Ask Sal Anything! Daily Homeroom Live: Monday, April, 27

Hi everyone! I'm Dan to you from Khan Academy. Unfortunately, after about a month and a half, Sal's unable to join us today. But you do have myself and another kind of me team member, Megin Pattani, who's here to kind of hold down the fort while Sal's away. And you'll be joining us tomorrow, so don't worry about that.

Before we get started, if you have any questions, please start putting them into the comment box and the team will surface the questions for us to answer. We'll do our best to do our Sal impersonations.

So for those of you who are joining us for the first time, this is just a way for us to stay connected, especially at a time of social distancing and school closures. Khan Academy is a nonprofit with the mission to provide everyone a free, world-class education to anyone, anywhere. The way we've been doing that for the last 10 plus years is really by creating resources from pre-K with Khan Academy Kids through elementary school, middle school, and high school, covering courses in math, ELA, humanities, sciences, and more.

When this crisis hit, we recognized that it was our duty to be even more. We've created daily schedules and learning plans to help provide structures for remote learning. We've recorded parent and teacher webinars in mass to provide guidance and answer pressing questions. We've even launched the Khan Academy Kids YouTube channel with daily circle time, all of this in an effort to keep everyone learning through school closures.

I want to remind everyone that we are a nonprofit, funded by philanthropic donations by folks like yourself. We were running at a deficit before the crisis and we've seen our server usages increase two to three times what we normally incur. What that means is we also have increased costs. I want to send a special shout-out to several organizations who were some of the first to step up and help us during this crisis. So Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Novartis, and Fastly, they've all really stepped in to help us close some of that gap. But we need more. So if you find yourself in a position to do so, please think about supporting us.

If you have any questions, you can start adding them to the message boards and we'll try to get through as many as we can. So Megin, we have a really great question from YouTube from Gaining Runner. Mesh asks: I'm going through high school next year. I'm already worrying about work being too much. How can I keep up so I'm ready for high school?

That's a great question! And first things first, take a deep breath. I'm certain that you have a great support system around you and remember that you're not alone. A lot of students are asking themselves that question right now. Right? You've had a huge disruption to the end of your middle school experience, and taking on high school is such a huge challenge in and of itself.

I was a high school teacher for nine years, and I always loved that fresh look of new students and how they're eager to learn, still trying to adapt and find who they are as they change. Well, we have some great resources to help you on the academic side of that for sure. We have learning plans for math that we have things to help you with the content you're looking at right now, in terms of daily schedules to help you stay on track with what you're trying to finish right now.

Then there are learning plans for over the summer to either look more at what you might be learning to finish eighth grade or maybe to get you a step ahead so maybe that content doesn't feel as intimidating as you step through that first door. The other thing we might be able to support you with is we have some great growth mindset content, and that might be able to help you frame what you're learning and that experience and how you can prepare yourself for learning across subjects and even beyond the academic. So, I would really take a look at both our daily schedules and our weekly learning plans that you can see on the screen right now to get ahead in what you might be learning in math come the fall.

Yeah, I would just plug the learning plans. We just hosted a parent webinar last week on how to best utilize it. It was really for parents, but it's also, you know, as a student you can use that as well. It's really just a way to add a lot of structure and to make sure that, you know, the Summer Slide really doesn't get amplified, especially in a time of school closures.

Yeah, and we have a question on YouTube from Junior Foster. What are some of your recommended books for teenagers to read during this quarantine? I can pitch something. So right now, I've been reading Percy Jackson and the Olympians with my niece and nephews. We're on book two, Sea of Monsters. It's way better than the movies were! I find it really, it's really action-packed.

And we also have a recommended reading list from our Khan Academy staff. Megin, do you have a recommendation?

First of all, I absolutely love those books! I read them a few years ago, and I'm with you, Dan. I say the books are significantly better than the movie. Some books for high school students? Wow, that's— I mean, there's plenty of things out there. I'm a Harry Potter fan myself, and I think that, you know, that's always a great thing to look into. The other thing is I know there's some suggested reading lists out there. Some of our staff has provided some suggested reading lists on that same Keep Learning microsite that we shared on the screen a moment ago.

So, I would definitely take a look at some of their suggestions because there's some really wonderful people on staff who have put some deep thought into what they might suggest. The other thing I would say is that the important thing is that you're reading. It's often underestimated that while it's great that, you know, maybe you're looking for some recommended books from your teachers or from, you know, maybe our staff, but the important thing is that you're reading! Whether that be, you know, a blog or a book or, you know, maybe it's something else. I can't even think of right now, but as long as you're reading, what's really important is that you're engaging yourself and more than you know specifically any individual book.

