Sal answers questions from attendees at his Schoolhouse.world series

I'd love to answer any questions y'all have about anything. Um, uh, raise your hands or uh, probably raising your hand is the best, is the best way to do it. Yes, Kai, ask your question.

All right, thanks. No, thanks again Saul for taking your time and answering questions. I super appreciate it. Um, my question revolves around a lot of, uh, like things that my colleagues have brought up, which is like dealing with burnout, um, especially with like obviously last year with the coronavirus and even now with the delta variant and like some quarantine and some measures coming back in. I think a lot of people, um, you know, dealing with multiple things outside of work, but it affects their, you know, work and their state of mind. So, um, what are some tips that you have like dealing with burnout?

Good question and excellent question, maybe the most important question. And I think burnout is one of these things. I don't know how many, I'm sure everyone here has experienced it in some way, shape or form, but it creeps up on you. Uh, you think you can handle it, you think you can handle it, you think you can handle it until you can't handle it anymore. And then it's usually, uh, too late to address it.

There are a couple of things that I have done preventatively that I've found have been like almost life-changing for me. I meditate regularly. I remember when I was younger, I was intrigued by this idea of meditation. It seemed very mystical and very powerful. And, but I remember when I tried it, when I was a teenager, I was like, you just sit quietly for four, you know, for 10 minutes, 20 minutes, 30 minutes. How does that work? And, you know, in hindsight, I think I just had an overactive mind and I couldn't even imagine what it meant to have a still mind.

Fast forward until I'm about five years ago, I'm in my late 30s at this point and I realized that I was approaching burnout on a lot of levels. You know, I kind of spread myself too thin, I was having to do a lot of travel for work. I never enjoyed planes and I'm starting to get claustrophobic on the planes. I was like, okay, something's going on, some things. And that’s where I rediscovered meditation. And I think, you know, it's one of those things and if possible, folks can mute their, uh, microphones. Uh, I hear some background noise.

Um, it is, is that it's a very subtle but very powerful thing. You know, I read a lot of these gurus who speak about meditation instilling the mind and our minds naturally gravitate to the very obvious things, the things that really hit our senses hard, but our emotional state and our mental state is a very subtle thing. But what I can guarantee to almost everyone here is if you do sit down for that even five or ten minutes, but you know, I find it really starts to kick in at around 30 or 40 minutes, and you just have faith that it's going to be good for you, that it will be. And there’s even going to be those days where your mind is wandering and there's noise outside and you're like, oh this isn't a good meditation. Even that I find after 20 or 30 minutes makes a big, big difference.

Also, the perspective that you take to it. I think some, some of us, myself when I first tried to do this, I was like, I wanted to be the perfect meditator and I wanted perfect conditions and I'd want silence. And I found myself getting stressed about the meditation. I would like yell at my kids, "be quiet I'm meditating," and I realize at that point that's completely the wrong way to approach it. The way to approach it is to accept everything and to observe everything and to just try to be still and to be curious and have a sense of humor about it. Like, you know, and then when you do it that way, I find it very energizing.

So that's my, my biggest life hack. Um, outside of that, you know, just really make sure that you have time for yourself and your family. You know, I just talked about meditation. For some people it might be exercise, uh, it might be socializing, but you can't under-invest in that. That's something that I've learned, uh, over the years, uh, that we have a culture that idolizes work and that's has certain positive aspects of it, uh, but you know, we're here to live our lives as well.

So that's my best advice: stay socially connected, meditate, and make sure you have time and space for yourself. It's, it's not going to be a, and you know, someone told me this saying, if you don't have the time to meditate for an hour, you should meditate for two. [Laughter] And I also found the other way that when I meditate, it's always a good use of time. Like part of my brain says, oh, I don't have 10 minutes. I don't really, you don't have 10 minutes? Then that's the problem, Sal. If you don't have 10 minutes, you need to slow down. Let's see, so many questions. I know I'm giving these super long. I think Selena was next.

Selena’s um, thank you so much for this session. I, um, I'm a high school junior at this moment and, um, I'm in a situation where, um, it's very hard for me to attend junior year in person. Um, and as I live in NYC, um, there's no remote option as of now. So I'm not really sure how I should proceed with this. And since I'm in a small IB school, um, the courses in 11th grade and 12th grade are two-year courses. So if I miss junior year, that would be really problematic because, um, 12th grade's, um, curriculum is based on what I learned in 11th grade. And, um, I feel that even in the scenario where my teachers do provide some guidance from home, it would be really difficult for me to perform well or even effectively learn the content as I'm, I'm having a different experience from all my other classmates. And I would really, really like to hear your insight and advice on this. Thank you.

