Ask Sal Anything! Homeroom Thursday, July 9

Hi everyone, welcome to today's homeroom live stream. Uh, today we will do an ask me anything, which is always fun. I enjoy it a lot. Before we dive into the questions, although I encourage you to start thinking of questions and putting them in the message boards on Facebook or YouTube or wherever you're watching this, we have team members who will help surface these to me. But literally, ask anything! I'm also asking team members to surface whatever shows up, even some of the more less traditional questions.

But before we break into it, I will give my standard announcement, reminding folks that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit organization. That means that no one owns Khan Academy. I don't own Khan Academy. You own as much of Khan Academy as I do. And we can only exist because of philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. So if you're in a position to do so, please think about donating.

I also want to give special thanks to several organizations that have supported Khan Academy pre-COVID, but especially when they saw that we were running at a deficit going into the crisis and our costs were going up because of server costs and new programs and courses we wanted to create. Special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, and Novartis who've helped us close the gap, although we're still running at a deficit. Donations of all sizes make a difference, so if you're in a position to do so, please think about making a donation to Khan Academy.

So with that, I am eager to take your questions about literally anything. And, uh, yeah, ask me about anything. I don't have the questions in yet, so I'll just start talking about random stuff. I was looking at that little starting screen for the live stream, and it reminded me about how bad my current haircut is. Not that my previous haircut was good, but several people have asked in the past about this. This haircut was done with a clipper in about 80 seconds. The SpaceX launch was about to happen, and I didn't want to miss it. I was in my backyard, so I took the clipper from my wife, who was a more accomplished barber than I am. That's not what she does by training; she's a rheumatologist. But that's how I got this haircut.

Um, I know none of you have asked about that, but I do feel self-conscious about that. So let's see from YouTube. Elliott H says, "What do you think about the lack of privacy on the internet? We saw abuse of power in George Floyd's murder. Do you worry that data collected by Google and Facebook will be used to hurt people someday?" Wow, that's a very big question, Elliott. I don't know. And you know, regardless of what your point of view is on data privacy, you know, kind of the genie might be out of the bottle.

Regardless, you know, we have a world now where everyone's got cell phones. Everyone can do live streams; everyone can record something and put it immediately on the internet. Now for the most part, we see. You know, we're seeing examples of that being used for good. We're seeing examples of that being able to document things that we've heard about. But when you see it, you just realize how horrific it could be, like George Floyd's murder or what happened with the birdwatcher in Central Park. And those are just two of the more recent examples. This is happening almost on a daily basis now, and that is creating more transparency, more accountability.

And, you know, that'll probably drive better behavior because, you know, in the past people who wanted to get away with something would say, "Well, you know, no one's gonna notice." But now it might be someone with a cell phone who's able to document it. It might be a security camera, you know, that's on the light post that's able to document it. And so you're a little bit more conscientious about what might get seen or not seen. So that element seems good, but then of course, there's another side to it, which is, you know, the argument.

There's always been this tension between security and observation and then privacy and liberty, because you could imagine an Orwellian government one day, you know, using that to control, you know, who interacts with whom or what information, you know, your track your, your, your where you move and all of that. And that could be a very scary thing. And there's also, you know, not even talking about an Orwellian state, there's worlds where, you know, you're a young person, you're in high school, you're in college. You know, I've heard young people sometimes don't do the most, you know, high judgment activities. You know, I might have been guilty of some of that myself, and it's not helpful if it's, you know, you're doing something kind of silly, you know, dancing with your friends in a silly way or, you know, me, and it gets documented and, you know, shows up on social media, and then you lose all control of it and then you've lost your privacy and your ability to kind of just, you know, even if it's something fairly harmless.

But if an employer sees you dancing in that really silly way, that might, you know, that might not be a good thing. So yeah, it's a tough situation. I think, you know, as individual citizens, you know, all I can do is, all you young people out there, be careful with what of folks recording you, you know, be careful of your privacy. You might, you know, want to post a bunch of stuff because it'll kind of make your friends giggle and this and that, but it could have very far-reaching consequences. You know, there's definitely examples of adults with a lot, you know, with careers, big careers who’ve made some stupid tweets or social media posts.

