Homeroom with Sal & Rachel Skiffer - Tuesday, June 23

Hi everyone! Sal Khan here from Khan Academy. Welcome to our daily homeroom, which is our way of staying in touch. It started with obviously all the school closures and social distancing with COVID, but now it’s really just evolved into an interesting forum to have good conversations about education and other things.

Before we get into our conversation with today's guests, that I'm very excited to be speaking to, I will start with my standard announcement, or what I always say, which is a reminder that Khan Academy is a not-for-profit and that we can only exist with philanthropic donations from folks like yourself. So, if you're in a position to donate, please think about doing so.

I want to give a special shout out to several corporations that stepped up, especially once they saw that we were already running at a deficit pre-COVID, and that our deficit had grown in order to support the fact that our traffic was 250-300 percent of normal, and we're trying to accelerate a whole bunch of programs to keep everyone learning. A special thanks to Bank of America, Google.org, AT&T, Fastly, and Novartis. So, thanks to all of them! But I do remind everyone, we're still running at a deficit, so if you're in a position to do so, please think about donating.

So with that, I'm really excited to invite our guest, Rachel Skipper. Rachel, there are many ways to introduce you. You are the head of school for my children's school; that is one way. You run Khan Lab School, which I helped get off the ground, but you really are doing the real heavy lifting, you and the team there. Also, I think you have just a broad background as an educator. You know, you were the head of strategic strategy at Phillips Andover for many years. You’ve worked in admissions, you've worked as a lawyer, you've worked as a strategy consultant, so a very broad background.

So Rachel, thank you for joining us.

Rachel: Thank you for having me, Sal!

Sal: So a couple of things. There are a bunch of stuff, you know, when we originally scheduled you. One of the things that would be really interesting to talk about is how Khan Lab School may be a good place to start. Just to ground us, explain to me and to those watching, you know, why do you think a school like Khan Lab School needed to exist? What was interesting about it to you that you wanted to become the head of school? Then I’d love to go into how you've been able to navigate the COVID school closure situation, and then also talk about a lot of the environments that we're now finding ourselves in.

Rachel: Sure! So there are lots of things that showed me Khan Lab School needed to exist. I would say one of the things that was the most important to me was this underlying assumption that all students could achieve at a very high level, and that, because we give students this space and time to really master material without the outside pressure of arbitrary letter grades, allowing them a lot of autonomy and the ability to work with other students and other teachers, the motivation for our students is really internal. It's not pressure from parents. It's really the kids who are motivated because they want to learn.

I also think the year-round model for us is really exciting. Even when parents are interested in the school and they ask a little bit about our summer term and what that means and what the kids would be sad that they don't have summer, what I explain to them is school shouldn't be so bad for nine months that students need summer as an escape. But if school is really exciting for the whole year, students are really excited to come even during the summer, and it helps with things like knowledge loss and other things that happen when schools are just closed for three months.

Now, obviously I'm biased here, but I can say as a parent that it’s strange when— and it's a full-day school. So the school day ends at 5:00 or 6:00 p.m. The kids don’t want to leave, and the teachers, they don't like breaks. When they're sick, we kind of have to say, "It's time to go." They try to pretend they’re okay. It's the opposite of probably what some other schools have to deal with when kids are malingering. But our kids love it.

And what, you know, what has been— I guess there are a couple of things pre-COVID. What has been your take away? Have some of those beliefs been confirmed? What’s been difficult? But I think given the world that we're in, a lot of educators at a lot of places have struggled with virtualization or whatever school closures, and then we're going into another back-to-school season which is also going to be very uncertain.

So what's your analysis of how KLS has fared through these school closures? What do you think you all have done that has worked out well, and what are the other learnings?

Rachel: So I think some of the things that have worked out well, they've worked out well because they're processes and practices that we've always had. And so, for instance, things like student autonomy for our youngest students, say second graders, third graders. They’ll meet with a teacher who’s an advisor; they'll meet with that person once a week for 30 minutes to map out their week, what they're going to study, when they're going to study, when they're going to spend time on passion projects.

