature. 00:01:43.500 --> 00:01:46.323 they can understand the symbiotic process. 00:01:46.492 --> 00:01:50.814 but you have things like Mickie Mouse club. Imagine that 00:01:51.815 --> 00:01:56.138 Imagine all the ridiculous things that children are exposed to. 00:01:56.307 --> 00:01:58.646 So, here we damage them right away, 00:01:58.769 --> 00:02:02.400 because they think, so i guess that's the way children are. 00:02:02.569 --> 00:02:04.284 No They Are Not. 00:02:04.423 --> 00:02:07.300 I would like to say this about my own little boy: 00:02:07.469 --> 00:02:10.800 when he was about 4 years old, he said: 00:02:11.000 --> 00:02:14.376 Daddy the wheel came off my toy car, would you fix it? 00:02:14.500 --> 00:02:19.500 So i said: so it did, i'll get your baby toys where the wheels don't come off, 00:02:19.600 --> 00:02:21.346 and I threw the car on the garbage. 00:02:21.500 --> 00:02:25.000 oh, I watched him, and I noticed that lower lip come out. 00:02:25.200 --> 00:02:27.561 He said: you throwing it away. 00:02:28.584 --> 00:02:30.498 I told him: Yes I did! 00:02:30.745 --> 00:02:34.576 So, he: Well, maybe i can fix it. then I took it out and I gave it to him. 00:02:34.715 --> 00:02:39.346 and he tried to put it together, and he did put it together within few minutes. 00:02:39.500 --> 00:02:43.792 Then i picked him up and said "That's Wonderful" how did you do that? 00:02:43.900 --> 00:02:46.000 he said: I'm not THAT little. 00:02:46.100 --> 00:02:48.322 In other words if you give kids responsibility, 00:02:48.507 --> 00:02:54.000 instead let daddy solve this, let daddy do that for you, let mommy fix that. 00:02:54.153 --> 00:02:57.200 you produce a blob that doesn't think. 00:03:06.800 --> 00:03:08.800 School 00:03:11.161 --> 00:03:14.200 I was often forced to wear the same outfit as others, 00:03:14.676 --> 00:03:17.598 an outfit imposed by the educational system. 00:03:18.075 --> 00:03:19.768 Without an explanation. 00:03:20.415 --> 00:03:22.645 The School program is fixed. 00:03:22.800 --> 00:03:27.645 So, you are bound to respect it, otherwise, it is likely to expel you, 00:03:27.782 --> 00:03:30.476 resulting in a potential lack of job, 00:03:30.953 --> 00:03:36.076 leading you to starvation, being unable to take possession of money. 00:03:37.307 --> 00:03:40.699 Speaking of program, school started early in the morning, 00:03:40.791 --> 00:03:44.753 because of this i was forced to wake up around 7 AM. 00:03:45.300 --> 00:03:49.500 This meant that bedtime was not dictated by the biological system, 00:03:49.653 --> 00:03:52.500 but, by the educational system, 00:03:52.660 --> 00:03:56.700 leading to constant brain, and other organs, fatigue. 00:03:57.999 --> 00:04:00.523 I often came to school very sleepy, 00:04:00.661 --> 00:04:05.400 and the school wants to be an institution in which you must retain information. 00:04:11.800 --> 00:04:14.600 Classes were fixed, so were the breaks. 00:04:14.800 --> 00:04:21.400 The program was about 6 - 7 hours a day, five days a week. 00:04:22.000 --> 00:04:25.661 The educational program lasted about 12 years, 00:04:26.615 --> 00:04:30.245 and the break was about 2 - 3 months every year. 00:04:32.000 --> 00:04:35.969 The educational system has created the first scale of values, 00:04:36.076 --> 00:04:39.015 and labeled people as being stupid, or smart, 00:04:39.153 --> 00:04:42.984 because of some unknown rules, creating envy. 00:04:44.300 --> 00:04:46.600 if you are born with a better brain than him, 00:04:46.800 --> 00:04:52.400 say the tissues is better quality, the neurons processes are better built, 00:04:52.600 --> 00:04:56.000 if you live in nazi germany, you become a nazi faster. 