After watching this video from a TED talk by Salman Khan I am inspired and excited that there are technology based solutions being made available to help our education systems, regardless of where you live.
I have long been concerned about our education systems and how they are failing the developed nations. The system has become a machine that spits out human lives without much concern for their actual preparedness to survive reality. The continuous pushing down of the curriculum, forces kids to learn more information than we ever had to and at a faster pace. The reality of this approach is that all those small gaps that students develop based on information they did not quite get, become serious knowledge gaps as they progress further through the system. The overall result of this approach leads to a higher number of students graduating that cannot read properly, write complete sentences, or handle math concepts at an adult level. The depreciating value of our knowledgebase in developed countries continues to grow based on this system - we need a new approach - Salman Khan is on to something with his Khan Academy.
Check out the website at www.khanacademy.org The site is free and can be used by Parents and your kids or I even challenge the school system to take a look at this and perhaps incorporate the Khan academy approach into your teaching.
Check out the video below of Salman Khan speaking at the TED conference - Love this!
