Why people without an education degree like Salman Khan should stop talking about things they know very little about

Did you know... making money from hedge funds qualifies you to say anything you like about education despite how ridiculous it actually is!

Stop the presses! Salman Khan has saved children the world over from the boring educational model that has tortured and held back society for the last 800 years. Yes, the same education system that has helped produce vaccines, space programs, new computer technology and environmentally friendly energy can be done away with because we have... YouTube?

Please forgive my exuberance but there is nothing that annoys me quite as much as the latest saviour of education. In the Time magazine article suitably titled “Reboot the School” it unquestioningly heaps praise upon the “revolutionary” new way of schooling promoted by Salman Khan the “most famous teacher ever to appear on a Web browser.” Citing the success stories from the numerous schools that have employed his YouTube videos, it goes as far to suggest that he is reinventing the teaching wheel from its roots 800 years ago. In short, Khan gets the kids to watch his YouTube videos at home so he can work with them one on one during school time. Overwhelming isn’t it! I had never thought that watching a YouTube video could be so powerful.

Before I criticise “Bill Gate’s favourite teacher” further (you see, having a lot of money makes you more of an expert on education than say a PhD or a Masters or years of ACTUALLY TEACHING!), I will give him credit for his approach. Learning at home and then focus on personalised tuition during class time is a great way for children to learn. Moreover, using YouTube as a way to connect with children is also a clever use of the technology and might be more engaging with traditional classroom methods. But here’s the thing Salman... teachers are already doing this. Ignoring the one eyed and under researched crap published by Time, most teachers now employ this very method on a daily basis in schools across the world with similarly strong results. The difference is that we don’t make self serving YouTube videos about it or have rich people sing our praises.

However, Salman seems to be missing one really big problem with his plan: he assumes the motivated children he works with are the norm. The thing is, if Salman bothered to work a day of his life in an actual school and not ear bash us from the comfort and wealth of his hedge fund income (yes, he is one of those rich, selfish people who helped plunge the world economy into a freefall so that he could continue to be paid massive bonuses from hard working peoples pension funds – sorry for the generalisation but he seems to have no issue generalising about my job!) then he would realise that not everyone wants to learn at home before they come to school. In fact, if I gave my students YouTube homework to do and expected to continue teaching from it the next lesson I would be fired for not doing my job because in the real world most students need to be lectured occasionally because they are not self motivated learners (not to mention that they would be paying more attention to their Facebook status or Twitter feed rather than watching the YouTube video but then again Salman teaches only the most excellent, role model students doesn’t he?). The reasons schools keep kids in classrooms and regulate them with bells and homework is to improve their self regulation and make them learn important skills for society. If we let every child learn at their own pace then I could name any number of my students who would choose to learn nothing at all!

Also, Salman has the comfort of teaching a small number of students in a well funded and high tech school. Once again, if Salman bothered to work in the ACTUAL EDUCATION SYSTEM that lacks comfortable rooms with computer let alone high speed internet to download his YouTube videos, he might see that on a mass level this sort of system does not work. At a small scale this is wonderful but if you try implementing it at a national level and it would be a very different story. Moreover, he assumes that everyone has access to computers and internet and will spend time at home using this for educational purposes. Try telling that to the students I know who need to feed, bathe or put to bed younger sibling or parents or who have to hold down a job to put food on the table. Not to worry, they can watch the YouTube videos at midnight when they should be sleeping!

Finally, it is people like Salman who make the job of regular teachers even harder. If he had his way, we would be paid less because we would be replaced by YouTube videos and computers. Furthermore, he ignores the point that schooling is more than just entertaining kids with YouTube videos. Schooling serves other purposes than just teaching concepts, it teachers social skills such as learning to sit quietly while someone is talking to you (yes, lecturing does have a role). Meanwhile, he deludes himself into thinking that his YouTube video is somehow better or more sophisticated – it’s just lecturing through the internet or is he so self conceited that he fails to see this. Moreover, his lessons only skim surface concepts (7.5 minutes on Art History sounds in depth to me!) and so his fancy tests would only reveal the fact that students can name basic concepts or explain them at a basic level. Thus, a world led by Salman would be full of even shallower students with no in depth knowledge that comes from years of experience – that’s right, the knowledge that comes from teaching the material for years on end. Finally, he would encourage students to become even more insular and internet dependent thus creating a generation that is more emotionally childish and lacking in social skills.

So I am off to write my resignation letter because Salman has shown me the future and I realise that my expertise and ability to deal with up to 30 children at a time is no longer needed because of the internet and YouTube. Who cares about qualifications, training, expertise in child psychology, expertise in your field of knowledge or knowing how to deal with the 30 individuals that populate your classroom? Salman will be able to cover all that in a 5 minute YouTube video that will be posted next week.