Since the time my son started to learn at Khan Academy, I have leaned some lessons. Sadly, the education is NOT the education what I knew before. Here is why.
After the pandemic happened, education has drastically changed all over the world. Even the most conservative learning institutions reluctantly began to use new technologies such as online classrooms. In my viewpoint, I strongly support contemporary learning styles for some reasons.
First, video learning provides a lot of new opportunities to the students and teachers. According to Salman Khan, the CEO of Khan Academy, it is difficult for every student to understand the class completely in a traditional learning setup. Basically, students cannot concentrate for 60 minutes. Once you skip the class or you daydream in class, there comes a gap. And to fill in the gap, students must study by themselves in order to cope with the lessons discussed during the day.
Khan pointed out that if they use a video tutor such as Khan Academy, students can easily stop the video whenever they like, and start it over again. Thus, when they feel they don’t understand, they stop and check the word’s meaning. He called it “complete learning”. My son really loved the Khan Academy when he was in year six, and he quit school by himself and studied by himself for three years.
Second, in traditional education, teachers gave students the same lectures every year, again and again. Yuval Noah Harari, who teaches in Hebrai University revealed that using technology, teachers just record their class once, and use them again and again. It relieved teachers from the tedious lecturing. It means teachers now can coach every learner with little or no supervision at all.
Lastly, the schools can use the traditional system at the same time. Traditional systems and contemporary systems can co-exist. When the teacher thinks it might be better to teach in the class, just do so. However, please remember, children should live in the technology world. So don’t omit all the opportunities for them to use it.
In conclusion, I strongly support modern education. It may take a long time for all the schools to find their own unique methodologies of learning, however I believe technology will help education a lot.
