- Hi everyone.
Welcome to the "The Daily Homeroom" livestream.
This is just a way for all of us to stay in touch
during this time of school closures.
And as we have in homeroom homeroom in the real world,
the physical world which we all now really miss,
it's a time for us to come together,
to make announcements, to answer questions,
and that's what we wanna do here.
So, as we go into the meat of this homeroom conversation,
and it's really just going to be
a really informal session today of being able
to ask myself and my team member Dan is going
to join us as well, literally any question.
So, go on to Facebook, go on to YouTube,
and ask anything you would like (laughs)
of me or the team here at Khan Academy.
What we have already been putting out for all of y'all,
parents, teachers, students, over the last several weeks
is based on the realization that Khan Academy exists,
we never could've foreseen this type of a situation.
But, we wanna create structures and support
so that you can use all the content,
and all the software that we've been making.
Which is all free.
It's all non-commercial in a way that meets your needs
as a parent, student, or a teacher.
And so, you can see right over here,
these remote learning resources we've been putting out.
Things like teacher webinars, parent webinars,
lesson daily schedules for students of different ages.
Also, we put out learning plans recently in math
so that students could learn through the end of the year,
and through next summer, or this coming summer
so that they can not stop learning.
I do wanna give a special shout-out
to several corporate partners who
are helping support all of this.
Many of y'all know, Khan Academy's a not-for-profit,
and with a mission of providing you
free world-class education for anyone, anywhere,
and that's only possible through philanthropic donations
from folks like yourself and from some of
our corporate partners that you see listed here.
These are folks that literally
just stepped up in the last few weeks.
We have other folks who have been helping us
keep going over the last several years,
but we were running at a deficit even going
into this situation and our deficit increased
because our traffic now is 2.5,
actually approaching three x of what it typically is.
We're trying to do more supports,
trying to accelerate some content software programs
that we normally would've done in a few years
so we can do it sooner than later.
Bank of America, AT&T, Novartis, Google.org, and Fastly,
all organizations that are really
helping Khan Academy deliver on its mission.
But with that, I would love to
literally answer any question you have,
and I'll issue a challenge to surprise me.
And I have team members, we have team members,
who are looking at the message boards on Khan Academy
and they are going to surface any questions,
and Dan will also help me surface
any questions that folks might be having.
Let's see, we have some questions.
I could start while everyone's warming up
with some questions we had from last year.
Sorry, from last Friday that we never got to.
One person Abderrahman (mumbles) Hasan from YouTube asks,
"How come Khan Academy is running a deficit,
"and what will that have an impact on the provision
"of free world-class education as you do now?"
That's a very good question, Abderrahman,
so, you know, we're running at a deficit
because, you know, simple math, we're spending more
than we are bringing in in philanthropic donations.
And we are able to do that in the near term.
We do have a little bit of reserves,
but obviously that's not something
that we're going to be able to do indefinitely.
So, what we've been, the reason why we've been spending more
than the resources we've been bringing in,
is the belief that these things need to be out there.
They'll be able to serve students,
parents, and teachers that much more,
and the hope that folks are going to step up
whether they're individual donors, or corporations,
or foundations to allow us to do this work.
So, running a not-for-profit, there's always this tension
of sometimes you wanna move ahead
because you think some work, especially,
we're a bit of a unique non-for-profit
that we are, we do software and content.
We aren't your traditional not-for-profit
that, you know, maybe does other types
of great work like running a soup kitchen,
or providing malaria nets, or things like that.
And so, a lot of our work has to be front-loaded
in terms of expense, in terms of, you know,
we have approaching a hundred engineers at Khan Academy.
We have designers, product managers
who are all thinking a year a head,
two years ahead of what to build.
And so, sometimes we have to say,
"Okay, let's build it and hope
"that we're going to be able to support it."
But it's a constant, it's a constant tension
that we are trying to figure out.
But my, you know, it's my intent
that Khan Academy, hopefully, doesn't disappear.
You know?
