The mass media teach whether or not mediamakers intend to or realize it, and users learn from the media whether or not they try or are even aware of it. This means all of the media, including newspapers, magazines, movies, television, radio, and the new cyberspace media serve as informal yet omnipresent nonschool textbooks. This raises an unavoidable challenge for schools. As part of their mission to help prepare young people to become better informed and more astute analytical thinkers, educators should seriously consider making media literacy an essential part of schooling--at minimum, enhancing students' capacity to use media more critically. In particular, students need to develop an understanding of the ways in which the media deal with the theme of diversity. A necessary step in fostering media literacy is helping students identify the various ways in which the media, as informal educators, teach. This chapter discusses five distinct but interrelated ways through which the media teach: (1) Media present information; (2) Media organize ideas; (3) Media disseminate values; (4) Media create and reinforce expectations; and (5) Media provide models for behavior.