Megin, we have a question on YouTube from Elliott H. It's actually for both of us: What are our roles at Khan Academy, how long have we been here, and how has Khan Academy changed during your tenure?

So, I'm on the marketing team. I lead the channel marketers and our product marketing folks here, and I've been at Khan Academy for coming up on two years. I, you know, I don't know if it's changed that much. I just feel like it's a team of extremely passionate people. Everyone's super motivated to provide that free world-class education to anyone anywhere. So, I think, you know, it's just been a pleasure coming to work every single day with a team that's just an incredible team.

That's beautiful, Dan! We like working with you too. And for those who don't know, Megin is actually my desk partner, so I said, "Why, Megin, if you want to add a good week overview, what do you do?"

Sure! I would love to. As Dan mentioned, he's on the marketing team. So, I work on our U.S. district partnership team, and I lead our U.S. professional learning effort. What that means is I work with teachers and school districts all over the U.S. and I design the teacher-facing resources on our site to better support teachers as they use Khan Academy with students.

As I mentioned, I was an educator for nine years and now I get to work with educators all over the U.S., and that's super exciting. I know part of the question had been how long I've been at Khan Academy. I've been here a little over two years, and one thing I've seen evolve is that Khan Academy always cared deeply about teachers and students. I think we've even tried to improve that connection with teachers and students and district administrators even more so.

We spend more time connecting with them face-to-face now than we did even before.

Megin, we have a really good question. I think this is really important for us to surface. Sal on YouTube, Daniel Yang asks: Would you make videos in different languages? Daniel lives in a non-English speaking country, and I always recommend Khan Academy to my friends.

So in short, yes! Megin, do you want to provide a little bit more info?

Yeah, I would love to! So Khan Academy is available in 50-plus languages, and we have an amazing team of both employees and volunteers called advocates who don't just translate the videos, but they localize that. We have experts who are creating similar videos on the same content but have real, local, meaningful cultural examples. So it doesn't just feel like we're voicing over Sal's original videos, but we're making content that is important and next to the students and teachers and leaders in those particular countries.

The other piece I would really highlight here is that even within the U.S., we find that schools really love having their parents and their community involved in their students' learning. If you have a student who's learning on Khan Academy, they can change their language from in school and out of school, so that parents and families and communities can support their learners in the language they are most comfortable with.

So maybe as a parent you didn't grow up in the U.S. system, you really want to support your child's learning, but you're most comfortable in your language. You can adjust that at home in your settings feature, and so your chairs can learn with you at home in the language they're most comfortable, and then they can switch that content back to English or whatever their primary language they're learning in at school. And again, we have 50 plus languages. It's on our website, and most of the images are available on our app as well.

Still seeing a few of those go pass right now! I can't stress enough how grateful we are for our international teams and for our volunteers who are really the ones that make a lot of this work happen.

Yeah, I want to double down and just give a shout out to those advocates because they are an amazing, you know, team around the world of folks who are really volunteering their time to do this. To Megin's point, they really are localizing and taking the opportunity to make things not only relevant in a language perspective but in a cultural perspective as well. So it's really important to highlight that there's a huge team that's doing that.

So, I will have a question from Scott Yang on Facebook: Hi Dan, today at 1:30 p.m., more than 40 badges were retired. Was this an accident or do you intend to make new badges?

I can actually speak to that! So, as some of you may or may not already know, we have a broad effort to make changes. We have a huge infrastructure project in which we're upgrading similar infrastructural platforms. Unfortunately, part of that, we had to evaluate some product features and things in terms of what we will be porting over in our new platform and what we can't.

The badges, although we love the badges and I'm sure everyone really appreciates them, there's a lot of complexity in the badges that we do have. So we did make the decision to retire 40 badges, as mentioned. The team is working hard to figure out once we port over what are the new motivation mechanics that we'll be able to surface. Some of that might be badges and some of it might not, but yes, we will be replacing that at some point. Just can't guarantee a time and what that might look like just yet.

Right. We have a great question on YouTube from Irish Nonair: Shawn plays Khan Academy. Do you work with teachers in Canada?

Megan, we do not work directly in the same way we work with school districts in the U.S. However, we are really grateful for input and feedback from teachers across the globe, including Canada, of course. So I highly encourage you that if you are a teacher in Canada or any place in the world to provide us feedback on what is and is not working for you or for your students or for your school. If you go to our Help Center, there are places to provide feedback.