Yeah, first of all, thanks for asking the question, Selena, and it does sound like a tough situation. Um, you know, my best advice, and as you know, junior year can be a very important year, um, especially, you know, as you're trying to think about college and all of the rest. Um, I, I don't fully, you know, know all of what you might have or don’t have access to. I do think the good news is there are avenues outside of the traditional that could, you can still learn a lot of the material or most of the material and prove what you know so that, uh, colleges and other folks can, can take a serious look at it.

Uh, many of y'all know that we've been talking to universities about Schoolhouse. University of Chicago famously last year said, hey, if, if you can certify your knowledge on Schoolhouse, and then even better go on to become a tutor on Schoolhouse, we, University of Chicago, are going to take that very seriously in the college admissions process. And they actually publicly had a very high admissions rate for the 40 or so kids who actually used Schoolhouse.world as one of the main signals that they used.

Y'all will hear shortly about MIT is also going to be, um, doing something similar. Uh, and we're talking just yesterday, I talked to 30 admissions officers at a bunch of universities saying, hey look, there’s an interesting signal here. You don't want to force everyone to do it, but here's a mechanism where at least in the subjects that Schoolhouse has we can certify your knowledge and then you can go on to become a tutor. I think that can be a very powerful potential route, especially because you can leverage Schoolhouse.world and Khan Academy to learn the material and then certify yourself and then hopefully even become a tutor yourself.

I think that will speak very favorably of how you are leveraging your junior year, uh, above and beyond the things you know, all of your math subjects that I imagine you'd be covering, your science subjects including, you know, we just launched environmental science and we've always had things like econ on things on Khan Academy. Between Khan Academy and Schoolhouse, I think you can do a lot. I think in your humanities, we want to explore eventually doing that in Schoolhouse.world. We're not quite there. There are some enrichment courses where people are starting to dabble in that, but I would recommend, you know, take a look at some of the MOOCs.

I think if you're able to go into some of those MOOCs and, uh, do well at in them, especially if you could leverage Khan Academy for your STEM and Schoolhouse for your STEM, and then use MOOCs for some of the other courses, whether it's the history course or your English course, whatever else. Um, and then also use the time to do well on standardized tests on your SATs, whatever. I think you're going to have a, I think you're going to have a good junior year then, and I’ve got to believe that when you go next year into your senior year, if next year you're going to apply to college, those colleges are going to take your circumstances very seriously.

Uh, they definitely look at people who had, you know, hard circumstances to deal with, and they say, what did you do out of with those hard circumstances? And if you were able to surprise them uh, with what you were able to do with those hard circumstances, I think you're going to be fully in the game. And I think in some strange way, um, having this time might end up being a gift in some ways because you're going to explore things that you might not, uh, have otherwise had time for.

Um, that's my best advice not fully knowing all of your circumstances. And I'll, I'll add what I had just said, also make sure you don't burn out, take care of yourself. Uh, make sure you don't lose uh that piece of the puzzle as well. Um, so sorry about that. Um, thank you for all the evidence so far. Um, I wanted to ask another question related to this, um, because my parents are actually considering virtual high school as an option instead, because I'm not really sure if I can, um, end up either retaking junior year or, um, delaying it. So I wanted to know if an online high school diploma would end up putting me at a disadvantage in college admissions.

I’m not an expert here, I suspect, and I think there's different online high schools I'm familiar with a few of them, there's like, you know, there's a Stanford online high school which is very highly reputed, and I'm sure there's others like that. Um, I don't think you're at a disadvantage at all if you go to some of these online high schools. And, on top of that, if you're able to do other interesting things, I think you're going to be very much in the game. So yeah, I wouldn't worry too much about that.

Thanks, Selena. Let's see, I'm going to go, let's see, I think Zoom does it so that whoever's furthest to the right was the next person. So Shivam, your question.

Hi, Sal, it's really a dream come true. I am meeting you after so long. You need better dreams, actually. I just a little intro, like I have been using Khan Academy since my grade 6 and I have over 1 million points on Khan. Okay, that's an achievement! Yeah. So I have just, uh, just about me: like I have perfected my math through you. I admire you so much. So other thing is I want to ask is I belong to a very small town where there are not good many good facilities. So, so how do you think, uh, would I be able to? Do you think is it okay to dream big? Like am I suitable for big universities and like students at us have like they do summer programs and all like that? And I am from India, uh, and I don't have that much, uh, facilities. But yeah, I am a tutor at Schoolhouse and I really enjoy that tutoring students. But yeah, the thing is I sometimes feel that am I really disadvantaged with the students who do such kind of programs who have done internships and all kinds of things like that?

Yeah, it's a great question, and you know, the way I think about it and I have, you're right, I'm sure you're in a circumstance where you don't have all the resources that you would ideally have. But I, you know, one of the dreams of Schoolhouse.world is that we can hopefully reward folks like yourself who are tutors, uh, and who are doing really good at it to connect them with opportunities that might not otherwise have been there. You know, so I kind of view myself as the guidance counselor for all of the tutor community here and say, like, how can I help all of these people get opportunity?

