PBS, the American version of the BBC has recently started a UK version of the channel. Unfortunately and somewhat ironically it’s not free to view here in the UK but if you or your university can get access to it, it will provide a new bank of teaching resources.
Using TV documentaries has long been the fall back of both innovative and lazy teachers! Lazy teachers who put on a documentary simply to keep the students entertained for an hour without properly engaging them are doing the documentary a disservice.
Properly used, they can be an excellent classroom tool to get discussions going and to encourage students to think about ‘public history and heritage’, i.e. how the general public choose to remember a past. So a documentary can be both a secondary and a primary source.
A good example of a useful documentary on PBS this week has been the fiver part Prohibition series by Ken Burns. Burns’ previous efforts on the Civil War, the West, the Jazz Era have been big hits with the public and with teachers and lecturers and Prohibition should be no exception. For more on this programme, please click on this link.
Showing one of these programmes in class needs to be accompanied by active participation from students too. And that’s where you can get really innovative!
