Through TV, we make these visits for them. Some teachers show the programs weekly, some monthly, some daily. Teachers tape them off the air to use over and over in math, science, and career education classes. PBS tells us Futures is its most popular in-classroom series. The boxes of letters from teachers and students in schools small and large, urban and rural, attest to the real value of these shows.
Futures is just one series.
There are a variety of programs from all kinds of producers covering math, science, reading, writing, geography, languages, the arts and so much more. Our programs are 15 minutes long because that's the length teachers told us they wanted. Commercial TV programmers wouldn't make 15-minute shows. Nor is commercial television likely to make a show about geometry, or a series about castles that gives students an added visual dimension to the lessons in their history texts. And, of course, commercial television has commercials.