When I do wake up in the middle
of the night that is my main concern.
I wanna ensure that Khan Academy is an organization
that doesn't just last through my lifetime,
but has the financial foundation
that it can last well beyond any of our lifetimes
to serve hopefully billions of folks in generations to come.
But, that is, you're hitting at a very real issue
for me and the team here.
So--
- Sal, we have another question.
Sal, we have a great question
from YouTube from Selena Chang.
She says first, "Hi, Sal.
"Hope you and your family are doing well."
Selena's been engaging in online courses
at Khan Academy and meditation and her question is,
"What are some of the habits that she can enforce
"to optimize productivity and learning?".
- So, take anything, Selena,
anything I have with a grain of salt.
I'm always trying to optimize my productivity,
and learning as well, but the things that I found
are definitely, some form of structure helps,
and it doesn't have to be, and I actually wouldn't
make that structure too intense.
I think it's actually bad if your day
is completely chopped up into very small sections
because then you don't have time to do some deeper things,
to do some more creative tasks.
So, what I try to do personally,
and I've talked about this on the livestream before,
is I try to have some easy wins early in my day.
So, I wake up, I do that meditation, I, you know, get ready.
I make the bed which I've talked a lot about
that gives you an easy win.
And then when I, in normal times if I'm coming to the office
or I'm working from home during quarantine,
I try to, I find the morning is when I get
my most productive creative work, so that's
actually when I try to do some videos.
So, I try to do two, three, four videos
in that morning time period.
And then I'm able to, and then I feel really productive,
and then I try to go into the rest of the day.
If I'm a student what I would try to do is,
in that morning period, I would try to tackle
the subjects that maybe you find take
the most cognitive load for you,
and I would also make sure that you have
a little bit of time so, you know,
there's kinda this tension between having fragments
of time to make sure you touch on everything,
and then longer blocks of time so you can go deeper.
I would try to ensure that you get every day,
some amount of math, every day some amount of reading,
every day some amount of writing,
and then free up time in your afternoon for maybe,
if you wanna go deeper and say,
"Hey, how far can I get with this project,
"or this thing I'm trying to start."
Other things I would recommend is just
remind yourself to just get started.
It's easy to paralyze yourself by overthinking things.
But just say, "You know what?
"Let's just see what happens,
"and just put one foot in front of the other,"
and that act of moving will oftentimes unblock you,
but we actually are hoping to bring on some guests
over the next few weeks, onto this livestream.
Folks who are experts in things like grit and resilience.
Folks even from the military who are experts
at things like discipline and proactivity,
and how to stay focused on things.
So, we hope to bring in more resources like that.
So let's see, from YouTube Catherine Pierce asks,
"How long does it take you to record a video?
"Do you do anything to prepare, or do you wing it?"
So, great question Catherine,
and the simple answer it it depends.
You know, this morning I got some messages from Charlotte,
who's on our content team say,
"We need some new content in some of our geometry,"
because we, our old worked example videos
used the old exercises that we had on Khan Academy,
and now we have new exercises.
So, for something like that where I'm able
to take an exercise that one of our team members
has created, copy and paste it onto
my little drawing program that I have here.
That doesn't take much at all,
and actually I try not to over prepare for that
so that when the student sees me doing it
it's really in real time.
We're working through this together.
What we've heard, and at least what I feel,
is one of the benefits of Khan Academy videos,
many of y'all are familiar with them,
they're not super fancy in terms of, you know,
computer graphics, or they don't look
like a well-produced movie, but their value,
hopefully their differentiator is
that whoever's making the video with me,
or someone else is really thinking through it in real time.
They aren't reading a script, and so sometimes that leads,
you know, I might have a little pause.
I might say um, or something like that,
but you can tell that we're doing it together.
So something like a math worked example, not a lot of time,
and reasonably winged, so to speak.
But, if I'm doing a topic that I need to really refresh on,
or go deeper than I might've even known before,
that could take some time.
