The Dangerous Mr. Khan • Hacker News Board

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#211

Post by jwhite » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 2:07 AM UTC

pjscott wrote: post #164

chc wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Isn't this kind of a straw man? Salman Khan is not a fascist dictator who prevents you from getting information anywhere else. He's just a teacher. I don't see how learning from him is more of a problem than learning from other teacher.

You could make your point even stronger: since the barriers to entry on the internet are so low, it has the potential to be a lot less intellectually constraining than an ordinary classroom, where typically there will be one teacher, with standardized lesson plans, teaching from a relentlessly bland textbook that passed through the censors in Texas and California.

But the Internet also has a significant winner-take-all character at the large end of the spectrum, due to network effects. See Facebook vs. MySpace and all the other social network carcasses in its wake. Mr. Khan's teaching videos might end up being the one-and-only source of education on the Internet. What then?

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#212

Post by palish » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 2:17 AM UTC

ecuzzillo wrote: post #204

palish wrote: post #201

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"All attempts to write about history is pushing someone's agenda." On the other hand, if anyone is looking to read history written from a dispassionate, objective point of view, I heartily recommend "100 Decisive Battles from Ancient Times to the Present". http://dl.dropbox.com/u/315/books/100%20Decisive%20Battles%2...

Having the words you write be dispassionate and objective doesn't mean you lack an agenda. Everything written ever picks a small set of facts to consider from an effectively infinite set of facts. The choice of which facts to include, moreover, represents a fairly strong bias; it says that this set of facts is more interesting or important or whatever than most other sets, and enough so that you should ignore all the…

True enough. I suppose the reason this book is so good is because it focuses on 100 distinct events which the author believes completely transformed the course of history --- and explains the reasons why they believe this to be true.

History is full of examples of a small force overwhelming a large force against all odds, and I love reading about the clever tricks and twists of fate that made it possible. The fact that the outcome of each battle completely shifted the course of history is an added source of awesomeness.

Sure, Sputnik 1 and Sputnik 2 were landmarks. But they would have happened eventually --- whether Russia or America did it first seems little more than a silly contest of the times.

But when you read the above book and realize that "Europe, as we know it today, would be completely and utterly different if, thousands of years ago, this one person had not made the monumentally stupid decision of keeping his army awake all night" .... well, that seems to me what makes history so interesting, no?

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#213

Post by tatsuke95 » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 2:45 AM UTC

Entertaining read.

I agree with the assertion that The Khan Academy, via brief video clips, may be a terrible place to learn history (though it is GREAT for other subjects).

But as others have noted...who cares? The internet is filled with opinions and falsities, far more "dangerous" than anything on Mr. Khan's site, that pass themselves off as "history". It's just a matter of degree.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#214

Post by pontifier » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 3:28 AM UTC

I was at the Singularity summit in SLC this weekend and had the privilege of hearing Mr. Shantanu Sinha (president of Khan Academy) speak. One of the questions from the audience after his presentation was about how they plan to teach subjects that are more open to interpretation than math.

His answer (according to my notes) is that they are working on it, and it is a challenge to eliminate bias. He stressed that they have just recently grown to 8 employees thanks to the recent funding, and that they are doing their best.

Their overall vision is one of enabling true mastery of subjects by enabling students to proceed at their own pace, and expand upon on a topic only after mastering the prerequisites (switching from percent knowledge in fixed time to complete knowledge in variable time). The eventual goal is to change the in-class focus from data transmission to social interaction, learning interpersonal skills, communication, leadership, and teamwork.

I was sceptical about Khan academy, but I believe that with sufficient funding and attention they will be able to create a curriculum that is at least as good as what the average student gets now, and probably much better. They have also started experimenting with A/B testing using analytics on their 2 million students to find the most effective ways to teach.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#215

Post by woodall » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 3:28 AM UTC

maukdaddy wrote: post #7

The comments thus far show exactly what is wrong with HN. HN has become an echo chamber where we all love certain people/companies/ideas and immediately dismiss any counter viewpoint. Instead of immediately discrediting the linked article because they're "haters" or "threatened", try reading it and understanding their point of view. I love Khan's work and what he's doing, but at the same time the article raises some…

That is why SCOTUS allows dissenting opinions. Sometimes we just don't get it right the first time around and it is good to have a record of what we could have done better. But I'll be damned if I'm wrong on the internet!

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#216

Post by woodall » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 3:30 AM UTC

salmankhan wrote: post #69

Hi Everyone, This is Sal here. I wanted to respond directly on the author's page, but they seem to be having a problem taking comments. The reason why I make history videos is that many people I know (many of whom are quite educated) don't even have a basic scaffold of world events in their minds (or the potential causality between events). Most American high school and college students would find it difficult to giv…

>Most American high school and college students would find it difficult to give even a summary of the Vietnam War or the Cuban Missile Crisis.

