When it’s all said and done, the toughest obstacle stacked against those in the education sector is the difficulty for young minds to focus and retain the information being taught to them. It’s obviously evident that there are children, who are in fact, quick and eager learners looking to absorb knowledge like a sponge.  But for the most part, kids are kids and they don’t particularly find sitting in a classroom for hours listening to someone talk for the reward of getting to do work to be very interesting. Because it’s not interesting, they don’t remember anything. Even the most advanced learning management system in the world can’t combat the specters of boredom and impatience.

But what is winning the fight against the childish inclination to tune out and forget information comes from a surprising source and works best in an even more surprising environment. The video lectures of Mr. Salman Khan available on Youtube, collectively dubbed the Khan Academy, are turning the tables on this country’s low performance levels by giving students the option to do something they never got to do before: schedule their own learning and replay the lesson when they need to.

The Khan Academy is incredibly simple. Originally just a sequence of basic algebra lessons strung together by Khan to help his nephew catch up on his math homework, the signature fluorescent neon handwritten work on a black background quickly caught on and went viral. Parents used them for their kids, teachers even included them in their lessons, and Khan was encouraged to create more of his videos, which to this day remain completely free for anyone to watch.

Complete confidence in the effectiveness of the Khan Academy is gained by the fact that Bill Gates, a self-professed sufferer of a low attention span, uses Khan’s videos to help his own children master math and science better. He’s recognized the potential of Khan’s system so much that Gates has publicly endorsed the online educator several times over the last few years.

The benefits of a video system of lesson learning are that children can learn at their own independent rate. In a classroom, teachers instruct students at single rate, those who cannot process the information fast enough are left behind while those who process it too quickly are bored to death. Videos allow students to repeat parts they didn’t completely grasp or skip over parts of the lesson they don’t need to learn.

The results have been pointing to key factor in adolescent education: everyone, if given their own allotted time to do so, will eventually grasp an equal level of knowledge. The learning process itself needs to be catered directly to the processing capabilities of a particular student.

The classroom model is archaic – having remained virtually unchanged for over four thousand years. Technology is allowing that to change, and more importantly it seems as though children are much more responsive to these new ways to learn. If you’re interested in seeing what could very well be the future of education, visit the Khan Academy website to see for yourself how innovative and useful the video system of education can be.