Because if you really think about it, you know, for college or for jobs, there's these huge complex processes that you have to usually all these hoops you have to jump through. But if you boil down to it, and I've talked to other people who hire people as, like, you show me someone who can, who's a highly rated tutor on Schoolhouse.world in statistics. I'm just picking statistics, could be other subjects. Okay, why wouldn't you hire that person? That person clearly has analytical skills, that person clearly can communicate, that person clearly has empathy. That, like, that's, you know, here's a little secret in most jobs in the world: if you have those things, you're going to do very very well. Everything else you can learn.

And so my hope is that we, not just myself, we collectively can figure out ways to connect you to opportunity. Uh, if, what grade are you in right now? What class are you in?

12th grade. You're in 12? Yeah. Okay, flying, looking to apply for U.S. colleges?

Yeah, well, you know, I think, uh, I just listed a few and obviously none of these colleges are quote easy to get into so to speak, they, um, but expect to hear a few more. And I think even the colleges that aren't part of our initial consortium, so to speak, I think if you are a very active, highly reputed tutor on Schoolhouse.world, um, we through the tutor community, we want to be able to help you. Like even if, even if there's a college that doesn't know about Schoolhouse.world, if we can leverage what we know, or our notoriety, to let them know, hey this is not a joke to become a highly reputed tutor, I would take this very seriously.

So then I think you would have, I think you would have a fighting chance. And, you know, I will say even if it does, if it does work out, awesome. If it doesn't work out, I think you're going to have multiple shots at goal. So wherever you go to college, there's always, you can transfer or even post-college graduate school or your job. I hope over the next three or four years, Schoolhouse.world being a highly reputed tutor on it becomes a major thing that a lot of people are going to index on.

So that's, you know, that’s my best advice.

Okay, thank you! Thanks a lot! No, thank you! Thank you for being a tutor. Um, let's see, I'm not sure if this is showing up in order. I'm going to go somewhat, um, random. Just to follow up on Shivam's question, I have, uh, four sisters in Afghanistan who is right now, and then a lot of girls, you know the situation being, they're really dire. I myself, I'm working on Facebook here, projects here, so I've been really fortunate to have your Khan Academy learning things from you and then also your platform. I was wondering how can we, um, expand that further and then give a chance for the, like a fighting chance for the girls in Afghanistan or other, like, countries where there's war or they don't have facilities like in India or elsewhere to how can they do that? And then how can they take advantage of this situation especially when the schools, when the system do not allow you to go to schools and like past sixth grade, you cannot even attend if you're a woman. So how can we use your platform and then have those girls like a fighting chance, if you can maybe kindly answer that?

Yeah, wonderful question. Um, so yeah, it's a big, especially given what's going on now. Um, some of y'all I've told this story before. I, the case in point is very clear, there's actually a young girl named Sultana, you could do a Google search for her. Uh, Miyu, you know, there's a Nicholas Kristof wrote an op-ed about her, meet Sultana, the Taliban's worst fear, he wrote this four, five, three, four years ago, but it's, it's exactly what you described even before the current circumstances in Afghanistan where when she entered sixth grade, she wasn't allowed to go to school, her brothers were. And then she luckily did have an internet connection, and she was able to essentially self-teach herself English. She found out about Khan Academy, that became her lifeline. By the time she gets into high school, she decides that she wants to be a physics researcher, a theoretical physicist. Um, she, she lies to her parents to go to Pakistan to take the SAT. She doesn't do well, anyway long story short, Sultana was eventually able to make it to the U.S. and is now doing quantum computing research at Tufts University.

And what I always remind folks is for every Sultana we know about who's able to do it, how many more tens or hundreds of thousands or millions might there be? And what she had to do to get there, you know, none of us, I don't think I would have been able to do that if I was given the same set of obstacles. So, she had unusual determination, unusual resilience. You know, my hope is that Khan Academy and Schoolhouse.world can be that lifeline. Now it is predicated on internet access. My understanding of what's going on in the ground in places like Afghanistan is that, you know, fingers crossed they haven't shut down internet access. So if, if that's what we can depend on, then we can provide layers on top of that that can at least give someone a lifeline.

And I could imagine, you know, Sultana went on her journey before Schoolhouse.world existed, but if Schoolhouse.world existed, she is someone who I very easily could imagine would have been very active in this community. She would have certified her knowledge, she would have used the community to learn frankly not just to learn the subject matter but frankly to learn the language, to learn English, and then she would have gone on to become a tutor. And, uh, you know, just like Shivam's question, I think she could have then used that as a signal to people to say, look, you know, this is someone interesting that we need to make sure has opportunities.