You know, we have videos on Khan Academy in world history,
or certain parts of say organic chemistry
that I definitely have to spend several hours to research it
and then I, what I oftentimes do,
is I might just write some bullet point notes
just to make sure I hit the key ideas,
but I don't write a script.
So, the bullet point, you know, might be like,
"Make sure you don't misspell
"these steps of photosynthesis," or something like that.
And then I start the video.
'Cause I do always want the student, the user, to feel that,
"Hey, Sal's really explaining this.
"His brain is really with his mouth," so to speak,
so hopefully people get that feeling.
So let's see, from YouTube, Elliot H says,
and Elliot has been referring to me
as Dumbledore Sal, which I'm flattered I think.
"Having scaled a start-up, do you envy friends who chose
"less risky, more lucrative careers in business and finance?
"Does that grass ever seem greener?"
So, Elliot, you're asking a great question
that is a very deep and philosophical question
because, as you know, grass often always looks deeper,
looks greener on the other side,
but what I found, in my life, is it's interesting.
When I was in, I guess you could say,
the more traditional industries,
back when I used to work at a tech start-up,
and, you know, I'm aging myself.
You know, 20 years ago now?
Yeah, I use to work at a tech start-ups
during the first dot com bubble.
Then, when I was working at a hedge fund
after business school.
When I was at a, and I was lucky,
I always had very good bosses,
and I always had I would say good jobs
that were intellectually stimulating.
I felt I was compensated more than fairly.
But there was that, when you are measured by,
if you're a hedge fund manager, or a hedge fund analyst,
how much money are you managing,
or what was the performance of your fund,
or how large was your bonus?
Then, when you measure yourself that way,
it's very easy, you'll always find someone
who is managing a larger business,
who has raised more money, who's getting paid more,
and you also don't see how difficult
their job might have been, you know?
I actually really enjoyed my jobs.
Maybe that friend of mine from business school
who's making twice as much as me
had a horrible boss and had a lot of stress,
and maybe, you know, their relationships were breaking down.
So, you never truly see that side of it.
But it is tempting to always say,
"Maybe I should be making more or maybe making less,"
and I realized even before I started Khan Academy
that that's a never-ending proposition,
and a no-win proposition.
And that was part of, frankly,
the rationale when starting Khan Academy.
To kinda try to be in its own lane
rather than try to start it off as a business,
and stay in that,
"Oh, let me beat those people out."
I'd say, "No, what's the right thing for humanity?"
and hopefully if we do the right thing
that's there for humanity that humanity,
or the world will help support this.
And, it's a very idealistic point of view,
but, you know, we live once.
Why not try to be idealistic?
Why not try to be optimistic?
And I'll say, you know, I can only speak
from my own narrative, it didn't come
without it's share of stress,
moments that I thought I might have made a blunder,
and I'd wonder what I was doing
to my family's finances and whatever that.
But when we got that first funding,
and even though my initial salaries
at Khan Academy back in the day
were, you know, a fourth or a fifth
of what I was making in the hedge fund world.
It didn't matter 'cause I still had enough
to be able to provide for my family,
to eat out every now and then,
to, you know, have our two Hondas,
and a 2,000 square foot house.
And the fact that I was able to spend my days
doing something that I really cared about
that I was able to get feedback from folks around the world,
form a connection with 'em, feel like I was helping them.
That made me feel like the luckiest person on the planet.
And so, you fast forward to today.
No, I don't have any regrets, and if anything,
you know, I obviously have a lot of friends
who've done very very well in life.
You know, I ask a lot of them for donations now,
(laughs) but I don't envy them in that way
because I remind myself that, you know,
knock on wood, you know, I have my health.
My family has their health.
You know, I have a amazing,
super intelligent, beautiful wife.
I have hilarious children.
I get to spend time with them.
I get to work on something that I care about,
and I'm, you know, from my point of view
the board here at Khan Academy compensates me
more than fairly, so I feel, you know,
all my basic needs for sure, are met.
And so, you know, what else can someone ask for?
