For generations teachers have tried to teach the approved "classics" of our culture. Today, with the mass media claiming so much of students' time and interest, this approach is more than ever doomed to failure. A better plan is to focus on popular culture: comic books, popular fiction (westerns, horror tales, and science fiction), movies, and records. Students are involved with these genres to begin with. In fact, this popular culture is often only a simpler version of the high culture, and both are essentially manifestations of the human experience. As such, the themes of both cultures are invariably similar, and the major difference lies in the author's/artist's ability to articulate his ideas. In contrast to the other "pop" media, both television and AM radio are unoriginal and uninteresting. They only bastardize pop myths treated creatively by, for example, films and science fiction. In teaching popular culture, the aim is not to produce thousands of unemployed filmmakers but rather to show how this culture reflects and gives insights into contemporary life and mythology. (JK)