Learning is the Most Natural Thing in the World

Learning is the most natural thing in the world. Every child naturally desires to learn and in their own time they move forward from one learning conquest to the next. Why should learning be any different when children go to school? Sal Kahn thinks that learning should continue in this very natural way and has created a revolution in education with his approach.

His track as an educator developed in the most natural way—tutoring his young cousin with math. Although his cousin had thought that she “just didn’t get math”, after patient help from her uncle she went on to an advanced math student. Sal’s patience and personal teaching methods made a big difference for her. His tutoring other kids continued to develop in a very natural way and soon he found himself putting his tutorials on YouTube. Soon hundreds, then thousands of people were watching his tutorials, able to take the lessons again and again, as they required, and learning at their own pace they mastered the lessons one after another.

With serendipitous help—a $100,000 donation here, then a $2 million donation there—Sal created the Kahn Academy that has in its nascent stages has taught more people in one month than Harvard has taught in its entire existence!

KahnAcademy has several wonderful aspects that are turning traditional education on its head. First, since it is computer based, anyone all over the world can access it and learn at their own pace. And secondly, we stress that anyone in the world can access the lessons because KahnAcademy is totally free for everyone.

In the traditional Vedic culture teachers would never ask anything for sharing their knowledge and would live on whatever was given as a gift in return. We predict that this ancient culture is going to be the standard of the future.

From their website:

A free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

KhanAcademy is an organization on a mission. We’re a not-for-profit with the goal of changing education for the better by providing a free world-class education for anyone anywhere.

All of the site’s resources are available to anyone. It doesn’t matter if you are a student, teacher, home-schooler, principal, adult returning to the classroom after 20 years, or a friendly alien just trying to get a leg up in earthly biology. KhanAcademy’s materials and resources are available to you completely free of charge. In the video below we ask you to take note of Sal’s comments at the 52:20 minute mark. He speaks there about what motivates people to work for him. It is the same motivation that motivates everyone, and is what is promoted by Spiritual Economics—work that is challenging, serves a vision, and provides adequately for material needs.

How it works for students

Students can make use of our extensive library of content, including interactive challenges, assessments, and videos from any computer with access to the web.

Coaches, parents, and teachers have unprecedented visibility into what their students are learning and doing on the KhanAcademy.

Learn about anything

Our library of content covers math, science topics such as biology, chemistry, and physics, and even reaches into the humanities with playlists on finance and history.

“I teach the way that I wish I was taught. The lectures are coming from me, an actual human being who is fascinated by the world around him.”
—Sal

Here’s the story from Sal—