So that's my best answer. You know, I wish there were things that we could do more on the ground, and I don’t know, I don't know, but, um, you know, our collective avenue here is, you know, we can, the Khan Academy can make more resources, but I think Schoolhouse.world can actually be a very, very powerful resource, uh, for these young girls. If they just have an internet connection, um, they can become part of this community and I'm hoping, my dream for Schoolhouse.world is it between it and Khan Academy can almost turn into a safety net education system for the world. So that if you are going to a school with resources, awesome, use Khan Academy to personalize and get even better and get new Schoolhouse for supplemental tutoring so you don't fall through the cracks. But if you don't have a great school or if you have no school at all, Khan Academy, Schoolhouse.world, the certification, the tutoring, um, you, you can get to where you want to go.

So that's my best answer for, uh, an actual, you know, very unfortunate circumstances that the world is in right now.

Thank yourself for the answer and, um, could they also use your Khan Lab High School program to get admitted? And then especially if the schools are being shut down?

Yeah, so good question. So Khan Lab High School, some of you all might know, I started a school, Khan Lab School seven years ago. It's now K through 12. There’s a high school, Khan Lab High School. I'm always sensitive, everything has my name on it now, but people assure me it's good for branding. Um, I used to make fun of people who name things after themselves, but it shows you. Um, but, but the, uh, uh, you know, we are exploring doing a virtual component. The original spirit of the vision of Khan Lab High School is can we create a model that then can be replicated and everywhere? Whether we replicate it or other people copy, awesome. We are now realizing it, there might be interesting regard creating a virtual component that leans on Khan Academy and Schoolhouse.world, but could also cert that could also give people credit.

Um, you know, but, but I will say going back to Shivam's original question. Well, because even Khan Lab School, even for the students who are going there in person, it's a very non-traditional school. It's mastery-based. Kids have the opportunity incentive to improve their grades. We don't use letter grades; we use a slightly different form of grading, but it's unusual. So, um, there was always the question of these parents, it's like, are these kids even going to get into college? And what we have found is in the U.S. at least, the private schools are very flexible and are very open to looking at alternative things, especially if they can make sense of them.

So that's where I think the Schoolhouse.world certification tutoring could have a lot of value, and we're seeing more and more of the public schools are also opening their aperture to it. But you're right, if Khan Lab High School or other partners, we're talking to some colleges that also might give college credit for certain types of mastery on Khan Academy or Schoolhouse.world, that also could be interesting. So we want to continue to explore that. So, uh, see next question, Rene, I'm not sure if I'm going in order, but I'll try to.

Yeah, thank you, Sal! Um, and, uh, hi everyone! Um, at first I just want to thank you. Um, I used your account academy many years ago and I was able to get into a really good university and then, uh, get into my PhD degree program here. So I really just want to thank you. Um, and then, so my question here is how do you deal with information overload? Uh, you know, how do you learn something? Because every time you search for something, there are thousands and thousands of stuff. So how are you doing, uh, your learning in this world?

It's a great question, you know, I was once, I was giving a talk in Spain, uh, two years ago and the, it was the most poetic introduction I had ever gotten, but part of the introduction was this notion that the irony is when there's a flood, that's when actually people oftentimes die of dehydration or experience dehydration when there's a flood. And the introducer, he made the analogy is that the same thing is happening in information today. There's a flood of information, but we are still, but a lot of it we can't trust or, or, or it messes with us.

Um, even the news itself, even if we, I know there's a huge issue globally, but especially in the U.S. about news being polarized, and we're all in our own bubble, but even, even if you assume the news is not biased, although everything has some kind of a bias, even if you assume it's not biased, the news by its very nature is taking a world of seven or eight billion people and telling you the seven worst things that happened that day. Like, like our brains aren't good at processing that. You know, I wish they could tell us the, because the same day that those seven horrible things are happening, there's probably seven hundred thousand beautiful things that happened that weren't quote newsworthy and so it messes with your head, it messes with your brain.

So what I would say is protect yourself from it. I, I think future health professionals are going to realize that exposing yourself to this type of thing can become really harmful. That doesn't mean, you know, put your head in the sand. I, I read the news, but I really do try to be conscientious of like, look, I can go to a website and I can read a few headlines; I got the essence of the news. If I were to go and go on, you know, these 24-hour channels or in social media, I'm going to start getting all of these other things that are all designed frankly to get me worked up, and I don't want to be worked up.

So I'm going to go do my work, put one foot in front of the other, live my life, meditate. You know, sometimes when I am experiencing the information or overload and it might necessarily become not, it might not be from social media or from work, from, from the news; it might be from work. I'm constantly getting emails in, I'm constantly people are slacking me people are this, you know there’s nine to ten decisions that are coming to my desk every day.

