Can watching video lessons or using interactive software make

In the halls of the ancients, teachers whispered a simple truth: the mind awakens not by force, but by invitation. So when Sal Khan says, “Can watching video lessons or using interactive software make people smart? No. But… it can… create a context in which people can give free rein to their curiosity and natural love of learning so that they realize they’re already smart.”, he names the old magic with new tools. The lamp is not the light; it only holds the flame. The platform is not the wisdom; it only opens the door through which wonder walks.

The first half of his claim is a cleansing wind. Tools do not confer genius. You may sit a dull heart before the rarest manuscripts or the finest simulations, and still the mind will not bloom. But set a table where questions are welcomed, where error is a tutor rather than a judge, where pace obeys understanding instead of schedule—and the same learner begins to glow. This is the context Khan praises: a room—physical or digital—built to honor curiosity, to shelter experiment, to lengthen attention until insight arrives.

Consider the story that midwifed this insight. A cousin named Nadia struggled with algebra across a continent. Khan recorded small explanations, not to dazzle but to serve, and sent them into the ether. In that quiet, without the glare of a classroom or the sting of comparison, she paused, rewound, tried again. Mastery came not from a silver bullet but from a space safe enough to persevere. The technology did not make her smart; it allowed her to discover she was already smart once anxiety was lowered and practice multiplied.

The ancients would recognize this as the pedagogy of the hearth. A child learns letters faster when a patient elder traces them in ash beside a fire; a novice learns the forge by swinging the hammer at their own rhythm while the smith watches with gentle eyes. Interactive software that adapts to the learner’s pace, video lessons one can revisit at dawn or midnight—these are simply new hearths arranged for modern life. They remove the ceiling of time and the walls of place so that natural love of learning can stretch its limbs.

Yet the saying carries a sharp caution. A glittering platform without humane design can still shame, distract, or seduce into trivia. The context must be crafted: mastery paths that build from secure footing, hints that nudge rather than tell, feedback that respects the person while correcting the work. Above all, there must be a culture that treats questions as courage and mistakes as maps. Only then do the tools become instruments of dignity, tuned to the music of growth.

From this, take a clear lesson: the teacher’s highest art is not performance but hospitality. Whether you are parent, mentor, or instructor, your task is to set the table where learners feast on their own curiosity—to make room, set pace, light candles against fear, and let struggle do its sacred work. Do not worship the tool; steward the environment. For when the context is right, learners stop asking, “Am I smart?” and begin saying, with quiet astonishment, “I can learn this.”

Let counsel become practice. Build daily rituals of exploration: ten minutes to tinker, one problem solved two different ways, a journal where misconceptions are treated like precious ore. Use video lessons as mirrors, not trophies—pause, predict, and paraphrase before pressing play again. Let interactive software be a coach: set goals, track streaks of effort, celebrate revision more than speed. And in every session, speak aloud the deeper truth Khan names: your mind is not an empty cup waiting to be filled—it is a living spring. Create the context, protect the curiosity, and you will find what was there from the beginning: you were already smart, and now you know it.