Ask HN: Will you send your child to Khanacademy instead of a physical school?

[rohan_shah]

Khanacademy has maths and science for K to 12. Harari's free and open YT course on Sepians is enough for world history.

So except for local geography, local history and local civics and polity and the art of making real life friends, there's nothing a physical school offers that Khanacademy + YT doesn't. So would you send your kids to the internet for school?

[st1x7]

No. Khanacademy is great for learning about a subject but no online service is a good replacement for going to school. In addition to better teacher interaction, there's just way too much meta-learning that goes on at school - how to behave around other people, how to be away from your parents, how to form relationships, how to deal with authority, how to speak in front of people etc. I would feel like I'm socially crippling my children if I restricted them to online schooling.

[rohan_shah]

So if they want to a class where a teacher was general present but everyone learned through KA while doing interactive activities in between - how about that?

[Jakobeha]

I mean when I was in school for a few grades some of my teachers assigned Khan Academy so it was basically that.

I don't think it worked well, but honestly I can imagine a good teacher just replacing whatever course material they're using with KA and lecture off of it, while still somehow incorporating classroom interaction

[st1x7]

That sounds like the worst of everything - you won't be getting the benefit of having someone who can explain things to you in person (kind of wasting a teacher) and you also won't have the opportunity that KA gives you to take things at your own pace.

[smt88]

> So except for local geography, local history and local civics and polity and the art of making real life friends, there's nothing a physical school offers that Khanacademy + YT doesn't. So would you send your kids to the internet for school?

This is a very engineer-y way to think. You optimize the instruction and assume the other qualities of in-person learning are disposable.

They absolutely aren't for most people and almost all kids. They generally crave the socialization they get at school. There isn't a digital substitute for it.

One could also argue that the art of making friends is one of the most helpful for ultimate life success.

It's notable that most people with means that I know are raging against virtual education and are instead moving to "pods" (2-10 kids with a private teacher).

[DoreenMichele]

art of making real life friends

I homeschooled my sons. They were better off socially without being bullied and what not at school.

The argument that homeschooled kids don't learn social skills is old and tired.

[taxcoder]

As a homeschoolee, I agree with this, IF the parents make sure there is some other social circle. That circle does not need to be primarily made up of people the child's age, but needs to include some near age peers.

I am skeptical that online learning is ideal for a child's development, but have no evidence one way or the other.

[phobosanomaly]

I'm sure your kids are fine, I don't mean to imply that there's anything wrong with what you did. I just want to float this idea.

There is the possibility that they are less-prepared in terms of the coping skills that normally help us adults deal with others who are located somewhere on the 'bully' spectrum.

From the hostile police officer that pulls you over on a fishing expedition, to your first boss who is on an ego trip, to terrible in-laws, to the neighbor trying to get the HOA after you because your kids play too 'loudly.'

Bullying never goes away in life, and there is something to be said for kids learning coping skills early-on in situation where your parents can't necessarily swoop in and help you.

But, maybe they're better-prepared in other areas.

[DoreenMichele]

There is no shortage of assholes on the planet, that's for sure. But bullies tend to target the weak, the vulnerable, people who have been groomed to play the perfect victim.

I'm absolutely certain that my sons are bullied and otherwise mistreated less than they otherwise would be because their mother didn't expect them to learn to "cope" with being bullied. I removed them from the situation, thereby firmly setting the expectation that "This is not remotely acceptable behavior. Period."

Anyone who thinks bullying is a normal, routine part of life should consider the possibility that their childhood experiences groomed them to be good and cooperative victims. It is possible for a person to work on putting that behind them.

https://genevievefiles.blogspot.com/2019/09/putting-victimho...

[phobosanomaly]

It's definitely a normal, routine part of working in customer service in the real world. I wish it wasn't, but it is.

People bully you all the time because there's not much you can do about it and they know it.

The 'ol "I'm gonna get you fired, get me your manager, you're worthless, I'm a lawyer, I make more in a day than you do in a year," will be very familiar to anyone who's worked in retail, medicine, customer support, etc.

Just watched a lady pull that at the cable office the other day.

The employee just has to deal with it. Not much choice in the matter. Be polite, smile, apologize profusely, desperately wish they would just go away. The second you lose control of yourself, now it's your job on the line.