Um, and, and I can feel it. I've become more sensitive to saying, hey Sal, you're feeling kind of off, you're not present right now. Then I just try to stop what I'm doing and even do a 10-minute meditation, just sit quietly or go for a walk. Um, I find is a great way to reset and then on top of that, you know, make sure you're getting exercise, make sure you're eating well, drinking a lot of water and sleeping well. I, I do this stuff religiously. Um, uh, so, so that’s my best advice for the information overload or when you're feeling angsty about the world. You know, just find a place of stillness, a place of quiet, and, and try to be careful on how much that stuff sucks you in. And I've been sucked in. You know, some of the news that's going on in the world, like, oh, we should watch it. I watch it and it's like, you can't turn it off. And like an hour goes late and you're like, I don't feel better right now. And I learned the important news within the first two minutes. The rest of the 58 minutes just made me feel kind of not so good.

So let me, let me go do something else, that best. And in terms of the question of how do I learn? Um, I’m constantly just asking questions. So I'm actually about to make a middle school science video on the atmosphere and some, some people on my team sent me some, some standards that we need to cover and they're pretty basic, uh, but I'm like, okay, what makes this interesting? And I'm like, okay, uh, let me make sure that I can help explain, you know, where does officially where does the atmosphere end in space start? Now, we know it's not, it's not like there's some line where it actually does end; it's, it's a gradation, but people have the Karman line and they've defined it as roughly 60 something miles. And, okay, what are the, you know, the lowest satellites? Okay, those, you know, it's about 100 miles.

Uh, and I just keep asking these questions of like, okay, if something's in low earth orbit because it's still going to have some atmosphere, still going to run into a few nitrogen and oxygen molecules every now and then, it's going to slowly slow down and slowly come back to earth. How long do they last? So for me, it's just asking these, these fun questions, um, over and over again and having that sense of curiosity about it, and then once I'm really jazzed about whatever I'm about to do, then I just press record and go. Uh, but you know, that's something pretty simple; if something is more esoteric, I like to talk to people about it. I'll call up friends.

Another thing I like to do when something is dense or I'm trying to conceptually get it, read it one day and say, okay, my brain will process it. I kind of delegate it to my brain and I'm like, by tomorrow, my mind will have insights about it, don't worry about it. Conscious Sal, subconscious Sal has it covered. And it's amazing uh, that it works, but it does. I remember in, in college when I would take the theoretical math classes sometimes you look at the problem sets and you're like, I don't, I can't make sense of any of this. But you do it, you at least try every problem, you close the book, go to sleep, and in the morning I can do like 80% of them. I've done the same thing on tests where I'm taking this test, you know, these really deep theoretical math classes and you see four or five questions and you're like, I don't know.

Let me just think about it, but then I kind of get into a meditative place and in about 20 minutes I'm like, oh, my subconscious is starting to give me the answers. I'm like, it’s amazing what the subconscious can do. Uh, so anyway, that’s, that’s other advice. We're almost out of time; let me see. I'm sorry I couldn't get, I'm giving you these long-winded, um, answers. Uh, let’s see, maybe Salik, Salik, Solik K.

Hello Sal, it's great to meet you! I am 12 years old and currently being homeschooled, and I'm also ahead of my class if I was, I was studying in school, so I've been using the Khan Academy platform since one year, and I have about 1.5 million energy points on it. Go ahead, sorry I interrupted you.

I'm sorry. It's okay. And I finished grade eight, grade five, I have rise grade five and grade six, and finished grade seven and grade eight, and also finish all the JavaScript on the Khan Academy platform and now learning HTML and looking forward to learning all the other programming languages available on the Khan Academy platform. So actually, I know it's a good, there's a very good future ahead in programming, so can you advise me and [Music] advise me in this. Since I'm from Pakistan and it's past midnight here, I'll take advantage and ask two questions, um, if you don't mind. So my second question is, I have a great taste in gaming, so, uh, can I have, can I build a future out of it?

Yeah, well first of all, um, Solik, I have, I have no, no, no doubt. I mean, don't get overconfident, but I have no doubt that you're going to do very well. Um, and I'll make my plug because I have you now. Before anyone else is asking for donations when you become a billionaire, a founder of a gaming company, remember how much of that was due to Khan Academy, um, and you know, ten percent maybe. Okay, I'm kidding.

Um, but I don't think I will thank you my whole life. Okay look I'm only half joking. Um, but, but, uh, to your point, yeah look, you, you, if you love coding and you're the exact same age as my oldest son, um, y'all will probably get along; he's also really into coding and all of the rest. Keep doing it and I would say keep building things, uh, keep progressing academically and I have no doubt that and your question about gaming, yeah I only think that's only going to become a bigger and bigger industry both in the gaming industry in particular and look you look at companies like Minecraft and Roblox stuff, I mean these are massive things and in the next 10 or 15 years there's going to be things that are a whole order of magnitude even bigger.

So there's I think there's unlimited, uh, work to be done there and also I think every other industry is thinking about how do they, uh, automate and leverage technology more and then how do they gamify more? You know something we think a lot about Khan Academy is how do we make better game mechanics so that we can uh, you know addict the Solik's of the world into learning and all of this? So yeah, you're, you're going to keep doing what you're doing.

