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Even if history is presented as a perspective, why choose Khans perspective? Why not choose another perspective? You missed the bigger picture of the article,

Even if history is presented as a perspective, why choose Khans perspective? Why not choose another perspective? You missed the bigger picture of the article, which is that a single entity never should control re-telling of events. There should not be one perspective. One person, one entity, can not provide different perspectives, due to echo chamber effects and such, it is almost impossible.

natural219 15y ago
Should we teach different things to different children, then, in order to promote educational diversity?
- saraid216 15y ago
  That smells like a rhetorical question. But my answer would be yes.
  - troutwine 15y ago
    Interesting; can you elaborate? Surely it would be folly, say, to teach some children _wrong_ things simply for diversity. I doubt this is what you advocate, no?
    - afy 15y ago
      In mathematics there is a well defined right and wrong, but in history there are often competing viewpoints of which none can be dismissed easily. I would say that to pick one as true and discard all the others is folly.
      - lurker19 15y ago
        There are still many approaches to teaching mathematics, of varying and debating quality, so many of these concerns still apply. Math teaching is not a commodity we can simply stockpile using contributions from whoever tosses a bit in the kitty.
- dendory 15y ago
  It's a matter of perspective and what is said and isn't said. Consider these 2 accounts of the same event: - The US Forces battle terrorist extremists to bring peace to the country, remove lethal weapons and pave the way for the first western-style democratic election. versus - After decades of war, in which two world powers, Russia and America, secretly sent arms and weapons to the country to fight their proxy wars, and then America bringing their own troops in, the natives now use those same weapons to try and defeat the invader and preserve their traditions.
rosser 15y ago
Why not choose as many perspectives as you possibly can? If human history (in the small-h sense, not the kind being argued about in TFA) is any kind of reliable guide, the truth will probably be somewhere betwixt all of them.
chc 15y ago
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.
- afterburner 15y ago
  The complaint is that he seems to be getting attention from a major donator and source of influence, which might get his "lessons" far more play than any random teacher. Which is a problem for the author since he feels the quality of the lessons is low. I agree with him; these look like "make me look not stupid in casual conversation" lessons, they don't seem to impart a real understanding of history, of these major events and what impact they have on the present world.
  - kstenerud 15y ago
    And does anyone with a high school level education in history even understand WHY the archduke of Austria was assassinated? Or WHY none of the powers at the time could pull out of the resulting domino effect? Or the onerous terms of the treaty after the first war? Or the discontent it sowed, leaving fertile ground for a dictator to emerge? Without this context, how could WW2 ever be understood? And even this is glossing over a lot of important stuff, such as the various nations' foreign policy, public sentiment, local politics, and how it affected pretty much every operation of the war. Who even remembers operation Market Garden or why it was significant? Does anyone even know why and how bombing of metropolitan centers even started? Of course not! Easier to say goodies vs baddies and forget the details. History is already taught without any useful context in school. It's rendered so dry and boring and detached from humanity that I'm surprised ANY learning happens at all. Khan is doing very high level, very loose connections at the moment which, I'll admit, contain even less information than the school system pulp. However, I'd be interested in seeing how deep he goes with subsequent videos before passing judgment.
    - younata 15y ago
      Archduke was incredibly disliked by the people he was governing. Why none pulled out is a mystery to me. The terms basically crippled Germany until they decided to call the allies' bluff. I have yet to take a college level history course, so I probably have errors.

natural219 15y ago

Should we teach different things to different children, then, in order to promote educational diversity?

saraid216 15y ago
That smells like a rhetorical question. But my answer would be yes.
- troutwine 15y ago
  Interesting; can you elaborate? Surely it would be folly, say, to teach some children _wrong_ things simply for diversity. I doubt this is what you advocate, no?
  - afy 15y ago
    In mathematics there is a well defined right and wrong, but in history there are often competing viewpoints of which none can be dismissed easily. I would say that to pick one as true and discard all the others is folly.
    - lurker19 15y ago
      There are still many approaches to teaching mathematics, of varying and debating quality, so many of these concerns still apply. Math teaching is not a commodity we can simply stockpile using contributions from whoever tosses a bit in the kitty.
dendory 15y ago
It's a matter of perspective and what is said and isn't said. Consider these 2 accounts of the same event: - The US Forces battle terrorist extremists to bring peace to the country, remove lethal weapons and pave the way for the first western-style democratic election. versus - After decades of war, in which two world powers, Russia and America, secretly sent arms and weapons to the country to fight their proxy wars, and then America bringing their own troops in, the natives now use those same weapons to try and defeat the invader and preserve their traditions.

rosser 15y ago

Why not choose as many perspectives as you possibly can? If human history (in the small-h sense, not the kind being argued about in TFA) is any kind of reliable guide, the truth will probably be somewhere betwixt all of them.

chc 15y ago

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.

afterburner 15y ago
The complaint is that he seems to be getting attention from a major donator and source of influence, which might get his "lessons" far more play than any random teacher. Which is a problem for the author since he feels the quality of the lessons is low. I agree with him; these look like "make me look not stupid in casual conversation" lessons, they don't seem to impart a real understanding of history, of these major events and what impact they have on the present world.
- kstenerud 15y ago
  And does anyone with a high school level education in history even understand WHY the archduke of Austria was assassinated? Or WHY none of the powers at the time could pull out of the resulting domino effect? Or the onerous terms of the treaty after the first war? Or the discontent it sowed, leaving fertile ground for a dictator to emerge? Without this context, how could WW2 ever be understood? And even this is glossing over a lot of important stuff, such as the various nations' foreign policy, public sentiment, local politics, and how it affected pretty much every operation of the war. Who even remembers operation Market Garden or why it was significant? Does anyone even know why and how bombing of metropolitan centers even started? Of course not! Easier to say goodies vs baddies and forget the details. History is already taught without any useful context in school. It's rendered so dry and boring and detached from humanity that I'm surprised ANY learning happens at all. Khan is doing very high level, very loose connections at the moment which, I'll admit, contain even less information than the school system pulp. However, I'd be interested in seeing how deep he goes with subsequent videos before passing judgment.
  - younata 15y ago
    Archduke was incredibly disliked by the people he was governing. Why none pulled out is a mystery to me. The terms basically crippled Germany until they decided to call the allies' bluff. I have yet to take a college level history course, so I probably have errors.