There will be times in your life where you don't hold all the cards, and the wrong person will take advantage of that. It's important to know exactly how those situations play out, and how to navigate them with a cool head under pressure. Especially when you're early in your career and mistakes can burn you down the road in terms of recommendations and stuff.

Dealing with a bully in 9th-grade gym class was where I learned to push-back without escalating. And after I learned to do that, well, I wasn't bullied anymore. It came in handy later-on down the road when I had to deal with similar situations in a customer-facing environment. I had a whole skillset associated with keeping a cool head under pressure, and that wound up being an extremely valuable skill to my employer.

It's something you can't learn from a book or a website, you just have to navigate these situations under pressure over, and over again until you figure out how best to handle them within the constraints of your own personality. Most kids do that at school in a low-stakes environment.

[yesenadam]

That's..great that you dealt with one bully successfully. Or someone who's in your life for half an hour. It does seem you have no idea how bad bullying often is. I'm sure my case wasn't particularly bad, but it was bad enough for your apparent promotion of exposure to bullying as a good, character-building thing to seem oblivious to the problems a lot of people have with it. Bullying isn't part of my success story, it made me miserable for years. And the people doing it were seemingly happy about that.

I had dozens of bullies for years in high school - that combined with mostly very bad teachers made the experience one I could've done without. I never told any adult about the bullying or tried to do anything about it. Maybe because my father bullied me at home also, and I guess that was life. Eventually in my 20s I somehow healed myself, thanks to a self-help, psychology and spiritual books of all kinds and a lot of..inner work.

[phobosanomaly]

I'm sorry you had to go through that.

Where would you draw the line between complex social interaction (mild, sporadic bullying) that gives an opportunity to learn social patterns of behavior, and a wholly negative experience with no benefits?

I'm attempting to build a spectrum between:

A. Never letting a kid ride a bicycle because of the remote possibility they might fall and hurt themselves

B. Giving your 9 year-old a 600cc dirtbike with no helmet, and setting them loose in Manhattan.

The parent comment I was responding to, as well as your comment have established a similar spectrum between never letting your child experience interpersonal adversity, versus making your child's life a living hell.

There's a healthy middle-ground somewhere in there. That's what I'm arguing for. Give kids challenges they can overcome on their own, and it will make them more capable adults. Don't throw your kids into wolf-pits.

[shanecleveland]

The pandemic has only enhanced the value of the public school system for me.

Now, I know that not all teachers, schools, districts, etc., are created equally and everyone has different experiences.

How do you know your child is well suited for KA? And what do you do if a learning disability of some form is discovered at some point? Dyslexia and ADHD may not be apparent until well into elementary school.

Do you or KA have the ability to recognize if there even is one? If so, what do you do? What resources or support do you have to navigate it?

We have experienced this with one of our children. Teachers, staff and administration have been amazing. The support are resources are incredible. We have seen our child flourish with their help, our child's pediatrician and our involvement, of course. But we could not have replicated that on our own.

And the social aspect cannot be understated. We look to involve our kids with friends and family and organizations and activities outside of school and our home, but there are many constraints around this, particularly now. I see public school as an important testing ground for the eventual reality of existing in a society that isn't solely constructed for your own success.

KA will always be there. And you may find that a more traditional setting isn't right or is limiting your child in some way. Or you may find that it is a great place for them and that they also bring positive benefits to the system that our entire society relies on to work well.

[seattle_spring]

> the art of making real life friends

"She has absolutely no ability to work with or even interact with others, but at least she learned long division in 1st grade!"

[cdnsteve]

The challenge with the public school system is that your learning at the group pace, which means if you are smart and a fast learner, you're going to be very bored. My youngest is 8 and learning 0 to 3 times tables right now. My oldest is 11 in grade 6 and just doing his 3 times tables...

The speed of the class for my grade 6 is not keeping pace and they are doing stuff my son in grade 3 is doing.

My youngest did a 0 to 3 times table quiz up to 12 and got them all correct.

What do you do? If I let my kids go on something like KhanAcademy they will be 10x ahead of the class and probably make it unbearable to be in class.

I find public school extremely slow paced, nearly every day the kids tell them they didn't learn anything. They are constantly getting substitute teachers.

Private school is cost prohibitive but I think there's potential for a hybrid with something like KhanAcademy that could work.

[phobosanomaly]

Have you tried sitting him down in front of Khan Academy on the evenings and weekends? Does he stick with it for weeks and months at a time with little supervision?

