The Khan Academy was featured on the CCTV English News channel. The News showed how a high school in California uses the Khan Academy for their students to improve math scores. The students at this California school had aggregate student scores in math at about 300th in the State. In a two year period, the students of this school raised math scores to the 11th in California. The newscast started out explaining how the US students are falling behind their counterparts in other industrialized countries.They have used the web site, www.khanacademy.org to catch up on math. The teachers of that school were interviewed on their roles as teachers. They said that the teachers have become coaches, helping students with specific questions, rather than standing in front of the class.

For those who are not familiar with Khan, he is a former hedge fund manager who started his online school by doing videos to help his niece learn math. The videos went viral on the internet and gave him inspiration to be an online teacher. His simple 10 minute segments allow students to go at their own pace. Good students are not held back by slower students, and slower students are not embarrassed by asking a “stupid” question in class. There is more information at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Khan_Academy .

The CCTV news is full of substance and can be very entertaining. It has an incredibly pro-China posture, which is no surprise. It frustrates expats with news stories like Chinese People competing in Salsa Dancing in Argentina and other incredibly fluffy stories. The coverage of the Khan Academy is extraordinary in this country of test driven schools. Teachers complain here that they don’t have time to enrich classes because everything has to be geared toward passing the middle school exam (to get into the best high schools) and the college entrance exam (for admittance to a university). I don’t know if the Chinese language news is the same as the English Language news. Reporting of innovative education techniques seems to be a recognition of the need for change in China. I can’t help but notice that this message is cloaked in reporting on the limitations of the US education system.

The Khan Academy was noticed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, as well as the Google Corporation. With funding from these sources, the Khan Academy was able to ramp up it’s platform and serve a worldwide student population. The offerings range from math and science to history. This system requires self-motivated students and may render conventional teaching techniques somewhat obsolete. We may be in at a three tiered education system: students who want to learn, those who must be forced to learn, and those who don’t.