That is a broad assertion on your part and one that I have yet to find true; esp. after meeting many former high schoolers in my college History classes.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#217

Post by jasonrr » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 3:56 AM UTC

joshg wrote: post #169

salmankhan wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He shows someone video not produced by us. Then does a small interview of a handful of people who watched those non-Khan Academy videos. Then he uses their lack of understanding to impugn Khan Academy. The person who made this video clearly cares more about their agenda than real science. The irony is also thick with him using a video to try to explain that videos can't explain things.

Wait ... what? Did you even watch the whole video? First of all, he says all kinds of positive things about the work you're doing. "Impugn Khan Academy"? Really? Second, he is explaining physics education research that he himself did for his Ph.D thesis. He's using examples from his own work to make comparisons in technique to what worked and what didn't work in his own, actually objectively tested research. This is…

Working for the Khan Academy, I've seen the link to this video a bunch of times. Naturally, I was really curious about the voracity of the claims, so I did some research. It's actually worth reading the thesis as it's pretty interesting stuff. It's here: http://www.physics.usyd.edu.au/pdfs/research/super/PhD(Mulle...

The study was, as best I can tell after reading through much of it (a lot not relevant to this discussion), quite limited. The largest number of students considered for any of the experiments: 370. All from one school. Most of the other experiments included far fewer students (fewer than 100).

Chapter 9 (additional experiments in chapter 10), and the section on Participants and Design has most of the relevant information. I was particularly fascinated by the decision to remove students from the final result for "watching more than one multimedia treatment." I mean I understand why it's important to control for this, but part of the point of KA is to provide additional treatments of information.

I am not saying that this in any way invalidates the research, but I also don't think it's fair to say that this is somehow a surefire tested solution that is being handed over. In addition, because the research hasn't been repeated outside of the original setting -- at least I couldn't find it, please correct me here if I'm wrong -- it makes the claim that "because introducing misconceptions was effective in this study means it must be effective in all science videos" a pretty serious stretch.

I'm all for research. We're doing a lot of it right now with our pilot students/classrooms and existing users. But just because something has been research-tested doesn't mean it's automatically the right thing to implement for KA or its students.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#218

Post by teyc » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 4:38 AM UTC

pg wrote: post #112

mquander wrote: post #43

The way the author writes, it's as if he thinks there is some superior alternative that Khan is displacing. Last I checked, there ain't. Fact is, Khan's videos are considered good because the actual history education that most students take away from classrooms is even worse. Like most other subjects, that's what you get when you try to deliver a comprehensive, objective, detail-oriented education to students who (wi…

it's as if he thinks there is some superior alternative that Khan is displacing. Last I checked, there ain't. Yes, that's what I was thinking. The stuff the author quotes sounds bad, but probably better than you'd get from some teachers I had. Plus on the Internet kids can watch these videos at any age. His simplified version of history could be way better than what e.g. an 8 year old might otherwise have access to.

The author is right about how dangerous it is for students to only learn from one source though. However, how is this different someone who gets all their news from Fox? Each person has their internal bias, and will learn from their chosen source. Existing education system, ranging from school texts right down to the career path is dictated by academia. I can't see a better alternative other than simple freedom for people to chose who they wish to learn from, and how they wish to lead their lives.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#219

Post by bendmorris » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 4:58 AM UTC

jcarreiro wrote: post #42

ThomPete wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I read it and normally consider myself pretty open minded. But then you read things like this. "Here Mr. Khan stands exposed as possessing a historical perspective steeped in academia’s standard issue, postmodern, left-leaning narrative of cultural relativism, multiculturalism, and moral equivalence. " And in my mind the author is exposed. I am hoping that my son grows up being taught by postmodernist that don't pres…

> I am hoping that my son grows up being taught by postmodernist that don't present history as fact How else could it possibly be presented? Could you elaborate on what you mean when you say that history is "a perspective"? Can one change history simply by deciding to view it differently, somehow?

Two meanings of "history" here: one is what has actually happened in the past, the other is what we claim (or teach) happened. The former is static and impossible to know perfectly. The latter is necessarily a perspective. Obviously the latter has no effect on the former.

Re: The Dangerous Mr. Khan

#220

Post by xsmasher » Thu, Jun 09, 2011, 5:07 AM UTC

ThomPete wrote: post #184

Duff wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're allowed to possess opinions and positions that are controversial. It's not illegal to have point of view that challenges the mainstream. From my POV, the Khan Academy view of history described here is utter bunk and doesn't really give a good historical perspective. I'm shocked, shocked to hear that K-12 history is garbage! K-12 history curriculum has always been garbage pushing somebody's agenda. Until the 80'…

All attempts to write about history is pushing someone's agenda. I bear no illusions that history writing is agenda free. But the stories of the white where no less relevant or important, they just needed to be mixed with other perspectives. And that is to me what history is. Perspective. There are no right or wrong perspectives. There are simply perspectives trying to describe to the best of their vantage point.

If I said that scientific theory was all perspective without right or wrong I'd get pilloried here, and with good reason.

Any interpretation of historical observations is analogous to a scientific theory like gravity. It may fit the observations or not, and we can use Occam's to winnow the likely from the unlikely. The only bummer is that observations are generally not reproducible as in the hard sciences.