Comment by vanderZwan

My belief is that Khan Academy is tremendously useful when started at a young age and done consistently. I have been doing it for over 7 years and it was a huge portion of my childhood. Long term, consistent use of KA from a young age builds deep procedural fluency and (this is very IMPORTANT:) self-directed discipline that transform how a student handles complex concepts. Even though some critics correctly note and argue that automated drill and practice cannot replace creative, project based discovery and learning, daily mastery based practice eliminates foundational learning gaps (you get a solid understanding), lowers the anxiety around making mistakes (because you get used to repetitive practice), and automates core mechanics (it becomes a basic skill) until they become second nature. I believe that persistent procedural learning is very far from mechanizing education at the expense of real learning. Rather, it frees up valuable cognitive bandwidth and gives the precise structural confidence and fluency required to excel in open ended, high level problem solving that so many critics preach. This is my opinion as someone who did Khan Academy for 7 years (where I learned the procedural step by step learning and practice) and went to school at the same time (where I did the open ended problems and projects). I believe that Khan Academy will help millions of students learn and grow (and the computer programming community is great too!).