Now for society, it might have been good because then we realized what was really going on in their mind, and we realized that they probably don't want them to be the people entertaining us or the people who have that power. But you can imagine, you know, maybe for some of these people they said, "Wow, I made that really dumb tweet, and now it ruined my career." And I think, you know, that's something for everyone to be a little bit thoughtful about because it can get so easy to just kind of be, you know, unfiltered in those types of settings.

So anyway, I don't know. It's a hard thing that we're all going to struggle with together. But I said, I get a sense that the genie is already out of the bottle. Everyone's got phones; everyone's got recording devices they can post it onto social media. I'm even afraid of, you know, this whole world of deep fakes that is becoming more and more possible where, you know, you literally could construct a video of someone even if they weren't in the video, which is, you know, it's cool because you get to see Princess Leia in the new Star Wars, but it can be scary in a lot of other things.

So let's see from YouTube. Orchid Blossom, I like that name, says, "Why do schools seem more like memorization testing than learning fun and useful things?" That's a good question, Orchid. So I think there's two aspects about it. There's the aspect that you control, which is your mindset that you take towards school, and then there's the thing that I guess all of us collectively can control, but it's more of a systems change thing, which is how does school itself present information or guide you through that information.

So I'll start on what you yourself can focus on. I found that even if you are in a curriculum that is very focused on memorization or, you know, what seems like random steps of process, you know, it seems like, you know, how do you solve this equation? And it's not going to the intuition. There is always some underlying intuition. And what I would encourage you, and I said this before in the live stream, is remember like this material, even though it might seem like it's being delivered to you in a very dry or disjointed or memorization way, it usually is saying something very profound about the universe.

And even if it's fact knowledge, that fact knowledge is usually quite useful. And so what I would say is, you know, remind yourself that it might not taste so good right now, but it's telling you something deep about the universe. Ponder it. Even if the curriculum you're in isn't drawing the connections, ponder it. Take some time; indulge; think about how that thing connects to other things in the universe. And, you know, that's definitely the attitude that I took growing up, and I did just because I don't know, maybe that's just how I thought about things.

And, you know, for sure, I used to sit in some classrooms that felt a little bit rote, felt a little bit not the most engaging. And then I had other classrooms that were incredibly engaging, and the teacher really drew the connections and inspired us and made us appreciate, you know, how beautiful what was being learned really is. But when you have that attitude that regardless of which classroom you're in, you're always going to ponder it, draw connections, try to work through it yourself, then it'll all be interesting, and it won't feel like memorization. You will actually retain much, much more of that material.

Now, on the other side, what can the system do different? This is where we at Khan Academy, we are trying our best, and obviously we are far from perfect. There is a curriculum out there; there are standards out there, and, you know, smart people can have a hearty debate about what should be in and what should be out. But I think what we try to do at Khan Academy is to try to present it to you in a way that, one, you can get as much practice and feedback and confidence in the material as possible, but also have fun doing it.

And it could be fun because of the game mechanics and what's known as extrinsic motivators that have nothing to do with the content but are just motivating to do it. But hopefully, it's also fun in the work itself. Hopefully when you're doing the exercises on Khan Academy, you're like, "Oh, I'm kind of enjoying this." And many of you all have watched videos on Khan Academy; you'll see I usually am having fun working through the material. And hopefully, that is infectious to you. And hopefully, when you see the videos, and, you know, if it's me or one of our other content team creators making it, you see we're modeling for you that this really is interesting; this really is intuitive; this really is telling you something profound about the universe or introducing you to a new way of thinking.

Um, so we're going to try to do our best. I think many educators are also very aware of what you're alluding to, and so I've seen educators more and more doing their best to really bring the intuition, the interactivity, um, the human side, the interesting side, because the subjects inherently are interesting. You almost have to work to make them boring. So hopefully that happens over time, and you see more and more experiences that are more engaging and less, you know, rote memorization or boring.

Let's see, this is from YouTube. Fuzzy Space, I like that username as well, says, "Hi Sal, I teach math, and one of the things I am struggling to do is write digital exercises for students that assess proofs. Have you guys at Khan Academy come up with any ideas on how to do this?" Fuzzy Space, you are asking a very big question that we at Khan Academy have struggled with for many, many years. And we've tried to do our best.