00:04:57.306 --> 00:04:58.583 even if the brain is better, 00:04:58.707 --> 00:05:04.229 the brain has no mechanism for knowing that which is relevant or less relevant. 00:05:04.888 --> 00:05:07.286 That goes for intelligence. 00:05:07.592 --> 00:05:09.500 I don't know if i've talked to you about, 00:05:09.700 --> 00:05:13.800 an electrical engineer 75 years ago, an intelligent one 00:05:14.000 --> 00:05:15.700 couldn't get a job today 00:05:15.999 --> 00:05:19.102 so when you talk of intelligence, what are you talking about? 00:05:19.240 --> 00:05:24.407 it's an ongoing process, there is no such a thing as an intelligent person, 00:05:24.515 --> 00:05:31.199 there are people that are fairly well informed in area A&B, not informed in area C 00:05:35.600 --> 00:05:41.337 Also, schools promoted competition, that leads instinctively to dispute. 00:05:41.492 --> 00:05:46.530 And, do not forget that competition may have winners and losers. 00:05:46.700 --> 00:05:51.115 Mostly, the school in which I, along with millions of other children, 00:05:51.300 --> 00:05:56.584 have taken part, created a false scale of values and promoted competition. 00:05:56.815 --> 00:06:02.007 Also, schools destroyed something very important: Curiosity, 00:06:02.237 --> 00:06:06.900 since nobody gave you an explanation for the way you are forced to behave, 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:10.315 just telling you to do things without asking. 00:06:19.252 --> 00:06:20.530 You said you are worried about kids, 00:06:20.637 --> 00:06:23.498 I'm not worried about kids, I'm worried about grown ups, ok? 00:06:23.623 --> 00:06:24.715 These are the ones who vote. 00:06:24.800 --> 00:06:29.176 These are the ones who tell you 'the world is coming to an end in 2012,' 00:06:29.300 --> 00:06:31.130 kids don't say that, grown ups do. 00:06:31.300 --> 00:06:32.376 I'm worried about grown ups who say: 00:06:32.530 --> 00:06:35.653 "read my horoscope, tell me whether I'll find money tomorrow". 00:06:35.792 --> 00:06:39.453 Grown ups say this, not children, ok? 00:06:41.900 --> 00:06:45.000 Children do not read horoscopes, ok? 00:06:45.200 --> 00:06:49.661 Childrens are perfectly happy counting through the number thirteen. 00:06:52.500 --> 00:06:54.900 Children are not afraid to walk under ladders, 00:06:55.000 --> 00:06:58.400 they see a black cat cross their path they say "oh kitty kitty", they want to pet it, 00:06:58.500 --> 00:07:02.745 not run in the other direction, children are not the problem here. 00:07:04.846 --> 00:07:06.315 Get me started... 00:07:07.876 --> 00:07:11.000 Because kids are born curious. 00:07:11.500 --> 00:07:14.492 They're always exploring. 00:07:15.800 --> 00:07:19.800 We spend the first year of their lives teaching them how to walk and talk. 00:07:20.106 --> 00:07:23.114 And the rest of their life, telling them to shut up and sit down. 00:07:30.115 --> 00:07:35.403 To see what it is all about, and to summarize what I have learnt in school, let's recap: 00:07:36.250 --> 00:07:41.526 I remember that I learnt a language. This language that you are hearing right now. 00:07:41.650 --> 00:07:44.496 Let's focus a little bit on that. 00:07:46.923 --> 00:07:48.900 don't know if you understand me, 00:07:49.000 --> 00:07:53.853 we don't know, lot of people think somebody invented language. 00:07:54.375 --> 00:07:57.946 and they say to read and to write is to communicate, that's not true, 00:07:58.222 --> 00:08:01.822 what happened, a guy banged his elbow, said "aam", 00:08:01.976 --> 00:08:06.113 then banged his knee said "uuh", then he eats something said "oo" 00:08:06.236 --> 00:08:11.048 language is an extrapolation of all those sounds over many years, 00:08:11.156 --> 00:08:14.599 nobody ever sat down and invented language. 