Or if you have a question, believe, recommend.

Yep! I think we lost Megan for a second there.

Well, sorry Megan, you popped out for a second!

If you don't want it...

Yeah, no problem! Let me check my connection here. Is that in here? That's good! All right, let's try that again. While we don't work directly with teachers in Canada the way we do in the U.S., we do really value feedback from teachers across the globe. If you have questions or feedback or any great ideas you'd love to share with us, we are so eager to get those.

I highly recommend visiting our Help Center where you can provide that feedback or questions or see community responses. We actually read those and take those into consideration when we are making changes to the product or improving our teacher resources. So please, if you have feedback, we love to hear from you!

Maybe we have a question on YouTube from JR Foster. I think both of us can answer this question: What are some good study habit tips for us to use during these troubled times?

I think part of what we try to do at Khan Academy by providing the daily schedules as well as the learning plans is to try to provide some structure. I think part of it is building just good habits on a daily basis. Now, it doesn't have to be so rigid that you feel like you're struggling to do something. You know, alter it as you need.

I think our goal in doing that is really to create kind of like a lightweight daily habit. So I've mentioned, as Megan mentioned earlier, about reading. It's not so much important, you know, exactly what you read as long as you're practicing reading, and I think that the same thing goes with studying. You know, I don't think you have to follow one prescription.

At least personally, as long as you're doing something a little bit every day!

I would echo that, Dan. I know that everyone out there learns differently, and that's part of what's so wonderful about learning, right? People can approach things differently, and the same is true with study habits. Just because it works for one person doesn't mean it works for someone else.

Leveraging the schedules we provided to have some structure but adapting that to what works for you. Once you find something that works really well, I would stick with it. I wouldn't continue to experiment over and over again. Like Dan mentioned, providing some structure that works for you and sticking with it. We know that it's really challenging, and don't be too upset if you need a day to just take a break for yourself and then come back reinvigorated to work harder.

And Megan, we have another personal question here. Anoosh Bhagwan asks: How do you boost yourself when you feel low at some points in life? Do you want to tackle that first, Megan, and then I'll chime in?

Yeah, I think that's a tough question. I would say for me, I'm really grateful for such a phenomenal support system. First of all, I would say my husband has been a huge piece of my life when I have felt down or made a career change or things like that. Taking some time to reflect— I know Sal's really big on meditation— but taking that time to reflect on some of the really great things that you've worked hard for and been able to see those outcomes can be really powerful.

Then think about how in your current situation you can use those skills and learnings you've had in the past to move yourself forward now. So I would say a really good support system and reflection to, you know, make progress forward have been really important for me.

Yeah, I would echo the reflection piece. I think for me that that's really effective as well. You know, looking at just— not just reflecting on myself, but also just looking at the challenge from different perspectives. Like even now in a global pandemic, right? I do think there are silver linings. One thing that, you know, this could be a very depressing state and time.

I think for me, one of the things that really motivates me is, you know, behind the scenes here at Khan Academy, you know, we work hard on a daily basis but you can see the passion that your fellow coworkers have during this time to really help people who need the help most. Right? Like Sal himself. Sal's been working 24/7 for the last month and a half. Some of you, you know, kind of see him here and there, but you know he's waking up at 5:00 a.m. for calls on the East Coast for some media mention.

He's working at 6, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 at night to kind of draft the daily learning schedules. I would say that's indicative of almost everyone here at Khan Academy. You know, aside from the challenge of just dealing with the crisis on a personal level, everyone feels super passionate about helping out. I think that has really been particularly inspiring for me, and it can help lift my spirits during this time.

All right, on YouTube we have a question from Arav Jain: What do I do when my brain gets stressed in reading or math?

So, I think Megan, you already alluded to a little bit. Sal's been high on the motivation on the meditation piece. Do you want to speak to that a little bit?

Sure! So, Sal's been encouraging I think all of us to take a moment to breathe and meditate, and maybe take a look at some of the, you know, guided meditations that he's recommended or find a space just to take a step back. This can be a really, you know, math or learning can be really intimidating in a, in a what we think of as a normal experience, and only increases right now.

So don't be too overwhelmed! Just take a step back and give your mind an opportunity to take a break. There's always time to go back and work on that problem. But sitting there and repeatedly getting frustrated with the same thing when you're not, you know, having a productive struggle to move forward—take a step back maybe take a moment to meditate or step and do something else and then come back to the work so that you're giving your brain a chance to relax instead of just trying to grind through it.

