Someone would write to say his educational platform “changed my view of myself.” Another wrote, “This is what gives me the confidence to become an engineer.” Another: “This helped my kids with learning disabilities.” The letters, Khan says, gave him permission to dream a little bigger. □ Sal Khan on Expanding Into Early Learning and Launching a Peer-to-Peer Tutoring Platform (EdSurge)īefore long, he started getting thank you letters from people he’d never met. The example set by MIT OpenCourseWare nudged him onto the nonprofit road rather than the presumably more lucrative “Ed Tech” route. You know how unlikely that is,” he recalls. “I would always alternate between grandiose ambitions- Maybe one day, this could be used by millions, and- Sal, calm down. “When I worked at a hedge fund, I used to tell my friends, ‘I’m only doing this until I have enough money to start a school on my own terms.’” Before he made the first of the bite-sized videos that gave rise to his empire, he wrote educational software that family members could use. “I always wanted to be a Dumbledore-type figure,” he admits, referring to the headmaster wizard from the Harry Potter series. Science fiction and fantasy planted the seeds. As founder of the organization and its nonprofit offshoots Schoolhouse.world, Khan Lab School and Khan World School, he has built a planet-changing education powerhouse that touches millions. school districts and people in more than 190 countries use Khan Academy. The best thing that can happen is that we turn those things into something bigger and more beautiful.” Sal Khan exemplifies this hope. “We may try to put away childish things, but we can’t, or shouldn’t. “What happens when we grow up?” asks Douglas Wolk in his recent book about Marvel Comics. We hope the series inspires your own early childhood work. Just as Early Learning Nation showcases the ways families, researchers and grassroots nonprofits and organizations are building an early learning nation-one community at a time-our Community Cultivators series highlights how innovators across all sectors build and sustain global communities from the ground up.
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