00:08:18.928 --> 00:08:21.676 The Language in this form is centuries old, 00:08:21.800 --> 00:08:24.311 and although it represented the point of support 00:08:24.466 --> 00:08:27.936 in the development of mankind, it is now outdated. 00:08:28.300 --> 00:08:32.007 Often slow, sometimes too long for the sent message, 00:08:32.161 --> 00:08:36.144 but more importantly it’s interpretable, which makes it useless. 00:08:38.953 --> 00:08:44.576 We know that mathematics, chemistry and physics are not subject to interpretation. 00:08:44.791 --> 00:08:46.626 They are fixed languages. 00:08:47.717 --> 00:08:51.491 Well... the language that you are hearing right now, is interpretable. 00:08:55.053 --> 00:08:58.823 I can tell you now, that you and your boss are the same. 00:08:59.000 --> 00:09:01.775 But... what did I actually mean? 00:09:02.223 --> 00:09:08.930 You are the same, but how? You look the same, behave similarly, or what? 00:09:10.007 --> 00:09:13.800 Depends on what you understand, because this is interpretable. 00:09:14.447 --> 00:09:20.561 But, if I scientifically prove to you that both of you are composed of the same chemical elements, 00:09:20.684 --> 00:09:24.191 then no one would have any doubt about what my message means. 00:09:29.521 --> 00:09:33.345 Consider now the people who build all kinds of buildings. 00:09:33.514 --> 00:09:38.650 They are constructing using all those fixed languages, so that everyone understands, 00:09:38.850 --> 00:09:43.833 and the building could fit in the environment. No opinion here. 00:09:48.692 --> 00:09:52.146 So in those 12, or for me 15 years, of school, 00:09:52.300 --> 00:09:56.953 I learnt an exceeded language, that adds to the confusion of the current world. 00:10:00.500 --> 00:10:06.320 Moreover, I learnt one language out of hundreds, which does not help me when I leave the country. 00:10:06.723 --> 00:10:08.565 I learnt an Interpretable language, 00:10:08.719 --> 00:10:15.007 that helps me communicate with a few tens of millions of people on the planet, out of 7 billion. 00:10:16.992 --> 00:10:21.807 That, in an era of the Internet, a place without fictitious boundaries. 00:10:24.850 --> 00:10:27.704 Why haven't I learnt a universal language? 00:10:28.459 --> 00:10:31.298 One more compact and less interpretable. 00:10:31.469 --> 00:10:36.500 Or why didn't I learn the other fixed languages, better than this interpretable one? 00:10:36.890 --> 00:10:42.276 I have possible theories, but they don't matter, all that matters is that you ask yourself. 00:10:47.250 --> 00:10:49.855 Besides this language, I learnt mathematics, 00:10:50.025 --> 00:10:52.145 and even after I finished school, 00:10:52.330 --> 00:10:56.923 I thought that mathematics is a bunch of letters and numbers, with certain rules, 00:10:57.900 --> 00:11:01.261 and that everything is a game for brain development. 00:11:02.245 --> 00:11:07.138 My colleagues thought the same thing, perhaps some of them didn’t even ask. 00:11:09.207 --> 00:11:14.330 I created this theory because nobody, ever, could give me a more detailed explanation, 00:11:14.484 --> 00:11:17.960 other than: you need to know how to calculate. 00:11:19.252 --> 00:11:21.546 Calculate Money? Or what? 00:11:22.123 --> 00:11:26.714 I wonder if my old colleagues even know what mathematics really means. 00:11:30.623 --> 00:11:33.388 The same happened with physics and chemistry. 00:11:33.573 --> 00:11:38.533 Blackboard, white chalk, and a professor with a fixed character, 00:11:38.703 --> 00:11:41.757 together with fixed and obligatory school schedule, 00:11:41.896 --> 00:11:44.339 pushed me away from reality, 00:11:44.493 --> 00:11:48.043 and all those fixed languages have become nonsense bonds. 