This report describes the yearlong case study based on participant observation at a school which used ThinkAbout, a series of 60 15-minute instructional television programs designed to strengthen the reasoning skills of fifth and sixth graders, and to review and reinforce language arts, mathematics, and study skills. Discussion covers the patterns of attention, classroom discussion, special projects, and values that the series promoted, and recommends tasks for television producers, teachers, and researchers to increase the value of this and other school television programs. The following findings are examined: (1) many types of sessions entailed the teaching of problem solving, and several types of teaching sessions seemed to stimulate students to solve problems as much as, or more than, those using the television series; (2) public education avoids controversial topics that may be the subject matter of a television series; (3) education practice is based on the assumptions that children's attention spans are short, that time segments for each subject must be short, and that teachers' patience for innovation, "unstructured" settings, and student responsibility is short; and (4) the curriculum is crowded with "programs," each providing its own means and ends, which restrict the integration of new curriculum introductions. (Author/LMM)