Is the way I think about it.
I actually have trouble seeing other peoples grass
as anywhere close as green as my own.
So, I consider myself very fortunate.
So, let's see.
From Facebook, Laudo Stoiloff says,
"How do you think students can overcome their fear of math?"
So, that is a great question, and, you know,
you're talking about something that a lot of adults,
very accomplished adults who are clearly very capable,
say, "Oh, math, I'm afraid of that,"
and my theory, and I've seen things
that back up this theory.
I saw this with my cousins when I first
started tutoring them 15 years ago, 16 years ago
that the reason why they were having trouble
in math is math is very cumulative.
And, in a traditional model,
you're pushed together at a fixed pace,
and let's say the unit on dividing decimals.
You're a little shaky on it.
You got a 70 or 80% on a test.
Well, that gap remains.
And then later in ninth grade in algebra class,
when you have to divide decimals in that equation,
you're like, "Ahhh, I never really fully learned that.
"This is stressing me out," or maybe
you did learn it and now you forgot it.
And so, one of our core beliefs at Khan Academy
are we need to create the mechanism where you, the student,
can learn at your own pace, learn at your own time,
not have to feel embarrassed about something.
If you're an algebra student but you forgot how
to divide decimals, not a big deal.
There's many adults who forgot how to divide decimals.
You can go back to that content, and not only get videos,
but you can get that practice and that feedback.
So, my answer Laudo is, especially if, you know,
you're a student and schools are closed,
and you have the summer right after that,
go to Khan Academy, start at the very beginning.
Start at early learning on Khan Academy,
and I know that stuff will seem super easy for you,
but you'll be able to get through that if you use
the course challenges and the unit tests.
Literally in a matter of probably less than an hour,
you could get through early learning, first grade,
second grade, and then just keep going,
and build that strong foundation, and what you're gonna find
is when you do that, after a few weeks you're going
to get to your "grade level" and when you get
to your grade level with that strong foundation
you're like, "What was I stressed all about?
"This all makes sense now."
This all intuitive.
We get so many letters from 25 year olds, 30 year olds,
50 year olds, 80 year olds saying,
"I can't believe that I used to be afraid of math.
"I went on to Khan Academy and I started learning
"from the beginning and I realized how much fun it is,
"how it helps me look at the world in a different way,
"in a fun way, and I realized that all those things
"I was stressed about were because of my gaps.
"It had nothing to do with my ability.
"It had nothing to do with math
"somehow being a difficult subject."
So, that's my tip, and my other tip is
that if you're going to do that, do it regularly.
I tell family members all the time, friends,
anyone who asks me, "Put in at least 20 minutes a day."
If you're able to put in at least 20 minutes a day,
and give yourself even a break
on weekends unless you're inspired
to take advantage of the weekends as well.
But if you do Monday through Friday,
20 minutes a day, of Khan Academy.
Always progressing, always trying to level up skills,
using the course challenges, unit tests,
to accelerate as necessary, get that mastery.
I think, in about a month, you're going
to start having a different attitude towards math,
and I would say in about six months,
you're going to realize that you're all of a sudden
one of the strongest math students you know.
So, let's see, we have a question
from Facebook, Dede Vanwarmer says,
"Do you have any resources to make reading fun?"
So, reading is an area that we are just starting
to get into at Khan Academy so it's a fairly nascent state.
We just launched, what's known as a beta in software speak,
that's a early version that still needs to be refined
of English and language arts.
That starts at reading levels roughly
second grade through eighth grade.
I will let you determine whether it's fun.
I'll say the same thing that I just told Laud about,
Laudo about being able to do things regularly.
If you are an elementary student,
and reading is something that you've
always struggled with, start at the beginning.
Put in 20 minutes a day.
Keep going with that.
That could be helpful.
For older students, we have our official SAT practice.
It has reading comprehension in it, and once again,
I think it's a mindset, you know?
When I used to prepare for standardized tests
when I was in school, I just viewed it as,
I said, "Hey, let me enjoy this thing, you know?