00:11:48.843 --> 00:11:54.430 That's why many students hate such classes, their value is never explained. 00:11:57.000 --> 00:12:02.050 Remember that no such fixed language could help me in daily life of the monetary system, 00:12:02.192 --> 00:12:07.030 because the basic language used here is the one that you are witnessing right now, 00:12:07.169 --> 00:12:10.670 a language old and subject to interpretation. 00:12:16.426 --> 00:12:19.295 I also learnt geography and history. 00:12:20.105 --> 00:12:25.071 History never interested me because I did not know if indeed such things happened, 00:12:25.256 --> 00:12:29.684 they were just writing for me, and the present is much more important anyway. 00:12:29.992 --> 00:12:36.007 Besides, I didn't agree with stories where armed criminals were seen as leading heroes. 00:12:40.000 --> 00:12:44.343 Geography taught me names, that it said, were countries. 00:12:44.890 --> 00:12:50.244 That means... some portions of planet Earth, were 'conquered' by people, 00:12:50.829 --> 00:12:53.756 just as monkeys do, and named. 00:12:54.289 --> 00:12:59.206 This is the concept of countries, and that is how countries evolved. 00:12:59.900 --> 00:13:02.926 Even today, boundaries separate areas, 00:13:03.326 --> 00:13:06.517 and are dividing the human species, leading to racism 00:13:06.671 --> 00:13:10.414 and instinctively slowing progression, due to separation. 00:13:13.336 --> 00:13:15.702 Countries and cities have no importance, 00:13:15.841 --> 00:13:20.145 because the Earth itself is the common heritage of all humans. 00:13:20.736 --> 00:13:26.250 You can define a piece of Earth, name it, and say it is yours only by imagination; 00:13:26.675 --> 00:13:32.610 it will be recognized by others, in its value, only if others accept that as being true... 00:13:32.764 --> 00:13:35.100 also through imagination. 00:13:35.500 --> 00:13:40.861 That's what i retain from geography, names and imaginary demarcations. 00:13:46.461 --> 00:13:49.007 I learnt about God, and religion, 00:13:49.115 --> 00:13:54.460 a theory that says the world was created by a divine creature, within 7 days. 00:13:54.992 --> 00:13:58.400 Basically, the theory was promoted and accepted by all, 00:13:58.507 --> 00:14:01.792 especially as it was taught in school as being true. 00:14:02.407 --> 00:14:05.761 It is in contradiction with other subjects in school, 00:14:05.900 --> 00:14:09.300 such as physics, chemistry or biology, 00:14:09.484 --> 00:14:13.634 even with reason, and for me, it just created confusion. 00:14:19.000 --> 00:14:22.486 My school didn’t focus on sport, music or drawing, 00:14:22.625 --> 00:14:26.249 so I can not remember anything from these areas. 00:14:31.807 --> 00:14:34.576 The closer I got to the end of these 12 years, 00:14:34.700 --> 00:14:37.683 the less rationality I found in what i learnt. 00:14:37.875 --> 00:14:42.346 What we learn in school does not have any tangent with reality, 00:14:42.485 --> 00:14:45.956 only with further education through college. 00:14:48.368 --> 00:14:52.943 In the monetary system, college is the final step, of this human education, 00:14:53.082 --> 00:14:55.810 and college will prepare you for a job. 00:14:56.792 --> 00:15:01.345 That makes the educational system, a system of training workers. 00:15:07.200 --> 00:15:10.471 12 years, in which I learnt a language that confused me, 00:15:10.579 --> 00:15:12.558 more than it helped me. 00:15:13.561 --> 00:15:18.467 12 years, in which I was confused by this different theories of my existence. 00:15:19.212 --> 00:15:23.458 12 years, in which I have been obligated to present myself at fixed hours, 00:15:23.596 --> 00:15:27.703 to an institution, and to have a certain uniform. 