You know, for those watching who don't know what a math proof is, some of you might remember those kind of two-column proofs in geometry. And when you took it, it might have seemed like some random things to the previous question. But a proof, at its essence, is can you start with some basic assumptions about the universe, which we call our axioms, things we just assume, and that from those axioms, you know, one of the axioms is I exist. I just assume I exist. You know, it's kind of hard to prove or disprove; you know, I think, therefore I am, whatever. But it's an axiom that I exist.

But from basic axioms, can you build, can you deduce other truths about the universe assuming that those axioms are true? And that's really one of the powers of real mathematics, you know. Abraham Lincoln famously intimately learned all of Euclid's elements, which is what modern geometry is based on, and even though it's, you know, we're talking about something that's 2000 years old, because he realized it made him a much more rigorous thinker and made him a better lawyer and made him a better debater.

And so that's what proof is all about. Just, you know, for those of you who aren't, you know, mathy, so to speak. What's hard about proofs is it's inherently a creative process. You know, whenever people say like, "Oh, well, you can do math this way, but, you know, creative subjects, you have to do that way," and I'll say, "Well, no, math is very creative as well." You know, if you talk to any mathematician, they're coming up with new and novel proofs that no one has ever thought about, new ways of deducing some truth about the universe.

And ideally, we could build that skill in as many students as possible, even if they don't become mathematicians. They, like Abraham Lincoln, will improve their critical thinking skills and their ability to think rigorously about what is for sure true, what might be true but is not proven, and what is for sure not true or what might not be true but we haven't proven it yet. The hard thing about it anything like that is it's, you know, in a multiple-choice or in a free response type of format—uh, we at Khan Academy, which is, you know, it's hard to make that autogradable or provide auto feedback.

We do attempt to do this in many of the standards by, you know, we'll have an exercise where there's a proof with multiple steps, and the user has to pick whether the proof is correct, and if it isn't correct, what step was the logical fallacy made in? So I think that's one area. You know, we have a couple of things where you can drag and drop rationales, especially in geometry, for why, you know, a particular statement could be right, and then what could be the next statement after that.

But to your point, it's very, very, very hard. I think, you know, the ideal would be similar to what you do in writing. I mean, there are some AIs that can grade writing now. In fact, we use it with our SAT work. Uh, maybe you can do something like that with proofs. I've heard of some projects. I’m not intimately aware of any of them. I also think there could be something around peer review that does it where imagine you're asked to, you know, prove some statement in mathematics, and someone who's already proven it and has been validated that has proven it—maybe it's an older student, or maybe it's just another student in the classroom—can then look at your proof and give you feedback as to whether it is correct or not.

That's an interesting mechanism that could happen inside the classroom. I'm also intrigued about ways that we could do that, you know, in the broader world as well. So from Facebook, Guillermo Acosta says, "How do we know if your child is ready to begin on Khan Academy?" Great question. Sorry, I'm having some internal, I don't know, burps, I guess.

So how do you know if your child is ready for Khan Academy? So I think there's two major experiences. One is Khan Academy Kids, and then there is, you know, kind of our website, which it also has an app and is available on mobile. So Khan Academy Kids is designed for ages two to seven. It covers all of the Head Start and Common Core standards for pre-K, kindergarten, and first grade in math, reading, writing, and social-emotional learning.

And so if you have someone, especially between ages 2 and 6, who is kind of at their developmental level, I highly recommend Khan Academy Kids. It's highly interactive; it's tablet or phone-based, so, you know, kids don't have to know how to use a mouse or a keyboard or, you know, read directions and all of that. I would say our, I guess, you know, core Khan Academy, or big Khan Academy, whatever you want to call it, I think for third grade and up, it is very usable.

Um, and why the reason why I say third grade is because Khan Academy does presuppose, you know, if you're using it online on the web, it presumes some use of the mouse and the keyboard. And even if you're using it on a mobile device, even if you're using the app, it does require, you know, some, you know, enter the equation or, you know, it says stuff like select all that apply. And, you know, to a kindergartner, select all apply, they might not even be able to read that, so— or even a first grader. So, um, I say third grade for sure is where we've seen a lot of.