"I'm kinda training for something."
The same way that you would train for a sport.
So, that could be fun.
My other tip is, try to find books that you really enjoy,
and oftentimes there'll be reading lists,
and we provide reading lists too, that we'll give you,
"Hey, here are books that are appropriate
for different grade levels," et cetera, et cetera.
Definitely take a look at those,
and have an open mind to things.
But, you know, I discovered my love for reading
when I started to find books that were
really about topics that I found interesting.
When I was young things like, you know,
space and the future, I found captivating.
So, I was willing to push through books
that were maybe even a little ahead of my reading level
because I was so captivated by that thing.
So, think about what you're interested in
and then just keep reading. (laughs)
And I think that'll always serve you well, you know?
The more you read and the more you're interested in it.
I wish I could give you more detailed answers.
- Sal, would you like to take a question on screen time?
We get a lot of questions from parents about
what the appropriate amount of screen time.
So, on Facebook, Shipra Shrivastava asks,
"Hi, Sal, hope you and your family are safe and well.
"And my child enjoys learning on Khan Academy,
"and since the courses are so interesting
"she can't stop doing them.
"I want her to keep going, but my concern is screen time.
"Do I limit the lessons?
"They're so fun and interesting.
"And should the app introduce time limits
"or something like that?"
- Yeah, great question Shilpra, and one we get a lot.
And so, I don't know how old your daughter is.
I mean, it's a great thing that she wants to keep learning.
My general rule of thumb, if she's younger,
if she's using Khan Academy kids app,
and she's four, five years old,
I would say try to keep screen time limited
to sessions of 15 or 20 minutes.
And making sure that she gets time outside,
time with family, plays, gets creative time.
And so, I oftentimes, I flip the screen time argument.
Instead of talking about,
"Well, what's the right amount of screen time?"
I say, "Well, what's the right amount of other things?"
And so, you gotta make sure that your child get time
to play, gets time outside, has quality time with you
and other family members, and if they're able to do that
and they have time to play and relax
then I'm less worried within some reasonable constraints.
On the other hand, there's kids who have no screen time,
but on the other side they're also
not getting those other things.
I would be far more worried about those kids
who are not running around outside,
who are not getting that meaningful time with their family,
but my general rule of thumb for a very young student,
I would say maybe 20, 30 minutes at a time max.
You know, we're in this kind of
stay in place order world with COVID.
I think all parents are having to,
everyone is going to have to get on screens
a little bit more than normal even if it's to ZOOM,
or be on a hangout with family members et cetera, et cetera.
So, I would say use your judgement,
make sure your daughter is able to play,
and has time for true relaxation
and joy outside of screen time.
For older students, there's a lot of screen time
where, you know, sometimes when I'm making videos
on Khan Academy which is a creative activity,
I might spend a few hours doing it.
Or if I'm writing a paper, or if I'm writing some code.
And so, if you have a 16 or 17 year old
who wants to spend some time practicing their calculus,
or their history on Khan Academy,
or is writing a paper, or wants to edit a video.
I would call that constructive screen time.
And if an older student is there,
I would still recommend that they get breaks
fairly regularly, but if they can, you know,
that could be several hours a day.
But there, I would still emphasize make sure
they have time to go outside, play, have creative time.
And that, if they don't have to be
on a screen they can do things otherwise.
Yesterday, I saw my son.
My sister-in-law has been kinda staying
in place with us and so she's in our house,
and he wanted to play chess with her,
and he like made her upload an app on her phone
so he could play on his iPad with her.
And I was like, "This is ridiculous.
"We have a chess board.
"Go to the chess board.
"Do not be on your screen just because it's a screen."
And sometimes we all are guilty of that sometimes.
There's something captivating about a screen.
So, I definitely think, when possible, go to real life,
play real chess, play real Monopoly, et cetera.
So, let's see, other questions, I have here.
So, Samira Hashim on Facebook says,
"Can you provide guidance to more people around
"the world to set up learning centers like Khan Labs?