We have two questions: actually, this one's two questions. One from Dave Hand on YouTube: I'm a teacher who'd you— what do you feel are some ways to motivate students to actually do the work? And then similar from I meet New Walker on Facebook: How do I keep my fourth grader motivated to study with schools not starting until the new school year?

So, I'm going to take a moment to plug our parent webinar that we'll be giving this Wednesday on motivation. We have a fabulous ambassador at Khan, Cory, who's also a teacher and a parent. Connor is going to be walking through like the top tips for motivating your child during this time. That's going to be on Wednesday from 3 p.m. Pacific at 6 p.m. Eastern.

For those of you who can't attend that particular webinar, we'll be posting the recording and sharing that out as we go. But in the meantime, Megin, do you have a couple of tips for these for Amit and Dave?

Sure! A couple of things we've been hearing from parents and teachers are, you know, one, taking the time to learn with your child or student. If you're showing them maybe something you're learning, you know, this is an opportunity, right? I think that you can learn anything!

Spirit is really true! What you might be able to learn alongside that has been really great. We've seen teachers get really creative about how they're motivating students, and I think some of those can easily be translated as a parent as well.

So we've seen teachers do things like leverage sidewalk chalk and visit homes and put math problems on driveways and then tape students, take pictures and send them back or mailing cards just to say, "I'm thinking of you!" or, you know, letting their child make a TikTok video with them in Halloween costumes. Things that are really, you know, unique and aren't necessarily high cost but really able to encourage students to learn something new and see a unique and fun reward for doing so.

Believe it may be time for us to do a couple of social media mentions. So, what, Sal's not here today! One of the things that I just want to call out from some of us behind the scenes, we are so appreciative of all of the social media mentions and comments and testimonials that we receive from all of you. I think it's worth sharing out because we get some pretty amazing ones!

And then also, please keep them coming. I think they add to kind of the inspiration and motivation that the team has when we get to see something amazing from all of you. So, Sal, can you put up a number eight, a tweet and photo from Jacob Zip?

Yep! So Jacob says, "Supplementing Google Classrooms with Khan Academy, the greatest value to be derived here is mathematics, science, and coding—my daughter's chief interests. Most parents at this time want kids to get it all right, but failure is a good thing. It aids the learning process."

So I think that's a terrific comment! Megin, do you want to speak a little bit to a learning mindset? Because it really does speak to building upon, you know, challenges that you may have.

Yeah, I think building a growth mindset is something we all need to strive to achieve, and it's the idea that, you know, "smart" is not something you are but something you can, you know, work towards, and it's a process! Right? Learning is a process, and having the understanding that failing does not mean failure—you always have the opportunity to grow and learn something new!

Your brain is a muscle, and the more you use it, the stronger it gets. So taking those opportunities of struggle and understanding that you learn more by struggling and being able to reach something, and how great that is when you finally reach that!

We have some great supporting content built in collaboration with Hertz at Stanford. So if you're new into that growth mindset, that learning mindset experience, we have some resources for both elementary and middle school and for high school. For teachers, we have lesson plans and guides that go along with that content. So we encourage you to leverage pieces of that or all of that as much as that's helpful to you.

Understand that all of us, right? You're not born with the ability to understand algebra. Right? Think about a small child learning to walk. Right? You can't just stand up and do it all in one day!

So being able to build your brain in that same type of way, building those skills over time and using failures as opportunities to grow is just again something we all really strive to work with here at Khan Academy and we encourage others to do as well.

We have a question on Facebook from Tasha Wright Nox: My kids have been using Khan for many years. How do I get them to watch instructional videos not done by Sal? They only want Sal! Kind of like when Steve Do I did love Steve on finishes.

Well, I definitely sympathize here! I don't have a great answer for this. Maybe you do!

I think that's a tough one. We all get comfortable with what we know, and change is hard! I think even I am hearing other voices other than Sal sometimes, you know, throws me for a loop. Understanding that there's so much value in diversity and being able to hear other voices and see other faces.

I think just keep encouraging them. If you can find, you know, one other voice or one other thing that interests them. Maybe if the topic is interesting first and then the voice narrating that or learning alongside students— you know, help support that!

But I would definitely say Sal's voice is absolutely wonderful! Obviously, of course, we're huge fans here at Khan Academy!