And, you know, there's definitely examples of fairly precocious kindergartners and first graders and second graders who have high reading capability who are also able to gauge on kind of big Khan Academy, so to speak, starting with our early learning work, because our content goes all the way into early learning. I would say if you have a student, a child that's kind of right at the cusp, you know, Khan Academy Kids, the first-grade content, is feeling a little bit too easy for them, so they're ready to start going into second and third grade content on big Khan Academy, so to speak.

I would recommend for you as a parent or a loved one or sibling to be able to sit down with that student and don't give them the answers. Don't tell them how to solve it. But explain to them when it says select all that apply or if they're having trouble moving something with a mouse or their motor skills aren't where they need to be, that you can help them there and just also motivate them because the game mechanics or the motivational mechanics on the big Khan Academy are not, you know, 100 percent designed for the six- or seven-year-old crowd, so I think having a loved one next to the child working through it, I think that's great for Khan Academy Kids as well, but it's especially important for the younger students.

On kind of our non-Khan Academy Kids, Khan Academy— we have to come up with a better word for, you know, big Khan Academy, I guess. Um, see Facebook, Kieran Dadlani says, "Would love to know Sal's thoughts on how to get more girls interested in STEM subjects, especially math." It's a great question, Kieran. I'm not, you know, I won't claim that I'm the expert here, but, you know, I have anecdotal experience. Many of y'all know that Khan Academy started with me tutoring my at-the-time 12-year-old cousin, Nadia.

And in a lot of ways, what she was going through was what I think a lot of girls go through. You know, she was 12 years old; she was a good student. She was trying to do what's right, but she had kind of convinced herself that she wasn't a math person. And I don't know where it came from; I'm guessing it probably got from, you know, you hear your mother say that you're not into math or, you know, people gravitate towards, you know, I don't know. They see a movie where they disproportionately see that, you know, the man's the math guy and the woman's the humanities person.

And so they build these internal biases on who they are, and they start to find—and I do think it's around 11 or 12 or 13 year olds that all of us start really defining who we are. You know, what are we, quote, good at, not good at? And obviously, that's not a good attitude to have because that's not a growth mindset. You should say, "I'm good; I can be good at anything." And I can only discover that by failing and pushing myself out of my comfort zone.

But Nadia was there, and I did—I remember, you know, back in 2004, it took a couple of weeks for me to just deprogram this self-perception of her that she just wasn't good at math, and that was the biggest hurdle because once I kind of deprogrammed that, she was, you know, off to the races. This was a girl that, a young girl at eight in seventh grade, was put into kind of a slower math track. After about, you know, after that deprogrammed that or helped deprogram it and got her caught up and even ahead of her class, that within a year and a half she was taking calculus.

So she clearly was very capable, and, you know, before this, as a freshman in high school, she's very capable of learning math, as I think all children and all girls are very capable. So I think it's a combination of you have to have someone who truly believes it—not just giving them kind of lip service—truly believes that not only are they capable, they should be capable. I also think it takes the time and that kind of habit-forming of, let's call it 20-30 minutes a day of seeing that if you do that practice, and that's, you know, Khan Academy is here for that, that if you do that 20-30 minutes a day, no matter where you start, within a month, two months, you're going to see real gains and likely you would have caught up or even surpassed where your class is.

And I actually think, you know, I've gotten into pedagogical debates about whether it's good to go ahead of class or not, but I do think for student self-confidence, if you're a seventh grader who thought you weren't good at math, I saw it with Nadia. If you can get ahead of where your class is, if you—you know, I remember that first time that I learned that I taught Nadia kind of an algebra topic, and she picked it up quite fast, you know, simple solving equations. And I said, "You know, Nadia, this what I just did is in seventh grade. In fact, it's not even eighth grade; it's actually a ninth-grade algebra topic."

And I remember still, you know, kind of her—I could hear it in her voice. We were actually doing it over the phone, but I can kind of hear her eyes light up over the phone, that like, "Really? I, Nadia, have just done ninth-grade math? Maybe I'm a math person!" So I think that could be a fun thing: introduce, you know, don't make everything just about catching up or, you know, the next test. Start introducing a few ideas that are further out.