Maybe try that and see how far he can go before he gets bored or starts losing interest. If he genuinely blows the doors off of everyone and spends his nights and weekends doing math and he's good in the other subjects, the school would probably be fine with just bumping him up a grade.

Or, if he finishes everything way before the other kids, just start sending him to school with problems out of Morris Kline's Calc book or something, and he can work on them while the other kids are catching up.

It's possible he'll slow down, maintain his pace as he progresses through school, or he'll figure out that he has a burning passion for theater or oil painting or the 300-meter-dash or something.

[uberman]

The short answer (for me) is no.

The longer answer is that schooling is complicated and often highly regulated. It is not immediately clear that Khan Academy and YouTube pass the muster where I live. Even if they did, for me there is a larger non-starter.

I believe schooling is not best achieved by placing kids at a computer all day and that there is a clear expectation that homeschooled children be schooled and supervised at home by an adult. Secondly, I think my kids get too much screen time as it is. Finally, with the end in sight for ACT/SAT style standardized testing, I am not sure how universities would view or evaluate a "do it yourself via YouTube" high school education.

Even if the content is great, I'm not going to risk these unknowns. They might however make great supplements.

[tcbasche]

I hate the idea of some company replacing a heavily-regulated part of society, and a cornerstone of it at that. School is less about the content and more about learning how to learn and how to function as a human being within our society.

To add to that, children probably need less YouTube...

[dragonwriter]

You cover math and science and world history, and then claim that the only gaps are local geography, local history, local civics and polity and socialization (which is a lot more than what isn't a gap, but still).

Of the core trinity of “reading, ’riting, and ’rithmetic”, I'll note that what you have covered plus what you have listed as missing includes only one of the three.

Also, while I'm less familiar with KA, YouTube is at best a less-information-dense substitute for a book, not a substitute for active instruction and graded exercises with feedback.

[itronitron]

I would (and do) for middle school and high school because my options for in-person are less than ideal (private schools that really fail at effective communication and discipline.)

I'd like Khanacademy to add a feature that allows parents to actually task assignments to their students/children. That seems like a major gap now. So we're currently enrolled in a different online program that has much more structure, but is still self-paced.

[8589934591]

> we're currently enrolled in a different online program that has much more structure, but is still self-paced

Which one is that? Do you have any recommendations?

[itronitron]

The following link lists about 25, not sure if they all offer degrees. Some are affiliated with existing private schools, and others with universities (Both Texas Tech Uni K-12 and UTHS teach the standard curriculum for the State of Texas.)

https://www.bestcollegereviews.org/top/online-high-schools/

There is also a range of how much classroom interaction they require (some have a lot, others none) so picking one depends on what the student prefers for their learning environment.

[auganov]

Not a big believer in the concept that you need a lot of interactions with many different people for a good "socialization". But just watching e-learning videos everyday is definitely not the best idea. Trying to replicate the usual school curriculum at home via videos sounds like the worst of both worlds.

[codingdave]

Nope - we looked into it. I love KA. But my kids hate it. They hate most of the educational apps out there that we have tried, including the ones forced upon them this year for remote learning.

I see a big problem where adults are creating apps that teach in ways adults think kids want to be taught. But it isn't really hitting the mark.

[rohan_shah]

How about a general tutor + KA? So the tutor will take of queries and keep a class full of children interactive - but children will learn maths through KA?

[codingdave]

That would be better, but that isn't really their complaint.

I hear three main complaints about a variety of sites:

1) The curriculum isn't right for their ages - it is either too cute, made for littler kids, or too much like a lecture, and would be better for older kids. KA tends to trend more towards the lecture side of that spectrum, other sites tend to be too cute. (This is kids from 8-13 giving this feedback.)

2) They dislike the UX. They don't phrase it that way, but they just don't like how they have to interact with questions, videos, etc.

3) Math on KA, specifically, only has one way to teach each topic - if you don't get it, you are out of luck. This is where a tutor would absolutely help.

[phobosanomaly]

Just to poke at that idea a bit what's the difference between that and a normal classroom?

Is Khan Academy that much better at teaching Long Division than the average schoolteacher?

[runjake]

No. Schools offer plenty that KA+YT do not offer, like structured curriculum, and to some extent tailored learning and individual guidance that as far as I know, Khan Academy + YT do not offer. They're both very awesome and have their part in education, though.

[dave_sid]

No. I think I’ll just send them to school.