00:15:28.000 --> 00:15:32.230 12 years, in an organization, that, pushed me away from mathematics, 00:15:32.400 --> 00:15:35.276 physics, biology or chemistry. 00:15:37.726 --> 00:15:42.540 12 years, in which, I did not receive any explanation for what I learnt, 00:15:42.694 --> 00:15:47.645 or why I learnt it, or why I should respect the educational system’s rules. 00:15:48.414 --> 00:15:53.018 12 years that I personally consider being lost, and immoral. 00:15:53.311 --> 00:15:56.898 12 years, in which I could learn so much. 00:15:57.046 --> 00:16:02.120 Then, another three years of college, which only prepared me for a job. 00:16:03.950 --> 00:16:06.548 So, where is the education? 00:16:08.500 --> 00:16:11.903 Maybe, the country where I was born, was to blame. 00:16:12.765 --> 00:16:15.322 But then, you can think of the years you’ve spent at school, 00:16:15.492 --> 00:16:17.582 and the information learnt, 00:16:18.583 --> 00:16:22.583 then correlate that with reality and draw your own conclusions. 00:16:25.045 --> 00:16:27.441 After you draw your conclusions, 00:16:27.611 --> 00:16:30.915 think about whether you accept taking part in such a program, 00:16:31.100 --> 00:16:34.383 for 12 to 15 years, only to learn; 00:16:34.507 --> 00:16:38.546 without receiving any degree or any gratitude at the end. 00:16:43.140 --> 00:16:45.543 I haven't heard school teachers say: 00:16:45.635 --> 00:16:49.966 "Let us make education relevant to the needs of people" 00:16:50.058 --> 00:16:53.953 I've never heard descriptive system from Universities 00:16:54.061 --> 00:16:57.586 or any elaborate organization. 00:16:57.710 --> 00:17:00.196 The democratic concept for example, 00:17:00.350 --> 00:17:03.189 where everybody participates and contributes, 00:17:03.976 --> 00:17:05.623 I believe they can only contribute 00:17:05.731 --> 00:17:08.579 to that which they've learned from the culture. 00:17:08.671 --> 00:17:14.135 And they can't be that different and be a member of a standard organization. 00:17:14.832 --> 00:17:20.710 Even though the universities today, have the most sophisticated equipment, 00:17:20.850 --> 00:17:24.997 In the science labs, the architectural labs, all the labs 00:17:25.151 --> 00:17:27.546 the wars are getting worse. 00:17:27.699 --> 00:17:30.221 The explosives are getting worse. 00:17:34.140 --> 00:17:38.950 [ Alternative Solutions ] 00:17:49.996 --> 00:17:52.331 Now, let's look at how children learn, 00:17:52.470 --> 00:17:55.950 and how schools might look in a system focused on progress 00:17:56.088 --> 00:17:58.665 and freedom of human beings. 00:18:00.080 --> 00:18:02.981 The children enthusiastically got up to me, and said: 00:18:03.073 --> 00:18:04.128 "Now what do you want us to do?" 00:18:04.251 --> 00:18:06.652 I gave them 6 GCSE questions. 00:18:06.760 --> 00:18:11.271 The first group, the best one, solved everything in 20 min. 00:18:11.410 --> 00:18:13.675 The worst, in 45. 00:18:13.798 --> 00:18:15.687 They used everything that they knew: 00:18:15.810 --> 00:18:19.682 News groups, Google, Wikipedia, Ask Jeeves, etc... 00:18:20.128 --> 00:18:22.938 But teachers said: "Is this deep learning?" 00:18:23.030 --> 00:18:24.737 I said: "well, let's try it!" 00:18:24.861 --> 00:18:26.155 I come back after 2 months, 00:18:26.294 --> 00:18:30.590 will give them a paper test, no computers, no talking to each other etc.. 00:18:30.809 --> 00:18:35.183 The average score when I done it with the computer and the groups was 76% 00:18:35.630 --> 00:18:39.861 When I did the experiment, when I did the test after 2 months, the score was... 00:18:40.550 --> 00:18:41.745 76% 00:18:43.344 --> 00:18:46.560 There was photographic recall. 