You know, with my own kids, you know, there are ideas from calculus; you can introduce the idea of a limit. You can introduce actually, to very young kids, ideas of solving equations. You know, I talk about this with my nine-year-old daughter, and she gets it. And when I tell her that, actually, you know, this is kind of a ninth-grade concept, she's like, "Oh, maybe I can understand, you know, maybe I'm good at this!" And I think that's the kind of thing that could be helpful.

So yeah, that's my best advice, but I'm definitely not an expert there. So from Facebook, Sim Her Hassan says, "Hi Sal, what are your views on the new policy for international students?" So I think what Syme is referring to is this policy, and I only read some of the headlines, or I read some of the articles fairly quickly, but what I read was this notion that if a student is not attending a college—an international student is not attending physically, attending the campus—that they will not get a visa, student visa to attend. I think that's a bad idea because it then makes the schools not think about what's right from a healthcare point of view.

And then they say, "Okay, I guess we're going to have to figure out some way for the kids to be on campus because otherwise they're going to have to leave." Um, and, and so, you know, it's anytime you're creating a kind of a conflict of interest in any space, that does not have a clear benefit to it—I, you know, it's like, you know, I don't get the benefit of something like this. So, yeah, that's my view on it. You know, when you issue an edict that will disrupt many people's lives and maybe even put them in some type of, you know, danger because of, there's a pandemic going around—or even puts professors at danger, not even just the international students—it puts a community in danger, puts the whole country, you know, because anyone gets the coronavirus, they now become a vector to spread it to others.

So that's not a good thing. Um, yeah, so that doesn't make sense. And if you're going to do something disruptive like that, it should have a benefit, and it's not clear to me what the benefit is of sending international students home if they, you know, or not allowing them to take, um, to be here while taking, um, while taking things distance learning, if that's what the universities think is most appropriate.

So, so yeah, I mean you can imagine you're a sophomore at the local university. You're an international student; you're on a student visa, and for very good reasons, epidemiological reasons, the university has just decided that it's best for the fall to do everything online. And so you're like, "Yeah, I'll do that. I'll stay in my rented house that I'm sharing with other friends, other students, and take that course." And now, all of a sudden I'm saying, I'm hearing that I'm not allowed to do that? I will have to leave the country, which might have all sorts of implications. Some of it is it's even hard to travel right now, but anyway, I'll— that's my answer to that question.

So from YouTube, Adarsh Persana says, "Is it very hard being a not-for-profit?" Um, on some levels, yes. Although I think, you know, to do anything in any way, shape, or form at scale can be hard, and there's always going to be competing interests. You know, if you're a for-profit, you have to raise money, get investors, hire up, etc., etc. And then the really hard thing is, you know, in some ways, for-profit, I think it might be easier to raise money because you can appeal to people's "Hey, I have an idea that can make you rich. You know, give me a million dollars, and I'll give you 10% of my company, and when this becomes a 10 billion dollar company, that million will be a billion." And people get, "Ooh, that's exciting; here's the money."

The hard part about for-profits, though, is because of that motive when you want to do something that you think is sometimes just the right morally thing to do or it's consistent with your values, but if it's not consistent with what maybe some of those investors think is should be your priority or what they think is going to maximize their profit, that can sometimes—and, you know, most investors are, I think are very good people, and they want to do the right thing, etc., etc., but the mindset is, "Look, we're here to optimize our profit; we're not here to be like, you know, do-gooders," so to speak.

Now, ideally, they could do both, but that's where it can lead to tensions. Not-for-profits kind of have the symmetric opposite problem where everyone knows that, like, the not-for-profit is very clear. There's no owners here; this is our mission. We're here to do good in whatever dimension do-good is for Khan Academy: it's free world-class education for anyone, anywhere.

