Addition without tears

At Mantri's we have quite a few young parents worrying about getting their children admission to schools.Mr Ardhendu Chakraborti(F-904) has already registered his three-month old grandson - Aadit - at 'Sishya' in Thoraipakkam. Aadit, Mantri's first-born, wouldn't be starting school before 2015.
Any parent would know that bringing up children is a learning process,a form of hands-on adult education.Anyone can find solution to a given problem. Parenting is is about moving up a problem-chain; is about coping with problems every solution creates. Having got your son/daughter admitted in a good school, you worry about your child's learning. Basic reading, writing, numbers, and additions aren't the kind of things that usually interest children. How to get them interested is parental problem.
Our daughter-in-law, who has to cope with two children, told us about the Khan Academy. It seeks to resolve a parent's problem of getting children interested in learning things. Academy founder Salman Khan uses YouTube to initiate students into topics ranging from basic addition to high finance or cosmology.
A 7-min. video talks a child into Basic Addition, in an entertaining manner. Salman Khan says his young cousins,learning from him, preferred him on YouTube than in person. Khan's collection of over 2400 YouTube video lessons is used by a million students the world over.And most of them stumbled on the Khan Academy YouTube.
Salman Khan,in a TED Talk,speaks of the feedback he has received from students and teachers.He speaks of his efforts to get every student work on lessons at his/her own pace; to enable teachers find time for individual students in the class; to facilitate peer-to-peer tutoring;and to humanize class-rooms.
The 20-minute TED talk by Salman Khan includes a brief interaction with Bill Gates,who says Khan, in his talk, gives us a glimpse of the future of education.