00:18:46.730 --> 00:18:48.730 I mean, if there is stuff on Google, 00:18:48.900 --> 00:18:51.399 why would you need to stuff it into your head? 00:18:51.538 --> 00:18:55.730 I basically embedded a computer 00:18:56.268 --> 00:18:59.653 into a wall of a slum in New Delhi. 00:19:00.606 --> 00:19:02.425 The children barely went to school. 00:19:02.563 --> 00:19:05.505 They didn't know any English. They've never seen a computer before. 00:19:05.644 --> 00:19:07.591 And they didn't know what the Internet was. 00:19:07.730 --> 00:19:10.653 I repeated this all over India 00:19:10.730 --> 00:19:14.190 and then through a large part of the world. 00:19:14.406 --> 00:19:18.606 I noticed that children will learn to do 00:19:18.730 --> 00:19:21.606 what they want to learn to do. 00:19:21.730 --> 00:19:24.606 So at the end of it, we concluded 00:19:24.730 --> 00:19:26.190 that groups of children 00:19:26.314 --> 00:19:29.046 can learn to use computers and the internet on their own, 00:19:29.200 --> 00:19:33.060 irrespective of who or where they were. 00:19:33.230 --> 00:19:35.376 I got an interesting phone call once from Colombo, 00:19:35.530 --> 00:19:37.376 from the late Arthur C. Clarke, 00:19:37.530 --> 00:19:39.576 who said "I want to see what's going on". 00:19:39.730 --> 00:19:42.175 And he couldn't travel so I went over there. 00:19:42.314 --> 00:19:43.837 He said two interesting things. 00:19:43.960 --> 00:19:47.852 "A teacher that can be replaced by a machine should be". 00:19:50.175 --> 00:19:52.437 The second thing that he said was that, 00:19:52.606 --> 00:19:57.560 "if children have interest then education happens." 00:19:58.784 --> 00:20:02.870 And I was doing that in the field, so everyday I would watch it, and think of him. 00:20:02.993 --> 00:20:07.372 It is possible and they can definitively help people. 00:20:07.495 --> 00:20:12.667 Because children very quickly learn to navigate the web and find things which interest them. 00:20:12.806 --> 00:20:16.117 And when you got interest then you have education. 00:20:16.225 --> 00:20:20.559 I think we've just stumbled across as self-organizing system. 00:20:20.666 --> 00:20:24.156 A self-organizing system is one where a structure appears 00:20:24.341 --> 00:20:27.000 without explicit intervention from the outside. 00:20:27.200 --> 00:20:30.685 Self organizing systems also always show emergence, 00:20:30.870 --> 00:20:34.966 which is that system starts to do things, which it was never designed for. 00:20:35.120 --> 00:20:39.417 Which is why you react the way you do. Because it looks impossible. 00:20:39.556 --> 00:20:42.116 I think I can make a guess now: 00:20:42.270 --> 00:20:44.606 Education is a self-organizing system 00:20:44.730 --> 00:20:47.203 where learning is an emergent phenomenon. 00:20:49.760 --> 00:20:51.694 Now that we know that children learn, 00:20:51.818 --> 00:20:55.127 and organize themselves better through curiosity, 00:20:55.312 --> 00:20:59.176 you should only provide information and access to them. 00:20:59.330 --> 00:21:00.753 It's simple. 00:21:00.892 --> 00:21:05.058 Hi! My name is Sal Khan, the founder and faculty of the Khan Academy and 00:21:05.211 --> 00:21:07.455 we are trying to educate the world. 00:21:12.620 --> 00:21:15.464 Welcome to the presentation on "basic addition": 00:21:15.588 --> 00:21:21.021 In august of 1789 they've already done their version of the Declaration of Independence... 00:21:21.160 --> 00:21:24.553 And the process is called photosynthesis... 00:21:27.171 --> 00:21:34.031 I was tutoring my cousins, literally, and I had kind of figure out a way to scale myself up, 00:21:34.186 --> 00:21:38.089 so I started recording youtube videos and I started making little software modules for them. 00:21:38.227 --> 00:21:42.325 But I made them so anyone can use them and started to get a lot of attraction. 