Remembering my answers to the other one; don't burn out, don't put too much pressure on yourself. Uh, make sure you, you know, if you can, when I, when my children were first born, I was a little bit of a tiger dad thinking oh if they can master their subject matter if they can build some of these hard skills they're going to be fine. And there is some truth to that; obviously, every parent wants their children to be able to support themselves, support their family, have a healthy, productive life. But as I've grown, I realize yes that's important, but the most important thing is having kind of a mental emotional resilience. And that's where my first advice to Kai around the meditation and making time for yourself and having a good social network: incredibly, incredibly important.

If you have the combination of those two things, you really are going to be unstoppable because everyone's journey is going to have some high points and you’re going to get, you know, I have more low points than, than you all might imagine and I've definitely had them over my, over my life. But it's that ability to kind of detach yourself from your ego sometimes, to not get too worked up about some things, have some, have some tools at your disposal to meditate, to exercise, to whatever it is. Uh, for some folks it might be religion, uh, but it gives, it takes you into that meditative place. I think that'll make you incredibly resilient.

So if you've got the skills and you've got the resilience, you're going to be, you're going to be unstoppable. So that's my best, best advice. Maybe time for one where I know we're over, but I'm having a good time. Uh, Daisy, I'm somewhat randomly picking.

Hi Sal! Um, so first I just want to say thank you for all that you have done to enrich the educational experiences of learners to Khan Academy and now Schoolhouse. So I myself, um, I'm a tutor at Schoolhouse and I'm sort of constantly looking for ways that I can more effectively, um, like present or teach concepts. And so I'm sort of just wondering, do you have any tutoring strategies or tips that you like to use? And has there perhaps been someone, like a teacher, whose teaching style you really admire and who has been an inspiration to you as an educator? Thanks!

Oh, a good question and you know not that I've fully figured out. I think there's two modes that I get into. Uh, one is the mode, the explaining mode, and that's the one that many of y'all might be familiar with on Khan Academy. And when I'm in explaining mode, that's where I try not to script it. I try not to over-plan it. I do try to make sure that I am excited about what I'm about to do because I always tell anyone teaching, if you're not excited about it, there's no way that your students are going to be excited about it.

I also try to not be stressed about it because stress, humans are very good at sensing stress in other people. And for most learners, it's already a slightly stressful experience or maybe very stressful experience, and then if the teacher is stressed, that's only going to make the student even more stressed. So I like to, you know, even though you don't see my faces on Khan Academy videos, I actually do force myself to smile no matter what happened; my car might have gotten towed, whatever else. But I’ll force myself to smile before making the video. I force myself to just kind of relax. If I'm not relaxed, I will take a little bit of a one minute, two-minute breather, just get into a good place because it's gonna show up.

And then really try to focus on the intuition and the ahas and let your personality shine as much as whatever your personality is. I think when you show that authenticity, you really connect. And then the, you know, what I imagine who I'm speaking to, I really just try to speak to almost like a younger, not even a younger, just a version of myself that just has not learned this material yet. But I try to respect that, okay, they are also curious, they also want to connect the dots. I don't try to talk down to them or I don’t try to talk above them. So that’s that.

Now the other mode is the Schoolhouse.world mode. When you're actually with people like we are now tutoring, that's where I keep trying to remind myself the more that I can be a questioner and it can be directed questions the better. Uh, and I've had trouble sometimes with awkward silence. Like even at dinner parties, I'm always the guy that like when there's like three seconds of awkward silence, I'm trying to fill it in somehow. Who saw the game last night? You know, I, one of my things that I need to work on is being more comfortable with that awkward silence and also as a when you're tutoring folks, you ask a question, people might not have an answer immediately, but make sure they have some space to do it or give them context.

Like the message board where it's like, hey everyone, put what you think that might feel a little bit safer if someone's a little bit more introverted. I think try to pull people out of the screen as much as possible in Schoolhouse.world, make them feel safe but say, hey, you know, call on them a little bit. You know, what do you think? What, how would you approach this problem? But I think the more that you can make them do the work and you are, you're pulling it out of them, I think that's going to be a really good experience. And you just bring this, you know, joy and energy to it.

Um, I, I think it's going to be quite, quite wonderful. Thank you so much!

All right, all right, this, this is, super. Okay, well, I'll do two more quick questions, I'll do two questions and I will go to let's go to [Music] Jose and Sarah. Apologies to everyone else, apologies everyone, Jose and then Sarah.

Hi, Sal, um, my name's Jose, obviously. I'm 13, I'm a sophomore and an international student. Um, so first I, I just, I just really appreciate you taking the time to, um, help us, you know, um, by giving us this opportunity. Um, now my question is for students who want to advance, um, advance more than what their school might be offering, what the school teaches, the school curriculum, and for me specifically math and science.

