Join the conversation

In less than 5 short years, "Teachers TV" has grown from an idea harbored by a British Schools Minister into a popular and influential British television channel devoted solely to education. Now, there are efforts afoot to help something similar take root in American soil.

We recently spoke with Andrew Bethell, Teachers TV's CEO and creative director. Bethell described the accomplishments of the television channel, which has broadcast thousands of often riveting mini-documentaries about what's happening in British schools.

The documentaries offer authentic accounts of successful practice and real-life struggles to improve. They also feature broad education reform strategies--without ever losing sight of those strategies' impact on actual schools and students. As Bethell is careful to point out, Teachers TV focuses on more than just teachers: It highlights the work of school leaders, school governors (the rough equivalent of our school board members), families, and many others invested in the education enterprise.

The channel already boasts a large and committed audience. It reaches about half of the British education workforce and 90% of the nation's trainee teachers who--together with others by the tens of thousands--watched some 14 million programs last year.

Those of us who live across the pond can experience Teachers TV through its lively, interactive website. And if Bethell and New York PBS station Channel Thirteen have their way, we'll have a similar television station all our own in the coming years. They're working hard to raise funds to launch Teachers TV USA, which would of course focus on American schools and districts. Bethell will speak about the initiative at this year's Celebration of Teaching & Learning, Channel Thirteen's major education conference.

If done well, Bethell suggests, an American Teachers TV has the potential to elevate the education profession, highlight the essential work of parents and families, and engage a broader spectrum of Americans in critical conversations about the future of schools.

Read through a transcript of interview highlights below, or download excerpts from the whole interview:

• What Is Teachers TV? (5:50)
• Who Is It For? (1:34)
• An Authentic View of Schools and Classrooms (4:52)
• Building Educators' Capacity to Improve (4:00)
• Supporting, Not Replacing, School-Based Professional Development (2:06)
• What's the Impact in the U.K.? (4:22)
• Is a U.S. Teachers TV on the Horizon? (2:35)
• Can Television Engage a Broader Public in U.S. Schools? (2:06)
• Teachers TV Takes its Show on the Road: the Celebration of Teaching & Learning (1:28)

Transcript of Interview Highlights
PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: What exactly is Teachers TV in the United Kingdom?

BETHELL: The job we set ourselves and indeed we were asked to do was to use this channel to share good practice. Teachers are peculiarly isolated in the work that they do. Mostly they still shut the door and it's them and 20-30 kids, and they go about their business. What Teachers TV is able to do is go into the classroom--using the techniques of television--to record and then create these television programs that allow teachers to see what other teachers are doing.

Not only are we on TV, but we are on the Web. And I'm happy to announce--and this is the first time I'm able to do this--that we are about to go on to have a large proportion of our content available via iTunes.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Could you describe the format of what you're doing with Teachers TV, and how it is that [Teachers TV] gives people a fresher sense of what's actually going on in schools now?

BETHELL: All television that engages with the emotions does so through two [means]: through narrative, and through personality or through the people. We felt that it was important that we apply this to what we do. So our programs usually introduce you to a particular teacher. We try and follow a process. Of course, one of the natural processes that we follow is a lesson. That in itself is a narrative--how it begins, how it ends, if it's successful, if it's not.

The other key ingredient for us is authenticity. Training videos of the traditional side have been filtered. They've been manipulated. That manipulation makes teachers feel that it's got very little to do with them. It's not their classroom. They don't recognize it, they don't recognize the kids.

I connected [the show format] with much of my TV work, which was in the area of observational documentaries. We're happy to spend time recording exact moments of learning, where kids are actively engaging with a math problem or a science experiment. In fact that makes great TV.

There is nothing like watching kids try to figure things out, trying to get things straight. There is another ingredient. We do have the voice of the teacher and the teacher's colleagues. Of course, we do refer to experts. Obviously they can add something--they can raise the level of debate. But at the heart of it, we're talking about authentic classroom experience.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Obviously people would like to see, among other things, exemplary practice, or at least --

BETHELL: Yes.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: -- [be able to] derive lessons from what they're seeing. So --

BETHELL: Yes.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: -- is there some attempt to show what's exemplary?

BETHELL: We're interested in finding that practice which promotes reflection on the part of the audience. That can be the exemplary, but in some cases that can be far from exemplary. There is material on Teachers TV which shows teachers who are struggling--teachers who are having difficulty, who are clearly not teaching very well. But we nearly always show that in the context of people who are there to support them, and narrative which shows improvement.

Our objective is to make a major contribution to up-skilling the workforce to make it fit for the 21st century education demands. We believe teachers should become increasingly like doctors. That is to say, they should be constantly updating their practice.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: You see this as a means of helping teachers in their professional development, but not replacing the professional development they currently receive or should receive on an ongoing basis.

BETHELL: We see Teachers TV as an addition to, not an alternative to, the existing provision.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: I wanted to ask you about the reach and impact of Teachers TV in the U.K., whether you've been able to measure it and what you've found.

BETHELL: The reach is growing. We've just done the calculations, which say that last year 14 million Teachers TV programs were watched by the target audience. We're starting to get some evidence back that suggests that over 50 percent of the profession are using us in one way or another. We know that we are reaching 90 percent of our trainee teachers. We have a figure that says that 85 percent of people who watch a Teachers TV program implement something from it.

We do not presume to be able to do very much at all on our own. That is to say, we must be part of the wider training opportunities, the wider professional development environment.

Having said that, we are starting to get some figures that suggest that we are having an impact on retention and morale and even succession, which is a key issue for us--keeping people in the profession long enough to go up to succeed in the senior leadership jobs.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: Let's move to the United States for a moment. You made reference to the fact that there might be some kind of Teachers TV in our future.

BETHELL: We have been in conversation with Channel 13 which is one of the leading PBS stations, based in New York. To this end, we have had extended discussions and, in fact, we have scoped out a Teachers TV U.S. proposition, which is still in its early days and needs to secure the funding required to launch it. But what it has done, it has secured a huge amount of stakeholder interest and support. I have to say that I am quietly optimistic.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: There is another issue that might be interesting, and that is the question of Teachers TV's potential to engage a broader public --

BETHELL: Yeah.

PUBLIC SCHOOL INSIGHTS: -- in conversations about really what constitutes interesting and good practice, or exemplary practice, in schools.

BETHELL: Schools need to open their doors. So anything that we can do to seed the debate with real pictures--real stories of what's happening in school and the potential of what can happen in school--I think has got to be a good thing and certainly it's a project that we'd be very proud to be part of.