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I don't see how Khan academy is truly 'controversial', but obviously it is threatening enough to the status quo for people to try and frame it in a controversia

I don't see how Khan academy is truly 'controversial', but obviously it is threatening enough to the status quo for people to try and frame it in a controversial light. Since learning is my greatest love, school has always been my greatest enemy. I've been enamored with the Khan Academy from about the first 30 seconds of the first video I watched. I've come across a few references to the idea that the biggest factor in education is the skill of the teacher, and that there is no way of guessing which teachers will be better than others. Apparently, there is no correlation between teaching ability and experience or education level. The Khan Academy model lets us leverage the impact of the greatest teachers and make excellent education available to anyone who wants it. [edit: typo]

thethimble 16y ago
As a student at UCLA I can say that I have learned more from a handful of Khan's Calculus and Linear Algebra video tutorials than I have from several quarters worth of math courses at school. Clearly there is controversy in this statement. Conservatives insist that receiving a "quality education" at the university level should cost $40k+ a hear. A man that shatters this notion by providing free videos superior to many university courses cannot do so without creating an uproar from the old-fashioned. In any case, Khan has done a great service to this world. I hope this publicity will help his videos reach the corners of the world.
- keithwarren 16y ago
  I am a conservative/libertarian and dont think university level education should cost 40K per year. I have no idea where you got that from or why you injected politics into this. If anything the university establishment is overwhelmingly liberal and would be the one taking issue with this.
  - deleted 16y ago
    [deleted]
  - donaq 16y ago
    Let's not forget the fact that "conservative" is an actual word in the language and that it means "opposed to change". The change here would be not paying 40k for a university education, and arguing for preserving the status quo would by definition be a conservative position to adopt. I did not read anything political in your parent post, though I could be wrong, but in any case, why the knee-jerk reaction? *I am not from the US and the word "conservative" does not carry political connotations for me.
    - keithwarren 16y ago
      He said he went to UCLA (so I knew he was from the states or at least accustomed to the culture/lingo), he also used the word 'Conservatives' as a label for a group of people which given normal conversational English here in the states means he is referring to people who adopt a certain political position. For the record, conservative is actually a pretty poor adjective for the US political movement that bears the name. While some old fuddy-duddy white dudes may hanker for the days of old and wish we could go back - most people my age are 'conservatives' because we are against the growth of government and its encroachment into our affairs. We dont want to conserve anything, we want to change it and make it better.
      - hugh3 16y ago
        I think political labelling, especially in the US, is fundamentally broken. "Conservatism" isn't really about not changing things, while "Liberalism" in the US sense has only a little in common with its historical meaning (sometimes called "classical liberalism"). Meanwhile, "progressives" have somehow managed to capture a label which is pretty much an unalloyed good, even though many folks would think that the kind of "progress" which "progressives" want is not progress in the right direction. It ought to be possible to reframe the debate, but unfortunately that would require people to fully and honestly comprehend the differences between various political ideologies, and very few people seem interested in understanding what their political opponents actually believe.
      - donaq 16y ago
        Ah, that's enlightening. Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps due to the cultural gap, I've always had the impression that conservatives (the political movement) in the US were actually conservative.
bingaman 16y ago
Note the phrasing: "Khan has his skeptics in the education business." Emphasis on "business".
- nazgulnarsil 16y ago
  if a business can't be run profitably it means its potential customers don't value its product at a price that covers the cost of production + overhead. don't confuse the shitty government collusion in the education industry with a free market in education.

thethimble 16y ago

As a student at UCLA I can say that I have learned more from a handful of Khan's Calculus and Linear Algebra video tutorials than I have from several quarters worth of math courses at school. Clearly there is controversy in this statement. Conservatives insist that receiving a "quality education" at the university level should cost $40k+ a hear. A man that shatters this notion by providing free videos superior to many university courses cannot do so without creating an uproar from the old-fashioned. In any case, Khan has done a great service to this world. I hope this publicity will help his videos reach the corners of the world.

keithwarren 16y ago
I am a conservative/libertarian and dont think university level education should cost 40K per year. I have no idea where you got that from or why you injected politics into this. If anything the university establishment is overwhelmingly liberal and would be the one taking issue with this.
- deleted 16y ago
  [deleted]
- donaq 16y ago
  Let's not forget the fact that "conservative" is an actual word in the language and that it means "opposed to change". The change here would be not paying 40k for a university education, and arguing for preserving the status quo would by definition be a conservative position to adopt. I did not read anything political in your parent post, though I could be wrong, but in any case, why the knee-jerk reaction? *I am not from the US and the word "conservative" does not carry political connotations for me.
  - keithwarren 16y ago
    He said he went to UCLA (so I knew he was from the states or at least accustomed to the culture/lingo), he also used the word 'Conservatives' as a label for a group of people which given normal conversational English here in the states means he is referring to people who adopt a certain political position. For the record, conservative is actually a pretty poor adjective for the US political movement that bears the name. While some old fuddy-duddy white dudes may hanker for the days of old and wish we could go back - most people my age are 'conservatives' because we are against the growth of government and its encroachment into our affairs. We dont want to conserve anything, we want to change it and make it better.
    - hugh3 16y ago
      I think political labelling, especially in the US, is fundamentally broken. "Conservatism" isn't really about not changing things, while "Liberalism" in the US sense has only a little in common with its historical meaning (sometimes called "classical liberalism"). Meanwhile, "progressives" have somehow managed to capture a label which is pretty much an unalloyed good, even though many folks would think that the kind of "progress" which "progressives" want is not progress in the right direction. It ought to be possible to reframe the debate, but unfortunately that would require people to fully and honestly comprehend the differences between various political ideologies, and very few people seem interested in understanding what their political opponents actually believe.
    - donaq 16y ago
      Ah, that's enlightening. Thanks for the clarification. Perhaps due to the cultural gap, I've always had the impression that conservatives (the political movement) in the US were actually conservative.

bingaman 16y ago

Note the phrasing: "Khan has his skeptics in the education business." Emphasis on "business".

nazgulnarsil 16y ago
if a business can't be run profitably it means its potential customers don't value its product at a price that covers the cost of production + overhead. don't confuse the shitty government collusion in the education industry with a free market in education.