Um, you know, give access to materials especially to students who otherwise would not have them; you know, try to move the dial and efficacy in learning, support teachers, things like that. So the good thing is when people donate to Khan Academy, they know that that's what they're donating to. You know, we have a board of directors that holds us accountable. It's made up of many of our larger donors, but also just experts in education. And what I love about our board meetings is that they, you know, they don't say—I mean, we, we don't have a profit in that nation— but they're saying, "Sal, how do we need to make sure that these philanthropic funds are reaching the kids that need it most? We need to be able to measure efficacy. How do we engage kids who otherwise would not be engaged?" That's the conversation, which I love, because it's super aligned with the mission.

The hard part is that, you know, you gotta raise money continuously. Uh, you know, there are revenue streams we've developed that are consistent with our goals. Folks like the College Board pay us to do a free SAT practice, so that helps. Um, we have corporate sponsors, but for the most part, you know, as you saw at the beginning of this, I ask a lot of people for money all the time. And, you know, you gotta kind of check your ego at the door when you're asking for money from people.

Um, but, you know, there's positives to that too. I think when people donate, it brings them into the mission; they become ambassadors for the work that you're doing. And, you know, one of the fears of not-for-profit is we also obviously don't give people stock. The way you know, if you work at a Google or Facebook, you get a nice salary, but then actually, most of your compensation comes through stock. Especially if the stock is appreciating, you know, you might get, well, whatever your salary is, you might get two, three, sometimes five, ten times that through stock.

And we live, you know, Khan Academy is competing in certain areas of the same talent pool. You know, we have educators and content creators and researchers, but we also hire a lot of engineers, designers, and product managers, and we could directly compete with the Googles and Facebooks of the world. And there was a fear that we would not be able to attract the same talent because we can't give stock because there is no such thing as stock in Khan Academy.

Um, the good thing is we have been able to track talent, which shows you that, you know, really great people, if you pay them enough, you know, so they can live and send their kids to school in college and go on vacations and eat at a restaurant every now and then, that they actually care more about mission, intellectually challenging work, and being able to work with other really impressive mission-aligned people. So we're seeing that.

So anyway, you could have, I, I, I would, I believe anyone running an organization that's a not-for-profit or for-profit at the scale of a Khan Academy, with the reach of a Khan Academy, uh, you know, wouldn't feel relaxed all the time. But to your quick point, you know, there's definitely struggles of a not-for-profit. You know, my dream is that Khan Academy is an institution that lasts forever, that when maybe one day there's an endowment so that it can last for hundreds of years, you know, for and billions of people, because I think the social return on investment is definitely there.

Um, so, you know, fingers crossed. So from Facebook, man, time goes by fast. Every time I do this, I didn't realize that only a few minutes left, but I go a little bit longer. There's a lot of really good questions here. From Facebook, Robert Hagan or Hagen says, "Do you recommend daily lessons during summer break? While I want my son to enjoy his summer break, I also know options for summer fun are limited due to social distancing."

So my view, and you know, I'm a self-described tiger cousin for my family; that's how Khan Academy started, and I have three kids now, I would say yes. And this doesn't mean ruining your son's summer vacation. It means 30 minutes a day of math, maybe 30 minutes a day of reading, and maybe 30 minutes a day of writing, journaling, whatever that is. And I think if you did that, and, you know, talk to your son, there's nothing that's—I just described an hour and a half of a very long day where the sun sets very late, and there's plenty of time for doing other things and playing outside and all the things that we know and love about summer.

So, but if they're—if he's able to do that, not only will his skills not atrophy, but he's likely to go into next school year—it goes back to that confidence question—whether you're a boy or a girl, just be more confident, have a bigger margin of safety, probably perceive him or herself more as an academic person who's capable of learning things. So I would absolutely go for it. And once again, you don't have to go forward; it doesn't have to be hours and hours a day. It can literally be—and, you know, worst case, do half an hour of math a day, half an hour of reading; like, that's not a lot.

So if your son is watching, I think if your dad asks you to do that, that is very, very reasonable of him. [Laughter]. Um, so let's see other—we're almost out of time, so I just want to—uh, does Khan Academy use adaptive learning technology? That's from Imani Malayka. To some degree, we've used it, and we're trying to do more adaptive. I could go, I could talk for many a long time about that, but I'll go to the next question.

