We have these emails hanging up all over our office, sent in from Khan Academy users with incredible, personal stories to tell. Every time I read a new one I’m emotionally affected, which means my robot emotion chip is faulty.

So when some curious soul (like a reporter) wanders in and asks me, “How will you know if Khan Academy is really successful?” I always answer their (totally valid) question with an explanation of our data, analytics, and fancy metrics — but what I’m really thinking is, “You haven’t read these letters.”

Let’s change that. These students’ and parents’ and teachers’ stories are now available for anyone to be inspired by. It is impossible to read them…go ahead, I challenge you…and not come away with the conclusion that a free educational resource like Khan Academy simply must exist.

Call me a softie. It’s not like I don’t believe in data as the final arbiter of any learning tool’s effectiveness. I do. But if our key data metric happened to be “# of page-long, authentic stories sent in from users who have turned their lives around in the face of drug addiction, unleashed their 2nd-grade son on the advanced math he’s fully qualified to handle, or earned acceptance into a university despite being stuck in a country that does not value education,” I don’t think I’d second guess seeing that number skyrocket.

Hopefully these stories inspire others as much as everybody on our team. We spent time designing the page to celebrate the authors, their letters, and the fact that these are real lives, not product testimonials.

Does the page accomplish this? Feedback welcome, good and bad.