But we really focus on things like executive skills in addition to social-emotional learning— but really those skills that are so important when people leave school, but that most schools don't talk about or help support students in developing. So even though we are traditionally a brick-and-mortar school, and right, we’re not an online school, naturally just some of the technology that our students use and are also responsible for in terms of handing and work tracking their progress. When school moved from the building to home, a lot of our students, even the younger ones, again, had exercised that muscle of planning out their work, handing things in, using an electronic forum, and so I think that's been really beneficial for our students.

And I think also for our older students, particularly our seniors— we have our first graduating class coming up— we didn't have to have a whole debate about how are we going to grade the students if they're not here. We'll use a mastery-based system, which means that students can move forward once they've mastered material, and so what we say, it’s effectively sort of a 90 percent mastery of all the material so that they don’t have gaps.

So students were able to focus on the learning, and not, "Oh, is this a B-plus? Can I get it to an A-minus?", or "You know, I’m just not going to show up anyway because I’m not doing well." We allow students the space to really achieve and do well.

Sal: Right, right. And I have to say, you know, what's interesting for anyone— if you visit the school, what’s unusual or what people find unusual is you'll even see seven and eight-year-olds who have a very clear idea of what they need to do at any given time. And, you know, even though it might be associated with me or Khan Academy, in a lot of ways, it's not a technology-focused school. It's about student agency and collaboration and human interaction. And so you see these kids being able to take that agency.

And I know there’s a question from YouTube, Adnan Abbas Khan Chaiwallah, about, you know, why do you need a KLS if you have things like Khan Academy that kids could use whenever they want? I'll actually take a stab at that. The logic behind founding Khan Academy was I started founding Khan Lab School is that kind of— kind of me exists, and hopefully you can scale and empower hundreds of millions or billions of folks. But the existence of tools like Khan Academy allows us to reimagine what the actual school day or school structure could look like.

And so, some of the things that Rachael talked about: you know, why do we have to take off during summers? Why can't we go all year-round? Can't we get to a competency-based model? Can't we create a world where the students teach each other where faculty are able to co-teach, where they're able to do one-on-one smaller group sessions? And so the whole point of it, and why is to relax school, is so that it can explore these— eventually share with the world.

And I have to say, Rachel, you and the team at Khan Lab School, as a parent, it has been amazing how seamless it has been. But I think to a large degree because it is— you all have been reinforcing these ideas of student autonomy, agency, and these really personal connections between the teachers and the students, but I think is super powerful.

Sal: One question, you know, there are a bunch of questions people are asking about this coming school year, right? What do you think is going to happen broadly? Just someone who observes the education space, I know you talk to a lot of heads of schools around the country and principals. How are you all thinking about it?

Rachel: So we're doing a lot of scenario planning, right? And so we are— there's sort of a scenario where everything goes back to normal and we're all in the building as we were before, which is really we put that on the shelf because that's not likely to happen.

So now we're thinking about where our students are developmentally— we're at K-12. So what do our new five-year-olds or kindergarteners need? What kind of support as students move up through that chain through senior year? How much time, if we're able to, can they spend on campus? And then how do we do some of that teaching remotely?

And I’d like to go back to the earlier question about sort of why do you need a Khan Lab School? And it’s just because learning is relational. Right? As students develop, they move from this mode to building a foundation— learning how to learn, habits of mind, but content is important.

And even though there are a lot of things that are at a student's fingertips, it’s much easier to grow in your math development if there are things like times tables that you know and you can recall, instead of having to look those up every time you have a question. And so the same way, if I just put a piano in a kid's house, you know it’s actually helpful for them to have someone with deep expertise who knows kids well to really teach them and build scaffolding.

And so the students practice and then they're eventually able to learn pieces on their own. So I think what we've discovered, even though everyone is in their own home or apartment learning, is that it’s the community piece that's really helped and the fact that we know our students really well.

We've had enough time to check in not only with our teachers, but with our families to see who had the necessary technology and internet connections at home and who didn't, so that we could make sure that everyone had what they needed by the time school went remote.

So for the fall, we're doing a mix of health and wellness and what the County of Santa Clara is telling us is possible in terms of physical distancing, masks, things like that. And then we're also thinking about where our students are in terms of what they're able to do on their own, and then we're also thinking about the social aspects because even, you know, the most brilliant student who probably doesn’t need teachers anymore— even though they're really helpful to help teach other students, you still need that social aspect.

