Quotes from Sal Khan

Some kids grasp a subject faster and race ahead to the next level, while others continue to struggle with the first. The great thing we've seen is that if you let a student take his time to master a concept, he will probably race ahead on the next one.

Many of the best teachers I know are being laid off because their unions value seniority over intellect, passion, creativity, and drive.

Teachers' unions don't act in the interest of most teachers.

I see no reason why there still are large lectures in universities throughout the world. When people gather, they should be interactive, problem-solving, and experimenting; not passively listening.

The ancient universities was not as based on how many credit hours you're taking and whether you've completed your credit hours. The ancient universities were much more interested in customized, personalized learning... Where you have a mentor and where you're learning at your own pace.

A one-size-fits-all lecture is not the way to go about education.

What you have in most education software is that they're catering to the decision-maker who makes the budget allocations, and that decision-maker has a lot of check boxes. Does it do this? Check. Does it do that? Check. They could care less about the end user experience.

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.

As my kids grow up, I think a lot about the lessons and values I want to impart to them. More than any particular skill or even financial support, I believe perseverance and resilience will serve them best, regardless of what curveball life inevitably throws them.

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.

In Idaho, we hope to see educators using Khan Academy to individualize their instruction. Instead of a one-size-fits-all lesson, teachers will be able to focus their attention on specific students who are struggling while the rest of the class engages with material appropriate for them.

A lot of times, when kids have problems with algebra or trigonometry, it has nothing to do with the subject matter, has nothing to do with their innate intelligence. It's just they that they had some gaps in elementary school that they never got to fill in.

I went to a fairly normal, middle-of-the-road public school in a suburb of New Orleans, but it gave me huge opportunities.

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.

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

I never viewed technology as a replacement for the human experience. I viewed it as something that could liberate the human experience.

I'm starting a virtual school for the world, teaching things the way I wanted to be taught.

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

What I did by virtue of skipping a lot of classes was get two undergraduate degrees and a master's in four years. It wasn't slacking. There were much more productive ways of learning everything than sitting in lectures.