fter a year as a music teacher during the COVID-19 lockdown, Nathan Krebs, GED’22, entered Penn GSE’s Education, Culture, and Society program to figure out how to have a different sort of career in education. His “aha!” moment came when he took two courses that opened his eyes to a new possibility: public television.

“Here” is PBS Michiana-WNIT, a South Bend, Indiana, public broadcasting station that covers 560,000-plus households in northwest Indiana and southwest Michigan where Krebs is senior producer. His program, Education Counts, has tackled subjects that include skiing opportunities for those with special needs, the science of bubbles with a local “bubble-ologist,” a cemetery-preservation workshop, and no-till farming. “It’s designed to show the lifelong journey of education,” said Krebs, who also has an education-centered podcast in the works.

Like Krebs, many GSE alumni work in educational media. Even though they aren’t teaching in a traditional classroom, they’re tapping into creative ways of sharing knowledge with everyone from preschoolers to adults. In some ways, these alums have the biggest classrooms of them all: making TV documentaries and interactive, educational websites; assessing curricular benchmarks for children’s programming and new products; hosting talk shows that grapple with difficult social issues; and developing new platforms to augment learning around the globe.

SOUND ON

Growing up in Santa Ana, California, Otero attended underfunded schools until he moved one city over to Irvine. “It had totally different opportunities,” he said. “It had the best everything—the best student programs and sports. I had such a robust experience.”

As a political science major at California State University, Fullerton, Otero wanted to take on the disparities he had seen firsthand. Then, he moved to Philadelphia and, through Teach for America, taught English and journalism by day at a Port Richmond high school while earning his Penn GSE master’s in urban education by night.

He liked that he was able to use the lessons in technical skills and pedagogy that he learned as a student the very next day in his own classroom, but what “lit a fire in me,” he said, were his studies in policy that revealed inequities over generations. “The unit of change can’t just be a classroom. It has to be a school building. It has to be a community, a district, at the state level.”

Otero returned home to California, multiplying his impact by recruiting teachers for a charter network and then placing more than 1,000 educators in Los Angeles schools for Teach for America, where he rose to managing director. Soundtrap for Education, introduced in 2015, offers even more opportunities to create change, he said.

Otero covers partnerships from Illinois to Hawaii, and his clients include San Francisco and Los Angeles school districts. School subscribers pay a per-student rate for access to audio recording, a database of loops and sound effects, curriculum ideas, and more. Otero touts the benefits: Soundtrap allows for creativity in assignments, such as spoken-word poems or history projects where students interview each other as historical figures and add relevant sound clips from propaganda commercials or famous speeches.

The digital audio workshop also enables access. With no fancy laptops needed, students can meet virtually for orchestra or band practice—an important option at a time when many schools are cutting music programs. “It’s always been about fighting for access and equality,” he said. “That’s been my life calling.”

“Penn GSE shaped me as a leader,” he said. “It’s given me credibility and expertise to feel confident in whatever space I’m in and opened doors to so many other ways to make an impact.”

LIGHTS, ACTION, EDUCATION

“Penn demystified education,” he said. “It gave us frameworks and tools. I have tangible results.”

After seven years, Mitchell returned to television, first as chief content officer for North Carolina’s statewide public media television network, PBS NC (formerly UNC-TV) and then as senior vice president and chief content officer for Maryland Public Television, his current role. Since his Morgan State University days as a broadcast journalism undergraduate, he said he has looked to media to tell fact-based stories that inform, inspire, and educate.

At Maryland, Mitchell worked on two films—Becoming Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman: Visions of Freedom—that have aired nationally, and last year, he won an Emmy, his third, for the short Rivalry: Inside the CIAA, about the oldest African American intercollegiate conference. He also launched HBCU Week NOW, a first-of-its-kind collaboration between PBS stations and historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) that celebrates under-told stories about HBCU contributions through a series of shorts and an anchor film, titled Becoming Thurgood Marshall, which will air nationally later this year.

“Penn completely changed my life,” he said, “and prepared me to help people understand the utility of public television stations beyond Big Bird.”

SCREENTIME FOR LITTLE LEARNERS

After earning a bachelor’s degree from Trinity College in psychology, Zimmerman expected to use her GSE master’s for a career in a clinical setting or school. But after intense stints in the field, she welcomed an offer to build the first research and validation team for the educational technology division of Scholastic. “I liked the idea of broader reach, more than the small number of children I worked with one-on-one,” she said. Zimmerman evaluated the effectiveness of the company’s pre-K to second-grade literacy products, including classroom curriculum, e-books, and assessments.

Her direct experience with children proved invaluable, she said, and expertise in the science of learning and child development honed in grad school “was very applicable and transferrable. It still is.”

Zimmerman led formative research for Nickelodeon’s Dora the Explorer and for BrainPOP’s first early childhood digital initiative, including educator and family content.

“Even though Dora was a TV show, its curriculum was rigorous,” she said. Each episode, which could take a year to produce, was tested with children and evaluated for its success at teaching specific learning objectives, such as math, Spanish, or emotional skills. “We would analyze the data, write detailed reports, and provide educational recommendations to the creatives, writers, producers, and the network.”

Zimmerman moved in 2019 to Noggin, a personalized learning platform for preschoolers, as a senior director overseeing curriculum, learning strategy, and impact with a team of 12. Last year, the business was shuttered as part of layoffs at parent company Paramount, she said.

“It’s not an easy time in the industry,” said Zimmerman, who is consulting for a variety of early learning organizations now. Digital media, she said, has changed the landscape, often prioritizing speed over time-intensive evaluations of impact. Educational games can be produced in days, and YouTube can make peddlers of kiddie videos overnight sensations, Zimmerman noted. But, she said, “what’s really important to have is high-quality and developmentally appropriate educational media.”

That’s especially crucial as children spend more time in front of screens, Zimmerman added. Those early years also are a chance to level the playing field with content that educates and inspires before formal education—and its inequities—begins, she said. In addition, Zimmerman sees educational media as crucial to advancing inclusion and belonging at a time when those ideals are under attack. “It is really an opportunity to show all children themselves,” she said, “reflecting themselves back through the storylines.”

RAISING THE VOLUME

Also the author of the children’s book “There’s Only 1 Race—the Human One,” Says Me!, Erwin features educators, authors, entrepreneurs, and political leaders on her show. On the recent episode “Race and Republicans,” Erwin and a Republican leader from the Hudson Valley debated the meaning of President Trump’s inauguration coinciding with Martin Luther King, Jr. Day and challenged listeners to examine the balance between ideology and action, she said. Another recent episode explored diversity, equity, and inclusion.

“Right now, DEI is being subverted,” she said, slipping into her talk show host mode. “Diversity is positive. It includes women, people of all cultures and walks of life. Equity is positive. Equity is equal. Inclusion is positive. To include someone is never a negative.”

Erwin, who studied English and French at Spelman College, pursued her master’s at Penn GSE with the goal of a higher ed job in international studies. After several years working on various campuses, she taught language arts in Florida for six years before moving to Hudson, New York. In 2017, she started OneUniversal Media, now affiliated with her parent company InterCultural Connect, which publishes books and consults with minority-owned businesses on ways to support diversity, equity, and inclusion efforts under current laws.

“My goal,” she said, “has always been to help people know more about themselves through knowing more about others.”

Back at PBS Michiana-WNIT, Krebs, too, looks at his role as helping to make his community better through educational media. Currently, he is working on a documentary about the role of baseball and the many different leagues of South Bend’s history.

“Public media,” he said, “does a really good job of bringing lots of different communities together, a lot of different voices together so people can learn from that and move forward.”