There's still so much about growing up that is about learning how to exist with other people and negotiate, and the moments in between classes— there’s as much value in there, I think, as the student says— what they’re learning in class.

Sal: So to get to your question, I think we're looking at sort of a hybrid model of having students at home, having students come to campus when possible, and thinking about how to make that as seamless as possible.

So we'll see! One thing that actually should defend time to brainstorm on it more, but I’m excited about it because, you know, when we started KLS, I was hoping that a lot of the school day could happen outside, but now we have an epidemiological reason for that. So I’m intrigued by how far— you mean just a tree in a hotspot.

And you know, people don’t realize the word “academy” actually comes from a field where Plato used to teach or have Socratic dialogues outside, and then it became his academies— academic. So I’m a big fan, especially if the weather is good. Even if the weather's bad, frankly, I think it builds character— you know, the kids are tough, they can handle it. It’s California, we’ll be fine.

Rachel: That’s right!

Sal: And even if it’s not California, you know, we’re meant to be in nature.

And there’s a ton of questions here about the education model, but I do want to actually broaden our conversation because I think there's another— obviously, what’s been happening with Black Lives Matter, with the George Floyd murder. And what I found, your letter to the community, I thought was— it was reflective and it gave justice to the moment we’re in, but it was also, I found almost strangely hopeful and had a silver lining to it.

So I guess one question that I think a lot of folks are struggling with, especially parents of young kids, is how do we talk about what's going on in the world? Well, how do we talk about police brutality, racism in this moment?

Rachel: You know, that’s an interesting question. I have preschoolers, and so the conversation I have—not as an educator but as a parent with my husband is sort of, "What do they already know and how can we best support them?" So I'd say for us as an African-American family, one of the things that we make sure of is that in terms of the books that we have in the house, our kids see themselves represented.

And it’s not necessarily books about the civil rights movement or, you know, people who broke barriers, but also about kids in Central Park hanging out with a dinosaur, right? Or kids who bring a lion to the library. But there's something about— an educator’s talk a lot about mirrors and windows.

And so there's a part of the population where they see themselves mirrored in everything— right? TV shows, games, the books that they have. And then there are kids that only have windows— they’re very good at understanding cultures that are different than theirs, particularly if they’re not in the majority, but they don’t see a lot of mirrors.

And so for us, in terms of building our kids’ self-worth, it’s really about making sure they have as many mirrors as possible in their day-to-day lives, including schools. So, you know, what books are in the school library, and what does the student population look like?

For older students, if I can put my educator hat back on, there have been so many book lists going around for parents to read— older students to read along with them. “Stamped” is a great book that I would recommend. “The New Jim Crow” has a young reader’s edition and also a teacher’s guide.

But I also think one, it’s important whether you’re a parent or a teacher when you’re having conversations. The point isn’t to necessarily traumatize particularly your Black and brown students. So if you’re a history teacher and you're talking about Emmett Till, you don’t necessarily have to show the picture of him in the coffin, right? Our humanity is not in our death.

But you can have a picture of him when he was alive, a vibrant young man. And the same thing with the books that are read. I think there’s a lot about American history that people in the U.S. don’t know. So for parents, what do you know about Reconstruction, at the time when African Americans were governors and senators, running towns, in addition to understanding things like the Tulsa race massacre?

So it would be, I think, disrespectful for me to at this point lack hope just in thinking about a lot of the work of the people who came before me— even in my family, my grandparents, my parents. And so I’m, for now, I’m hopeful, but I know that people have to do work.

Another good book, “The Condemnation of Blackness,” I think everyone has to check through their underlying presumptions about people. And the one of the things that brings me the most hope is just looking at the people who are demonstrating and protesting.

It's some of the most multicultural, and I think there are a lot of coalitions being built. So just the people who are in the street protesting, but who are also really focused on anti-racism, it’s probably the most diverse group of people that this country has ever seen.

And it’s happening around the world.