"Would love to see something like it in Pakistan."
So, Samira, for those of you who don't know,
there's a school called Khan Lab School,
it's officially, it's not part of Khan Academy,
but it is a school that I started along with several
other families six years ago
that my children go to, and the whole idea there is,
you know, a lot of people think virtual education
is somehow in competition with physical learning.
And, I've always saw it as the exact opposite.
That virtual things like Khan Academy,
could be used to liberate and empower
what happens in a physical setting.
That it could allow students to do more games,
and simulations, and have Socratic dialogue,
and time for play.
I wrote about that in "The One World Schoolhouse,"
and then to prove that out I said,
"Well, there's no better way to prove it
then to actually start a lab school."
So that's what Khan Lab Schools is.
Our hope over time, the school is now K through 11.
It's going to be K through 12 in a few months.
Is that as we can prove out this model more,
it's also not for profit.
We just wanna share it with the whole world.
We wanna share what the model looks like,
and so I'm hoping that in a few years
anyone who's interested in starting a school
like that can say, "Okay, this is what they did
"out there in California.
"Here, my geography, Pakistan," or wherever it might be,
"is a little bit different, but I can modify it
"to what we're doing in my geography."
Because I hope it can be an example of what could be done.
Either as a new type of school,
or in traditional schools they say,
"Hey, maybe we could run our math class
"a little bit more like that."
And it's not that Khan Lab School has it all figured out.
A lot of what is happening at Khan Lab School
is informed by what's happening outside of it.
For example, Tim Vanderberg, who we had
on the daily livestream talking about
how he's had an incredible results
with his sixth grade students in Hesparian, California.
I forwarded that to the Khan Lab School teams like,
"Hey, Tim's got some great ideas.
"We gotta figure out how we can incorporate
"some of his ideas a little bit better."
But, thanks for asking.
So, let's see other questions.
So, Kim (mumbles), and I'm literally reading
these without knowing what I'm about to read out loud.
From Facebook says, "Hi, Sal.
"If you did not work with Khan Academy
"what else would you be doing?
"What other projects are high on your list of importance
"with regards to your interest and skill sets?"
That's, fascinating question.
Who knows what that alternate reality is?
I will say that, it's perhaps in my nature.
Obviously Khan Academy is where I focus all my energies,
but there's parts of the broader vision of Khan Academy
around, how do you fully empower people.
How do you empower teachers?
How do you empower students?
How can you reach people who
might not have access to school?
How can you give people credentials
so they can prove what they know?
So, all of those types of problems, I'm fascinated by.
And so, I'm hoping we can tackle most or all of them
within the umbrella of Khan Academy,
but whenever I meet a friend who has skills
in a certain domain, and they're like,
"Hey, what should I work on?"
I was like, "Well, you should think
"about a way to pair teachers and students,"
or so that they can, it could even be informal tutoring.
But doing in a way that can be free to empower everyone,
or we should figure out a way,
so that we can credential people,
so that more people can get apprenticeships.
So, that whole area, I obviously, of interest to me.
I would say that if I wasn't working in education,
the other area that's interesting,
you know we talked about meditation earlier.
I've become really intrigued by happiness.
How does someone become happy?
So much of our life we measure by economic success,
and happiness, at some level,
you do need some base economics.
And you see that, you know,
it's a scary world we're living in now
where even in places like the US
where because of the quarantine, or the closures,
a lot of peoples economics have gotten a lot tougher.
So, you need that baseline economics
to have that baseline of not being overstressed, and happy.
But then, you see beyond that, you know,
things like wealth doesn't necessarily correlate
so much with happiness.
So, it's a fascinating thing from my point of view.
And, when I think about my children,
obviously education matters.
I want them to be proficient in math,
and reading, and writing, and have a love for science,
and wanna invent things.
But I also see more and more, and I see this
with kids I grew up with and family members,
that you can be off the charts academically,
but if you go through, you know, life is gonna throw stuff
at you and I've been fortunate.
