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

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.

> 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).

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.

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.

> 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!"

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.

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.

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...

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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