Sal: And what’s your advice? You know, something I’m struggling with at home, especially the younger kids. You know, all my kids, but you know, Azad, India— they’re five and almost nine years old. You know, they know something’s going on, and they’re curious. They might even have seen some of the footage of, you know— I hope they haven’t seen the footage of the George Floyd murder, but you know, how do you— because there’s one of this— the graphic nature of some of it and some of us like, "Well, maybe they saw it at some age. Maybe they should see it."

But then there’s also a question of, you know, for some of them, they’re just like, “Wait, this makes no sense at all— like why should anyone be, you know, based on their skin? It just doesn’t rock with their head.” And you're almost introducing the idea of racism to them.

Rachel: I mean, I think the reality is that even though they're young kids and young kids have a very well-developed sense of justice, they know it’s not fair. We still live in this country. Right? So there are things that are just there in the walls; they’re systemic that we don’t question but that still color how we interact with people. So one of the conversations, oh, you know, if you want to talk to your kid about it, is just to ask them what they know, what have they heard?

And I think people would be surprised by how much their children have picked up if they haven’t actively had these conversations in the house. Just, you know, kids are smart, and they get by with a lot of things because they know how to listen. So I think that you can assume that kids don’t see color. Right?

One, because they don’t. But two, there are a lot of studies that say even when kids are babies, they do. So then the question is, is the difference a bad thing or a good thing? And so those are the kind of conversations that you can have.

And I think there’s also the conversation about even sort of the most innocuous things that people assume about different groups of people. So can you have that conversation and be brave? And have you done enough work and study as a parent to be able to answer some of those questions and even question some of those assumptions yourself?

It's not easy, right? I did some professional development once with someone who said that sort of anti-racism work, it’s like going to the dentist. Right? It’s not one and done; you’ve got to floss, you’ve got to brush in between, and every once in a while you’ve got to go in and get a deep cleaning. So it’s just—it’s something you have to be conscious about and deliberate about because if you’re not, then you just slip into bad habits and old habits.

Sal: Yep, no, that’s super helpful. But I don't see— yes, it's not easy and it’s very nuanced. There are some questions in these conversations that go so fast when we’re discussing topics, but there are definitely some questions. Let's see— Marshmellow from YouTube is asking, and maybe we can, you know, broaden this. How will COVID evolve in learning?

I don’t think we will be very normal very soon, and what’s the new normal? So I guess, you know, maybe to paraphrase this question, there’s a stuff that you’re doing in the immediate term to, you know, make sure that everything is working so to speak. In back to school, but how do you think this is going to change education at KLS, maybe in a more permanent way, even post-COVID, or what implications do you think it might have broadly, you know, beyond KLS and in the system as a whole?

And maybe I’ll even add, you know, what’s going on with the protests and Black Lives Matter? Do you think that’s also going to have some impact on curricula or things like that? But COVID— both of these things that are going on in the world.

Rachel: So I would say in terms of what is COVID doing, I think it’s shining a light on how unprepared we are for change. And I also think it shines a light on how incredibly creative teachers can be in a moment, but that calls for a lot of support. And not just putting a laptop or an iPad in a teacher’s hand or a student’s hand, but what kind of real training that’s best led by teachers and teachers who are really excited about this kind of teaching, and that they can work with their peer group and their colleagues.

I also think all of this shines a light on the fact that the teaching should follow the student where they are, and so giving less weight to just how long has a student sat in a class but more, what have they actually learned in that class?

And is it okay for them to take a little bit longer to make sure they master the material, than to make sure that just, you know, things are running on time? And if you don’t get it, too bad kid, we have to move to the next thing. Like, is that the point?

So at Khan Lab School, you know, we always say that we’re here to educate and not to sort. And again, I think the underlying belief that all students can achieve at a really high level is somewhat radical. There’s good research to say that when you’re able to combine mastery-based learning where the goal for kids is to actually understand the material versus upgrade, and you’re able to do some kind of one-on-one time— not tutoring necessarily— but even sort of tools like Khan Academy are incredible for kids to shore up their skills.

That just the achievement is incredible. So I think I’m really having belief in all kids and allowing more space and time. And I’d say also there are probably millions of parents across this nation who have a deeper appreciation for teachers and what they do because it’s hard. Whether you’re teaching someone how to read or you’re teaching someone about stars or something like that, it’s all really difficult.