00:21:42.464 --> 00:21:44.680 What Sal Khan has done is amazing, 00:21:44.850 --> 00:21:50.750 He's taken all this material and broken them down into little 12 min lectures. 00:21:50.873 --> 00:21:55.205 I used it myself to remind myself of things, I've children who like it, 00:21:55.343 --> 00:22:00.034 so I was super happy, he came up and we got to talk about, "where does he go now ?" 00:22:00.173 --> 00:22:03.604 "how can my foundation help him pursue this dream" 00:22:03.727 --> 00:22:07.727 "and connect it up with the other great things going on on the internet." 00:22:09.755 --> 00:22:12.138 I want it to be a stand alone virtual school 00:22:12.277 --> 00:22:14.816 where anyone in the world, who wants to learn anything, 00:22:14.955 --> 00:22:18.811 can go there, start from the basics, progress as far as he needs to go, 00:22:18.935 --> 00:22:22.515 get feedback, get assessment, get practice. 00:22:22.670 --> 00:22:24.596 And eventually I want it to actually become the operating system 00:22:24.735 --> 00:22:26.291 for what goes on in the classroom 00:22:26.430 --> 00:22:28.731 where every student is allowed to work at their own pace, 00:22:28.870 --> 00:22:32.046 and the teacher actually becomes more of a mentor or 00:22:32.199 --> 00:22:33.666 of a coach. 00:22:34.530 --> 00:22:38.625 So I see Sal Khan as a pioneer, in an overall movement 00:22:38.810 --> 00:22:43.048 to use technology to let more and more people learn things, 00:22:43.203 --> 00:22:44.858 know where they stand 00:22:45.013 --> 00:22:47.380 it's the start of a revolution. 00:22:49.000 --> 00:22:54.160 A system like that will create curious, intelligent and inventive individuals. 00:22:54.345 --> 00:22:56.645 Something different from a worker. 00:22:56.830 --> 00:23:00.420 Such a system couldn't help you in the monetary system. 00:23:00.590 --> 00:23:03.681 Then you have to ask yourself "Why is that?" 00:23:05.400 --> 00:23:08.646 I didn't want to teach my kid how to read 00:23:08.786 --> 00:23:11.596 so I used to read to him at night 00:23:11.734 --> 00:23:14.063 and close the book at the most interesting part 00:23:14.217 --> 00:23:16.698 and he said "what happened then daddy?" 00:23:16.867 --> 00:23:22.430 And so I said "Why don't you read? I'm too tired, I'll read it to you tomorrow". 00:23:22.600 --> 00:23:25.150 He had to need to want to learn to read. 00:23:25.319 --> 00:23:28.700 Don't teach children how to read, don't teach them mathematics. 00:23:28.870 --> 00:23:31.254 Give them a reason to want it! 00:23:31.378 --> 00:23:33.632 Does everybody know what that means? 00:23:33.781 --> 00:23:36.837 In school they're working it backwards. 00:23:37.900 --> 00:23:43.159 [Alternative solutions] 1) Provide information and access 00:24:01.870 --> 00:24:04.118 An individual of the human species, 00:24:04.288 --> 00:24:07.138 the dominant intelligent species on planet Earth, 00:24:07.292 --> 00:24:10.152 should learn how he and the environment works, 00:24:10.306 --> 00:24:13.551 to try to understand what is happening around him 00:24:13.674 --> 00:24:17.349 through the best and demonstrable information possible. 00:24:18.120 --> 00:24:24.200 It is a mockery to use 12, 15, or even more years of a human being's life, 00:24:24.370 --> 00:24:28.985 that is around 70 to 80 years, to prepare him to be a worker, 00:24:29.093 --> 00:24:32.882 or to learn a language limited by your culture. 00:24:33.513 --> 00:24:37.261 Such an educational system is against evolution, 00:24:37.400 --> 00:24:44.089 it makes the human species go forward... not in a straight line, but in ellipses.