Turning the Classroom Upside Down (article about Khan Academy)

Wall Street Journal ^ | April 9, 2011 | SALMAN KHAN

[Sonny M]

We all know the standard drill for a math class. The teacher delivers lectures on a new concept, students do some homework problems, and after a few weeks they take an exam. Some do well, some do poorly, and then it's on to the next topic.

[wintertime]

The unfavorable light which the school environment has a tendency to place many kids in can look pretty ridiculous in retrospect.
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I believe many are deeply wounded spiritually and emotionally by the school experience and live with life-long scars.

[BobL]

“Can you tell us how to solve this one?

Alice traveled by bus at an average speed of 20 miles per hour. Then she traveled by moped at an average speed of 44 miles per hour. In total, she traveled 216 miles for 6 hours. How many minutes did Alice travel by moped? (Round to the nearest minute.)”

Geeze, that was one sporty Moped! I was lucky to get much over 25 MPH out of the ones that I owned way back in my past.

[BobL]

“She said she used reverse multiplication. In otherwords, she started by multiplying what she knew (the speed of the moped and the speed of the bus) by number that added up to 6.
Once she found the right combination of numbers, she multiplied the speed of the moped by 60 (minutes in an hour) and got 240.”

I agree, that would be a DISASTER to approach the problem by trial and error.

Here’s a semi-viral video describing some of the junk being used in public schools.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tr1qee-bTZI

[conservatism_IS_compassion]

The unfavorable light which the school environment has a tendency to place many kids in can look pretty ridiculous in retrospect.

I believe many are deeply wounded spiritually and emotionally by the school experience and live with life-long scars.

That seems inevitable. My brother-in-law made a great decision - he dropped out of high school! Since his father had a business, he just showed up on the job one day and set to work. His dad asked what he was doing there on a school day, and he told him. All his dad told him was, "You'll never wear a white shirt." He said he understood that, and was committed to working. Bottom line, that was like emigrating from school into the real America - he had crossed the Rubicon, and from then on he had to succeed. And so he did.

We should all be so blessed as to have a father who could give us the option of being employed by him . . .