The article, Khan Academy: Good Bad, or Ugly? discusses Salman Khan’s Academy, and several opinions on how some feel about it. Khan Academy first began when Sal Khan got off his bike and walked into his tiny home office (which was a closet,) to record a math lesson on his computer and uploaded it to YouTube. When he did this, Khan only meant for a few people to look at it. However, his lessons became more and more popular with millions of people viewing them. Sal Khan was even on CBS’s 60 Minutes. His Academy has become well-known and has helped many students with mathematics. Dr. Keith Devlin, the author of this article states, “The outsider who rides into town to save us is a part of our mythology.” He believes that Khan captures that “can do” attitude that attracts many, and that it does so in a way that is unrealistic. Devlin thinks that it is naïve for people to think that one single person at a computer can “fix” mathematics education. Devlin claims that learning mathematics is difficult, and so is teaching it to students. He thinks that one man riding into town on a bicycle will not provide the “answer.” Towards the end of the article, Devlin declares, “Sal Khan is not the Clint Eastwood of Math Education. No one is and no one can be. Such a person is a myth.”
I am an elementary education major, and we recently discussed Salman Khan and his Academy in my TED 250 course. After reading this article, I have found that I completely disagree with Dr. Keith Devlin, the author of this article. In my TED 250 course, we were shown the segment about Salman Khan on 60 Minutes. I was absolutely amazed when I saw what this Academy is doing for so many students around the world. It is also free and available to anyone who wants to use it. There are several schools in California who watch Khan Academy lessons at home, then come to school and work math problems online while their teachers monitor them. I think that eventually, everyone around the world will be using this, and teachers will not be needed anymore. This would definitely be a social problem for teachers, but it is helping so many students learn mathematics at a quicker rate, and the academy has so much to offer. If the world did use Khan Academy, then I think many people would lack social skills and would then have a difficult time in the workforce. But overall, I think that Sal Khan’s Academy is highly beneficial to a lot of people around the world. I believe that Sal Khan should keep recording lessons because they are valuable aids to many students, and have helped millions of people to grasp a better understanding of mathematics and become successful.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-keith-devlin/khan-academy-good-bad-or-_b_1345925.html?ref=education
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