Sal Khan Quotes

Sal Khan

Profession : Educator

Birth : October 11, 1976

I've learned that certain things are much harder than when you write about them in a book.

Sal Khan

I grew up with plenty of smart people. They would beat me at chess; they could solve brain teasers before I could, but then they would struggle in algebra. These were incredibly smart people who simply did not have the foundation in math that I had.

Sal Khan

I realized that there are many people who are very good students, but they think of themselves as bad students. At the end of the day, what they are really missing is way to understand where their gaps are and a way to address those gaps.

Sal Khan

One's perception of themselves has a much bigger role than has been acknowledged to determine who succeeds and who does not.

Sal Khan

By early 2009, tens of thousands of students were watching tutorials on the Khan Academy every day. The software I wrote for my cousins had become so popular, it was making my $50-a-month web host crash. The possibilities surrounding the academy were so exciting that I had trouble doing my day job properly. And soon, I quit.

Sal Khan

Being a billionaire is sort of passe.

Sal Khan

When I used to try and describe what the Khan Academy was, I would tell people that if it were a for-profit, I would be on the cover of 'Forbes.'

Sal Khan

Rather than saying, 'I can't do this,' 'Sesame Street' encourages us to say, 'I can't do this... yet!' That one word changes everything. It emphasizes that your capability isn't fixed. It highlights the reality that our brain is like a muscle.

Sal Khan

All too often, technology is treated as a silver bullet for perceived problems in education. This sometimes leads to knee-jerk investments, using scarce resources to invest in software or hardware without a clear notion of how either might actually empower learning.

Sal Khan

If high-quality content can be effectively delivered via technology, teachers can devote more time to creating innovative experiences, leading Socratic dialogs, or coaching students one-on-one in more targeted and focused interventions.

Sal Khan

Teachers can use technology-based assessments to inform their instruction. These assessments can quickly produce data and surface patterns that help teachers identify where students are faltering and intervene with targeted coaching immediately, before the student falls too far behind.

Sal Khan

If a student has access to a great school, Khan Academy can supercharge it. It should help a well-resourced school, and if you don't have that, then Khan Academy can have even a bigger impact. But I don't see it as replacing the actual schools... we want to empower teachers and fill in the gaps.

Sal Khan

There is too much acceptance of people saying, 'I am a math person, or I am an artsy person.' It makes me cringe.

Sal Khan

There are things you can get in that physical experience you cannot get virtually.

Sal Khan

Just as computer science is missing from our school system, so is science fiction.

Sal Khan

I love Victorian novels, the way they capture the nuances of the human condition.

Sal Khan

I learned from my peers, and I learned from doing projects, and I learned from mentors, but I learned very little from lectures, and I've talked about how little I attended them.

Sal Khan

We're so used to the tests telling me if I'm smart or not. It's telling me if I know the material or not.

Sal Khan

Our goal with Khan Academy Kids is to inspire a life-long love of learning.

Sal Khan

You have all this education theory, and people try to make larger statements than maybe what their data would back up, because they've done these small experiments that are tied to a very particular case with a very particular implementation... theory definitely matters, but I think dogma matters less.

Sal Khan