Um, for students who have already taken the time to, you know, apart from, you know, doing the school assignments and preparing for standardized tests and all of that, um, also taking the opportunity to participate in extracurricular, uh, say online activities such as Khan Academy, such as Schoolhouse. For me, it's Khan Academy and AOPS, in order to advance their knowledge, um, for math and science, how they might be able to communicate to, um, schools as well as other institutions, uh, the knowledge that they've gathered on their own, using, you know, non-accredited, um institutions.

And you've talked a little bit about this in some of your interviews about how ideally educational institutions would be independent from accreditation because that allows mastery learning to take place instead of just, um, that, you know, that grade mindset I had. Um, I have to get 100, I have to get an A, right? Just, um, to actually take the time to learn those concepts. Um, how do you communicate that to teachers?

Yeah, you know, the good thing is there are ways to do it even without any kind of extra systemic support. I remember when I was in high school, I was going through a similar, I was taking courses that I grew, I was born and raised in New Orleans, so I was taking courses at the University of New Orleans while I was in high school which back then was actually a fairly non-standard thing to do. And so actually at first, I remember them not even letting me take the courses because I wanted to take them when I was, you're roughly your age, and they're like, we don't do that.

And I remember I kept going to there saying like, what do I need to do to let you take the court? And you'd be surprised if you're persistent enough, people will eventually let you. And then I remember I wanted to take more courses and then they wouldn't let me because there's some policy, and then I said, well, see how I do. So I think you can always keep pushing, keep pushing the envelope there, never doubt the power of that. The good thing is some of these ideas are a lot more mainstream now, and you know, just the very fact that you're thinking about this at age 13 is a, sorry, my kids are screaming in the other room, um, that just the fact that you're thinking about this at age 13, I, it's gonna, it's, I wouldn’t worry first of all.

Uh, but we're working on it for you too. So if you go on, maybe you already, if you tutor on Schoolhouse.world and build a good, a strong reputation, as I said, you know already two very strong universities, are interested in looking at Schoolhouse.world tutors, UChicago and MIT, um, and I talked to 30 others yesterday. By the time you are actually going to college, I suspect we're going to have 50 or 100 of them that will take a serious look at it. I'm also working with some scholarships; I talked to a very prestigious scholarship yesterday. Don’t be surprised if in the next two, three months, Schoolhouse.world becoming a highly reputed tutor on Schoolhouse.world puts you kind of at the front of the line for some of these really, really good scholarships.

I’m also going to be talking to employers, some of the employers that I think many of y'all would love to work at where, hey, if someone is a great tutor, a highly reputed tutor on Schoolhouse.world, why wouldn't you give them an internship? Um, and you know, we'll go back to my example. If someone can tutor algebra, calculus, statistics, biology, whatever it might be, by that point, we should hopefully have tutoring in other subjects, in English and in history and whatever else, by then why not, why not hire those folks?

So the good thing is you're 13. So by that point, I will have done more of the homework and you will have more opportunities than you'll know what to deal with, but don't be complacent. Keep working and meditate.

Thank you, Sarah, take us home.

Hi Sal, um, you have been my role model ever since. Even I used your platform even before there was even just your YouTube videos even, and now I'm a PhD student and I've shared those Sal Khan videos to almost everyone that I've met across my journey, so I'm in awe of your work.

Um, and I actually started tutoring on my own because I'm motivated by you and then I saw a Schoolhouse.world. I started a similar initiative in my, in my university, inspired again, inspired by you and I was like, oh, he has something similar. Um, so I just wanted to say thank you for all that you do and it really brings, um, a lot of joy to everyone learning. One of the things that I wanted to talk to you about was the motto, is you can learn anything, anywhere. So one of the, you hit on this previously as well, the issue is, what about these areas where there isn't internet access that even in the United States we have these low-income areas?

Now, have you ever considered partnering with these internet providers, maybe creating, um, I know Comcast has the, uh, internet essentials program and other companies that also have, uh, these internet access programs that might benefit? I mean how, how do you plan on overcoming this obstacle?

Yeah, great question and something that you know we can't, we constantly discuss at Khan Academy over the years the, the good if there is, if there is a silver lining of the pandemic is it it's put a bigger spotlight on this issue than I've ever seen, and we know for the first time, governments and industry and philanthropists around the world are more serious about it than they've ever been. In the U.S., this latest infrastructure bill has 60-something billion dollars to close the digital divide, which should go a long way. Now that's just the U.S. What about the rest of the world?

We, the simplest is yes, we'll we want to. We're, we are a relatively small organization. We're not going to be the people who could put fiber in the ground, or we have lobbyists indeed. We can't do that kind of, we have, we're not even allowed to lobby in DC, it's a not-for-profit. Uh, but we're not going to be the organization that does that, puts fiber in the ground or put satellites in the air. But I think the existence of Khan Academy in Schoolhouse.world, I think only highlights the importance of giving access. And access isn't just about academics; it's even just about economic empowerment and even social well-being to some degree, as long as you can stay off of the really bad stuff.

