Free, quality education for everyone

See http://www.khanacademy.org/

Khan Academy is a phenomenal place to learn many useful technical subjects.  The level of subjects spans middle school through university education.  A bright, motivated student, young or old, can potentially learn a subject in short order, that might otherwise take many months.  Note that the presentations alone are probably insufficient, as one must work exercises and apply knowledge to truly learn it, and supplemental information from the web or books might be helpful, too.  Still, Khan Academy is an amazing resource, and it potentially foretells the future of education.

In some ways, Khan Academy is revolutionary and disruptive, because its spirit counters the common, burdensome, tracking and age-locked education system of today.  By using this site, a bright, motivated kid -- with proper guidance and assistance -- could acquire much of a quality college education by age eighteen.

If public education were properly redesigned, the teacher's role would change from information spoon-feeder, taskmaster, disciplinarian and baby sitter to tutor and consultant. Higher quality education could be delivered at lower cost, and the stature and importance of teachers in society would be restored to its proper, high level.  Why should a teacher deliver the same, ad-hoc, boring lectures over and over, year-in and year-out?  It makes no sense.

Meanwhile, these courses can help a student readily master standard school courses and sprint ahead. Parents, educators, students, and self-educators take note!

Clear Thinking vs. Groupthink

Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence. -Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)

Courage may be a sine qua non of clear thinking, but more ingredients are often required. It happens also that "there is strength in numbers" (a nice double entendre, and we don't mean lying with statistics, either).

Much to the irritation of Western individualists, it turns out that difficult problems are best solved by groups of individuals, and the best ideas come from groups, too.  What, designed by a committee and a product of groupthink?   Are you, a believer in the supreme power of the individual, shocked and aghast?  You should be, because the evidence is compelling.  See Chapter 26, "How Many Inventors Does It Take to Make a Lightbulb", in Evolution for Everyone, by David S. Wilson.

This annoying conclusion is the tip of a dangerous iceberg, that humans have a kind of group mind, where the whole is sometimes smarter than any individual.  Not always, but sometimes, and those times can be very important.  So we're playing coquette today, teasing you with truth, but not the whole truth, and returning later...