visionaries
SALMAN KHAN
FOUNDER OF THE KHAN ACADEMY, USA
S
alman Khan has big ambitions; not content with establishing a not-for-profit online ‘school’ – the Khan Academy – that can boast more than six million unique users a month, he wants to revolutionize the way students are taught in classrooms too. At the moment, says Khan, “the time [in classrooms] is fixed, and the outcome is variable. I think this model will change to a competencybased system where it’s much more about the outcome, and the level of mastery you attain – making the time in the seat variable. “The nature of the classroom itself will change too; it’s not going to be based on a lecture anymore,” he says. “It’s not going to be a passive model of sitting in seats and taking notes, a model where the whole class is together on the same page. It’ll be a model where students go to achieve their goals, with the help of their mentors and peers. Education is about teachers using all of their time to talk and guide, and form connections with students.”
Central to this seismic shift, Khan believes, is using technology to understand what students know and what they need to learn next. His Khan Academy software platform, which has grown from a spare-room project to a Microsoft- and Googleendorsed venture and has been lauded in TED talks and among educational commentators across the globe, is already well on the path to achieving that goal. “It’s a platform that gives you some questions, understands where you are and, based on that, uses pretty fancy learning science to advise you on your path. It can also give feedback about students’ progress to their teachers and parents,” he explains. The Khan Academy is already part of the educational establishment, but its founder believes its possibilities are limitless: “About a year ago, I got a video from a girl in Mongolia. I assumed she was at least middle class, since she speaks English so well and has access to the internet. But a group of volunteers from Silicon Valley had set up computer labs in orphanages; she was an orphan. And now she’s our number one creator of content in the Mongolian language. It’s kind of like a movie that an orphan in Mongolia might become the future for her people.”
Richardson tackles inequality and prejudice head on
ROBIN RICHARDSON
SPECIALIST IN EDUCATION EQUALITY AND DIVERSITY, UK
A
Robyn Twomey/Corbis Outline
“Teaching won’t be based on passive lectures anymore”
The Khan Academy frees up teachers to make connections with their students
ll children must be viewed equally when they step through the classroom door. But in a world where religious tensions pull at the fabric of societies, Robin Richardson, a leading British thinker on global education, says there is still a lot of work to do. Religious intolerance, argues Richardson, “is still a problem, more than ever”, with Islamophobia a particular concern. Richardson works with educators to tackle prejudice in education and, in 1997, he worked with the Runnymede Trust, a UK think tank, to publish a report about anti-Muslim prejudice that rose to prominence following the series of international events triggered by the terrorist attacks in the USA on 11 September, 2001. “We didn’t predict – no one could – what would happen; 9/11 happened, [the London bombings of] 7/7, the invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq – all sorts of things beyond our control.” “The common-sense view of combating anti-Muslim prejudices and views is that we must teach more about Islam, and then it would be alright,” says Richardson. “Common sense is common, but it’s also often inadequate – and, if we want to teach about Islamophobia, we must teach about Islamophobia, not about Islam. Teaching about Islamophobia will include teaching about Islam, but it certainly won’t be limited to that, and that’s not the main priority.” Richardson suggests tackling this by making sure children are “learning experientially, as well as intellectually or cognitively, and learning together”: concepts that are already key components of the IB’s programmes.