Being able to support diverse voices and views is really important. I would say even on our own site, if you look at some of our grammar content, you'll hear our colleague David or if you look at some of our history content, you'll hear our colleague Kim.

So if even is starting elsewhere on Khan Academy, if you look around you'll hear some other voices other than Sal!

And I would also say, I mean, the other thing is, you know, try to introduce something new every day, and if your child doesn't like that or isn't, you know, doesn't respond—try a different instructor and hopefully they'll pick up on somebody else as well!

Megan, we have a question specific: Syed, it's the car—sorry if I'm, you know, mispronouncing—Alam asks: Are you planning to give your amazing teacher training in Bihar, India?

We actually have an amazing Khan India team. So, Megan, you want to speak to that?

Yes! We have an incredible team in India and they are working on some incredible teacher resources and scaling training to schools in India. My first recommendation would be to check out the Khan for Educators India course that you can view anywhere on our Khan India site.

So, I would start there! Our incredible team has put together some really thoughtful resources about supporting teachers and learners in India. As we mentioned earlier, we know that it's important not just to translate content, but to localize to the needs and culture and aspects of individual, you know, countries and areas.

A huge applause to my teammates in India! Take a look at that content and I would contact them if there are specific trainings. I know they had things planned for in-person, but of course, at the pandemic, a lot of that has been put on pause. But I would take a look at the opportunities they have there, and it's really, really wonderful for teachers and learners in India.

And then we have an SAT question on YouTube from Rishi Gupta. Is College Board going to add more SAT dates?

So, I think, you know, one thing I would like to comment here is, you know, I think we just all need to be a little bit patient. I think there's still a lot of unknowns. I know College— I get a pleasure of actually working with the college team pretty closely. I know that for the upcoming dates they have increased the number of seats pretty significantly, and so they're trying to, you know, accommodate for this upcoming situation.

I know they have the desire to add more dates. I'm not aware of any that are coming up right away. I think part of the challenge is, you know, the uncertainty of when we're going to go back to kind of a normal schedule, and then you know how do we kind of add those dates around that?

So I don't have a great answer for that, but as soon as the College Board is able to announce anything, you know, they'll send it out and we'll also send out that information to you as soon as we have any of that.

Okay, here's a question on YouTube from JR Foster: What made both of you want to work at Khan Academy?

I can answer that first, Megan, and then you know, if you want to jump in. For myself, personally, it was complete serendipity! So I've always been a fan of Khan Academy from the first time I saw Sal's TED talk way back in the day. Then I was kind of just browsing the job boards when I saw Khan Academy's position open and I fit everything that I wanted to get out of my professional life, you know.

So, as a marketer, I'm always interested in, you know, the marketing work, it's the functional work itself. But I always was looking for something that was very mission-oriented for an organization. I wanted to be a teacher growing up, to be honest! That was one of the things that I was really passionate about. I was a tutor in high school; it was something that really just gave me a lot of motivation and energy.

Unfortunately, as a first-generation, you know, immigrant family, my parents did not want me to become a teacher, unfortunately. So I felt like this was the best of both worlds, where I get to, you know, use my marketing chops but I get to do it and work in a way that I still get to bring education to kids and families all around the world.

Megan?

That's a really wonderful Dan! Yeah, I was a high school science teacher for nine years, and during that time, I did use Khan Academy a little bit with my students, but one thing that was always a challenge for me as a teacher is that I wanted to be able to reach more students. Khan Academy was such a powerful tool, and Sal's, you know, approach to learning was so powerful for me and my students that it was, as you mentioned, kind of serendipitous for me to find a role that I was able to make the switch from classroom teacher to working in educational technology.

Now I feel like I'm able to help more students beyond the walls of my classroom, and I hope that it feels that way to teach some learners sometimes. I'm really grateful to work with such incredibly passionate people like Dan and the rest of our team who are just so committed to our mission to provide a free world-class education to anyone anywhere. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to be a piece of that.

So I think we're at time, Megan! Thanks for joining me today! I know it was a little bit of last minute, but I'm going to have tackle music.

Thank you audience for joining us! Sal will be back tomorrow with guest Mellody Hobson from Ariel Investments, and they'll be covering the economic impact of this. I wanted to again thank you all for joining. If you liked what you heard here today, if you like Sal's daily homeroom, please remember to like, subscribe, follow, and let your friends, families, and colleagues know about this session and about Khan Academy.

We have active communities on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and YouTube, so thank you for being a part of that, and please share Khan Academy with other people. And with that, goodbye!