I've been thrown a few things,
but I know people who have been thrown much,
much harder things, and it's all how you're able
to process that and your level of resilience,
and grit and all of that
that really determine where you end up.
So, let's actually a really fascinating space,
and that's why we experimented with a few
of these meditation videos for students
because that's kinda the intersection
about academic success but also emotional resilience.
Even some of these questions we're getting about
how do you overcome math anxiety.
It's related to that same notion.
It's not just about learning the quadratic equation.
It's also about kind of reprogramming your mind
to realize that you're fully capable of doing this.
There's nothing wrong with getting a question wrong.
That that's actually when you learn the most.
And that, you know, no matter what life throws at you,
oftentimes you just have to wait it out and it tends
to get better than the very dire situation
that you oftentimes find yourself.
Obviously, there's exceptions.
There's people out there dealing with war,
and hunger and all of that, but for all of us
who aren't dealing with war, or hunger,
or bears chasing us or, you know, really hard things.
And there are people dealing with disease and things.
But, if you're dealing with just day-to-day work stress,
life stress, education stress.
Most of the stress is abstract things in our mind,
and it's interesting to think about what tools
can we do to make the best of it.
So, Kevin Rodriguez says, "Sal, are you planning
"to write a new book?
"Read yours years ago and loved it."
Oh, thanks.
Thanks, Kevin.
Yes, I do hope.
I was actually planning before all
of this COVID stuff happened.
The book might be different now.
The original thinking around the book was trying
to get a little more into the space, you know,
"One World Schoolhouse" which, you know,
not to plug it but since you brought up the book.
"One World Schoolhouse" was really
about how did Khan Academy exist.
What's the history of K12 education, and then given
where we're going and what the economy and world is like,
what could K12 education be like in the future.
And, as I mentioned, it was kinda the inspiration
for starting Khan Lab School which can hopefully
share things with other schools
to think about how things could change.
The next, I do wanna think about is
some of the signaling to the world.
How does someone prove what they know to the broader world?
What's the future of higher education?
And how does someone showcase their
best self and also be happy about it?
So, there is an aspect of social emotional well-being
above and beyond the academic
that I've been thinking about for the next book.
And maybe it's the exact same book
now that this COVID thing happened.
Maybe all of that stuff's even more important,
or maybe because of COVID a lot of things
in the virtual space are having
to accelerate in certain dimensions.
So, who knows?
When I get to writing that next book.
Let's see.
It looks like we're all out of time.
Well I'll answer one more question since,
well, there's actually a lot of good questions.
Whatever I don't get to today I'll get to
in future sessions when we don't have a guest,
but from Facebook (mumbles) asks, "Going forward,
"how important do you think traditional textbooks will be?"
I enjoy textbooks but I think they are in a lot of way,
you know, a lot from my generation who did well.
We were the subset who were good at reading textbooks.
We built that muscle.
And I think there's always going to be a skill there
because there is so much knowledge to be had in textbooks.
With that said, how is a textbook
different than a nonfiction book?
A textbook, like a nonfiction book,
will explain things to you,
but then it also gives you practice problems.
And, my belief is something like Khan Academy
can give you far more practice problems,
far more feedback, and hopefully the explanations
we give either in video form, text form,
or even in the exercises when we give the solutions
that that's more digestible than
what would be in your normal textbook.
So, I hope that Khan Academy can get
a lot more people learning at their own time and pace.
And I think textbooks will then become a reference
if someone wants to dig a little bit deeper
for some reason they can't get online.
They always have that reference set.
I think could be really useful.
So, I'm a little over time.
This is fun.
Time always goes by fast.
The questions are getting better and better,
but thanks for joining.
This is a fun way to stay connected
in times of social isolation.
I'll just remind everyone again.
We are a not-for-profit, and we are only possible,
we exist because of donations from folks like yourself.
So, think about if you're in a position to do so.
But with that, I will see you tomorrow.
Have a good Monday.