From YouTube, Ramya Sivakanth says, "Do you have more than the Khan Academy website?" Well, there's the website; there's the mobile app, and also the website. There's also mobile web. We also have Khan Academy Kids. Separate from that, I've mentioned a couple of times on this forum, there's a little bit of a side project that I have called Schoolhouse.world, which is a very early-stage volunteer-driven non-Khan Academy project but related, where it's pairing up students who need help, live help.

Let's say you're on Khan Academy; you're learning; you're getting practice feedback; you're watching videos, but you still want live help. You can go to Schoolhouse.world right now. It's focused on high school mathematics. And then there's volunteer tutors who are running group tutoring sessions to give folks at live health. So that's another interesting thing that's at a very, very early stage.

See from Facebook, Jackie Tate asks, "What is the best math skills to get ready for the computer science section of Khan Academy?" Well, it's interesting—the computer science, the programming section of Khan Academy, you really don't need to know a lot of math. I would say if you get to kind of a fifth or sixth grade level of arithmetic, yeah, if you know your negative numbers, you're pretty well-versed with decimals, fractions, exponents, I think you're pretty close to being able to engage on our programming.

It was literally designed for elementary school, kind of late elementary school students. Uh, in that mind, if you have kind of a middle school level, or especially even early algebra, where you're starting to understand what a variable is, then I think you're in very, very, very good shape. But a lot of ways, you're doing the programming is a great way to learn what a variable is for a lot of students. V X Lee is asking a very flattering question, "How are you so smart?"

Um, my ego is flattered by that, but I will tell you that there's many times in life that I have and continue to feel not so smart. So everyone feels imposter syndrome sometimes; everyone feels out of their element sometimes. But I've been able to probably build more confidence than most in, let's call it academic or intellectual pursuits because, to the very first question, I've always been someone to ponder and try to draw connections.

And when something just doesn't make sense, I haven't been afraid to ask what some people would call, you know, dumb questions. And I found that oftentimes what you think are a dumb question, when you really dig in and double click and ask someone, they oftentimes can be profound questions. And that can make you build your confidence. So I would say it's all about creating a habit of learning, a habit of being curious. Keep asking questions; don't be afraid to show your vulnerability and fill in those gaps.

Because before you know it, you're going to be, you know, a polymath that knows a lot about a lot of subjects. Um, and you know, let's see, Muhammad Sami Musaid from YouTube asks, "How can you get yourself to start liking school?" Look, you know, in most of human history, we have just never had the luxury of investing in understanding the universe. Most of human history, we were, you know, running away from things or chasing down things for a meal or worried about wars with a neighboring tribe or something like that.

And so it's actually an incredible luxury for us to have something—and I won't, I think it's a necessity—but compared to most of human history, it would have seemed like a luxury to be able to have a time of your life where you can invest and learn and develop your critical thinking. And I know it's not always the most engaging, and sometimes it can feel a little bit demoralizing. But when you realize that you're getting to learn human knowledge that has been built up over thousands of years, that Newton, Marie Curie, that, you know, the kings of antiquity would have killed—they probably literally would have killed—to learn the knowledge that you get to learn over the course of your schooling.

And to realize that you know, don't put it all on other people to make it interesting for you. Don't put it all on, you know, other people to kind of spoon-feed the knowledge to you. You—this is all about you really owning it and kind of owning the hill. So I'm using a skiing analogy, because I'm not a great skier, but that was kind of was a unlocking for me, where it's just like, don't be afraid of the hill. Own the hill! This is your hill! I'm still a horrible skier, but have that same mindset when you're learning something.

Don't put it on the teachers like, "Hey teacher, make this interesting for me, otherwise, I'm going to check out." That's not fair to the teacher because you say, "Hey, I'm going to put it on myself to make it interesting." And there's more resources than ever. You have your textbooks; you have your incredible teachers; but you also have resources like Khan Academy. You know, if you want to know why something is useful, things like on YouTube, now there's someone who's made a video about pretty much everything on an enrichment side of things.

So, you know, the world's your oyster. You know, it's really for you to make it what you want to make of it. So with that, I realize I'm way over time. I have a lot of fun doing these ask me anythings. I think we might be doing it again tomorrow; worst case, Monday. Um, but either way, I look forward to continuing our conversation. So, thanks! Thank you everyone for joining today!