Um, but we, we, uh, so so we try to do what we can—actually Comcast has been one of our long-time partners. I had a conversation with the SpaceX folks working on Starlink, and if that works out, that’s great, um, that, you know, we can get more internet to more of the world. So yes, that's something that is definitely something we think about.

We have been signatories to things with Common Sense Media to try to close the digital divide and now they talk about the homework gap, which is really the digital divide at home. Uh, but we yes, we try to do whatever we can. Now the good news is it isn’t happening fast enough for any of us. All of us would love that five years ago, there should have been no digital divide ten years ago. There still is one. But if you look at it historically compared to almost any other technology ramp-up, you know, the refrigerator, television, it’s quite fast.

So I do try to think about let's build for where the world is going. So I believe in ten years, you know, the type of internet access and the type of devices that are currently, you know, fancy, I think are going to be fairly mainstream in ten years. Uh, and then if Khan Academy, Schoolhouse.world can sit on top of those, then probably not everyone's going to access; and in fact, probably the biggest barrier for access won't be that; it'll be like governments, it'll be like the Taliban, it'll be, you know, it’ll be stuff like that, war that disrupts people. But economically it should be hopefully feasible, so fingers crossed.

Uh, but we just got to keep pushing on that. We could, one of the things I was thinking about maybe creating like these, huh, like there's a lot of schools, well, earlier in the pandemic, I mean there's libraries closed or schools closed. Maybe creating these hubs of this. I don't know, again that branding of con like these con hubs are like that provide internet access in these low-income areas which obviously will have con, you know, Khan Academy in the Schoolhouse world on in the computers or whatever, but some kind of access to these low-income areas.

Exactly, 100% right. You know, we've had ideas and I've talked to people. This actually is what libraries of the future should be. I mean if physical books have, you know, that's good, but people need a hub. There's that, I've had conversations with major retailers; I was just like, why don't you take that back right corner of your store that no one goes to right now, turn it into a learning lab? And by the way, parents will come drop their kids off there for half an hour while they can learn from Khan Academy and Schoolhouse.world and their parents are going to buy something, they're going to do their shopping, and then you're giving them childcare actually too and then you could pick up their kids and their kids would have learned.

So yeah, open to all ideas—museums, libraries, even big box retail. And then in really, you know, rural places or developing parts of the world, you could manage a shipping container with an internet connection to, to Starlink, um, put a couple of low-cost devices in there, hire someone from the village who can just make sure that nothing shady happens, um, and go. You have a school in a box, so to speak.

So let's work like some kind of like to-go school?

Yeah, exactly! That's right! So, so yeah, that’s, I mean it goes back to that what I said earlier: there's two scenarios. You have a school, which hopefully you do, and then hopefully Khan Academy in Schoolhouse.world can make it even more personalized, even better. But we also want to be the world's, uh, education safety net so that no one has nothing, and actually the safety net’s pretty darn good.

Uh, so yeah, let's figure it out. It's not gonna be solved tomorrow, but it's, it's an admirable goal to keep pushing on.

So I will stop!

Great minds; we'll figure it out!

Yes, yes! And congratulations, PhD just as I just as I told, um, uh, Solik, you know, to be a donor one day either depending if you go to industry, academia, be a donor one day, or, you know, when you get the Nobel Prize, I just want a small mention.

Uh, if not for Khan Academy, you know, we might not have cured this disease, but don’t you worry, Sal, I’m donating to you already, don’t you?

Oh, very good. With my amazing stipend, I feel somewhat guilty about from, from that. But later on when you're making the big money then you should.

Um, but well thanks everyone, the good thing is this is a series we're going to be doing this again next week, so, uh, everyone—I'm trying to kind of remember the names and the faces of people who I did not get to, uh, and everyone else can ask questions too, so I look forward to hopefully getting to all of your questions next week. See you then; this was a lot of fun. Thanks everybody!

See you next week!

Thanks! Thank you so much!

Thank you! Thank you!

Were you the one that joined and I let people in? Or the town? Uh, you are gonna do this again or should we make a note?

Uh, Sal, next time is it possible to, I guess, give someone cause to let people in?

Oh yeah, I do that; just tell me how to do it.

Yeah, because I got like 10 challenge requesting, like they're waiting for them to enjoy the meeting and I don't have admin access, but it's okay. I just don’t want to leave, that's all.

Oh yeah, you're still part of the recording; I'm reading all the—I'm really, I'm reading all of the messages before.

Oh yeah, there's a ton of—I think you can download them too somewhere actually, if one of y'all can download them.

Yeah, yeah, if you, uh, the three dots at the bottom.

Yeah, same chat I think that submits as a txt file, showing finder!

All right, thanks everyone! See y'all!

Bye-bye everyone!