Yeah--the whole big white hunter thing doesn't do it for me, either, but the students seem to appreciate the effort to engage them, even if it is politically incorrect. Possible to see the whole "he's playing to the audience" thing as disturbing, too, if you tend to think of students as rather more than merely an audience, but in a mass class like this one, that is no doubt very hard to do (and he does involve students in the experiment, it appears). Also, I find myself curious about how well students *do* in the course, and what they do, too. Are the tests and homework as creative? In any case, even though I sort of wish he'd imagined a different scenario (maybe the monkey as actor rather than victim) it isn't hard to see why the students *do* appreciate the effort, the passion, the practical application of a tough idea, etc., so I don't want to nitpick it to death. We probably do that too often--letting the critical instinct shred the passion, instead of letting the passion fire the critical instinct toward positive ends.

Now, see, I think he does use technology--and that teaching is and should be an art (an inspired one!) no matter the tech we employ. Bring the proper spirit to the thing, and a stick and a nice stretch of sand could do just fine for teaching writing. (Taught our kids to write on the driveway with colored sidewalk chalks. All beautifully messy and engaging. We'd hop from letter to letter of the giant alphabets we drew, reciting the Seussian verses: "Aunt Annie's alligators, A (hop) A (hop) A (hop).

This teachers uses costume, contraptions, the board, the calculator, a stuffed monkey, a microphone, and video, it seems, as well.

He's way wired.

But, he's also inspired, and that makes all the difference.