Telvision

Television, Education in Popular Culture

The output of television is now 24 hour, global and consequently immense. In the United Kingdom and the United States, there is a particular interest in dramas and documentaries that focus on crime and the police services, and on various aspects of medical practice and the work of hospitals. Whilst education based features are less popular than the police/medical productions, they are nonetheless a staple of television. Teachers and learners often appear as characters in soap operas.
UK viewers will be familiar with Ken Barlow’s teaching years in the long running /Coronation Street/ and the ascent to teaching of former ‘smackhead’ Jimmy Corkhill in Channel 4’s /Brookside/. In addition to this, there have been a number of ‘one-off’ reality based TV dramas of note, recent examples being /Ahead of the Class/ (first broadcast by ITV in February 2005) and /The Thieving Headmistress/ (BBC2 June 2006) and fictional dramas, for example, /A Class Apart/ (BBC 1 March 2007). In August 2006, Channel 4 screened the moving television documentary /Secret Life of the Classroom/ showing the travails of children new to school. The same channel has hosted a successful ‘reality TV’ series /That’ll Teach ‘Em/, (first shown in 2003), which exposes groups of modern teenagers to the discipline and rigours of the educational experience in the manner of a 1950s grammar school and /How the Other Half Learns /(April 2007) which featured an exchange between state school and private school pupils.