Khan for Educators: Khan Academy's Mission

I'm Sal Khan, founder of the not-for-profit Khan Academy. As you probably know, we have a big mission to provide a free, world-class education for anyone, anywhere. We know that the most important people in that mission are you, the teacher.

That's why, from the beginning, Khan Academy has always worked closely with teachers to create tools for them, so they can use them with their students and allow the students' learning to happen as well as possible. We are excited that you're a part of this training because I've always said if I had to pick between an amazing teacher and amazing technology, I would pick the amazing teacher every time.

The good thing is we don't have to make that trade-off. Here at Khan Academy, we are trying to build tools for you—tools that will make your life easier, that will save you time, and will help you serve your students better. Khan Academy is an online educational set of resources. It is a combination of world-class content that spans from kindergarten all the way to 12th grade and, in some cases, the first and second year of college.

We span across many subjects. There are two pieces that I think make it very unique. One is not just the world-class content, but it's taught in a way that is very easy to understand. We also build a lot of what we call social-emotional learning elements into the platform because learning is hard. It can be intimidating. You could feel underconfident; you could feel not very smart learning something that's very new to you.

So our product of content and software, the combination of both, tries to make it so it's easy to understand, that it's fun, that it's engaging, that it motivates you, and that it helps build your self-confidence. This way, you can start to be a self-motivated, independent learner—a lifelong learner.

What makes us unique are those elements of not just the content but the social-emotional learning part of the software. We also have a lot of built-in intelligence to know exactly where you are and all the steps that you need to learn. We have this thing called a knowledge map inside our product that lets you say, “Gosh, if I want to learn calculus someday, I need to know these foundational elements first, and then I can build on top,” sort of like a house. We have the foundational elements, and then you know how to build the first story, and then you put the second story. We connect all those dots for you.

Our reach and our scale today: we are in over 190 countries across the world, translated into over 30 languages by amazing advocates and volunteers who help us do this because they believe so much in our mission. It really does take a village to make that happen.

It is unfortunate there's a misconception of us wanting to replace a teacher. Absolutely not! There is no way that we can replace the teacher. They are such an important part of the student's life. For us, it's about providing tools and functionality for the teacher to empower them, to give them agency, to be better than they can ever be, to be more efficient, to be more effective.

So, tools and insights that we can provide to help the teacher enable them to be the best they can be for these students. The people at Khan Academy are amazing. I am so blessed to run this company because of the people I have—200 plus people whose sole goal is to enable this mission to happen. They just want to really transform the educational industry to truly help those underserved children, and that's what they eat, breathe, and sleep every day.

We’re excited that you're part of this training. Hopefully, you will find everything that we are able to provide for you to be of use. We look forward to getting your feedback about how together we can better serve you and your students. Thank you.