And it’s about making sure that the motivation for students is internal because there—we do a lot of hoop jumping, I think, these days.

Sal: Yeah, no, I completely agree. My own take is exactly what you’re saying: I think there’s a world where post-COVID the whole system, you know, this hybrid environment we’re in, it is actually— it’s making a lot of educators, a lot of systems have to think a little bit more in the direction that that y’all have already been thinking at KLS, which is how do we give students more agency but at the same time give them constraints and accountability so that they are able to— and supports with teachers.

But you know, rethinking, okay, is lecture the best thing or is it better for something that teacher time to be more in small group focused interventions or one-on-one sessions, and you know, goal reflections and things like that?

And I have to say, you know, I’ve been bragging maybe more than I should because obviously my name is associated with the school, so it probably doesn’t reflect well on me, but y’all have done an incredible job of being able to fluidly go between these, you know, in-person world and this, you know, socially distanced world that I think can be a really good example for what could be done in other places.

So Rachel, unfortunately, we're all out of time. I hopefully we can do this again in the near future because there’s a ton of questions that I didn’t even get to. I will just say, you know, I give a lot of credit for both Khan Academy and for Khan Lab School because of, I guess, that name association. But Rachel is one of the people in my life who has really, you know, been doing the real on-the-ground work of driving this broader vision and this broader mission forward.

And so I feel very lucky to work with her— not just as the head of school of my children's school which I do feel very fortunate about—but also, you know, really pushing forward these ideas of what school could be, not just for the 200 students at KLS, but what they could be for the, you know, billion and a half kids around the world one day.

Rachel: So thank you, Sal, for that.

Sal: Sure, thank you for having me! It’s a pleasure to be your child's head of school, your children’s head of school. Next time we can talk about synchronous versus asynchronous learning. I’m sure you’ll get some of those questions. But I think it’s a great time for education, and I think as a country we are poised to have some fundamental change for the better for all of us, actually.

Rachel: Not— you know, we had a nice conclusion going, but I— since you brought up asynchronous and synchronous, because there are several questions about that. How do you structure... I mean, how are you thinking about asynchronous and synchronous?

I think initially, when everyone had to shelter in place, the instinct was to sort of take what you were doing in the building and then just map it to an online platform. And it just doesn’t work, even for the teachers and the students. You have to move your body a little bit. So then the conversation is: what is great for students to be able to do together? What are the conversations that they can have?

And then what are those moments where they can actually do some work on their own? It’s actually better for them to have some space for flow and for deep singing. So for us, we are doing both from kindergarten all the way through 12th grade, and our teachers are incredibly thoughtful and creative.

And even when I look at sessions for the kindergartners, they’re actually engaged, but I think part of it is that in those moments they’re being asked to interact. Right? It’s not just our teachers talking to them, but they're asking them questions, they’re asking the students to work together. And so that happens in math classes, English classes, history classes, science classes.

So I think you need both, and I think just by virtue of it being online it can’t be as full of day as we’re used to students having when they’re in person, just because they need those breaks. But it doesn’t mean they’re learning less if the system that you have in place works.

And if anything, it’s teaching them again those executive skills, time management, planning that are really going to serve them beyond school.

Sal: No, and this is one of the areas— one of the dreams of KLS is that it can really work in symbiosis with Khan Academy. And, you know, one of the things that I’m excited about exploring with Rachel and the team at KLS over the next couple of months are, you know, a lot of these practices that Rachel and the KLS team have developed— can we help document some of that?

Because the whole world is trying to answer these questions right now. And so thanks, Rachel and the team for really, I think, doing a really amazing job right now. And, you know, thanks for being a guest right now!

Rachel: Thanks!

Sal: So, thanks everyone for joining. As you can see, I’m unusually lucky in getting people to show up for this thing and having interesting conversations. And the time always seems to go a little bit faster than I expect, and my apologies to all the questions that I did not get to. But I’m sure we’ll be able to get Rachel on in the future.

But for everyone watching, thanks for watching! And I remind you, if you’re in a position to do so, please think about donating to Khan Academy. But I will see you tomorrow!