In the end, I think the thing to take away from all this is the word – “fucksaw.” That puppy will break some serious conversational ice.

Not buying this. The population of China is 1.3 billion (give or take). 350 million would be about 25% of the population. I doubt that 1 Chinese person in 4 is not merely an engineering graduate, but an engineering graduate who was overlooked because someone in the bureaucracy can’t do math.

The mere discussion of contraception is as controversial in some parts of the country as this demonstration has been nationwide. Is teaching about contraception in those areas bad pedagogy?

I get that this demonstration was “out there”, apparently poorly thought out, and of dubious educational value, but I don’t think we need to go into high falutin ideas of good pedagogy or employee responsibility to say, yeah, this demonstration was maybe kind of dumb in our cultural environment.

…even amongst the generally progressive BB crowd, it has elicited “tut tuts”, finger wagging and titters of embarrassment.

And for the record, I’d have much preferred pixie or nymph or even elf. Compliment nonetheless though.

I guess I’m wondering how a live sex show is educational or instructive, and in ways that require being presented in a college course. I’m especially wondering how this is educational and instructive to the degree that you claim, i.e., that a university is the only place where these things can be handled as, in your winning phrase, “an educational pursuit.” Why, to think of all that time I’ve wasted playing with sex toys myself, and in the company of others, but without a trained academic professional to show me where to insert the Fucksaw, how to wield it properly, and how to clean up afterwards! Someone might have been hurt! All the porn I’ve watched, all the sex I’ve had: all wasted, all so . . . uneducational. Thank heavens for brave professors willing to throw themselves into the breach of our ignorance, brandishing Fucksaws on high like the very Tablets of Knowledge!

You seem to be quite clear on these issues, so I’ll leave you with that.

http://boingboing.net/2009/03/20/diy-sex-machine-inju.html

–If the professor wanted to stay at NU, he would say, “okay, here’s boundary I shall not cross, and I will adjust accordingly”

–The teacher says, “this is really important to my curriculum, I will find a more tolerant institution at which to teach this curriculum.”

Bailey will, however, be teaching two 300-level Special Topics courses — one titled “Dangerous Ideas” — next school year, according to the document.

LOL. Guess he’ll have a lot of material, if he manages to keep his job (which he likely, hopefully won’t).

Not because people are trampling the freedom of this prof to teach/demo things of this nature (which I really do want to get behind), but because I live on a planet where people feel compelled to watch other people fuck power tools.

:|

Subsequent classes aren’t an issue, as every syllabus applies only to the course covered by said syllabus. Syllabi can be revised mid-course, of course, but only equally and for all.

Dunno about your hypotheticals. If you arrange and participate in said exorcism or explosion, then I’d say yes, as you’re endorsing the extra event, and perhaps being unfair to those who can’t or won’t attend. If you’re drawing their attention to the events, then of course not: there’s nothing wrong with hipping students to events outside the classroom.

Maybe because I teach in a public university in a big city, I’d just never think of scheduling extra events without tons of lead time. My students have jobs, duties, commitments that often exceed their scholastic ones.

It looks more like a power tool than a sex toy – where the heck did he find it???

That’s because it is a power tool. Specifically, the one linked to by Xeni looks like a Chicago Electric Power Tools reciprocating saw (sold by Harbor Freight for $29.99). So all you enterprising Makers out there could easily rig up your own funmaker for far less than the $169 charged for the premade version. (Be sure to remove the actual sawblade to avoid incidents like the one linked to above.)

If we’re trying to guarantee equal opportunity as you suggest, no class should ever be held unless there is full attendance. I don’t think make up classes provide an equal replacement value for missed classes. The teacher may teach better or worse in the make-up session for various reasons. And if there was class discussion involved, the student who was not in attendance would miss out on the related discussion because it could not be reproduced. And what if someone comes to class but is feeling sick, distracted and/or unfocussed for some reason, or god forbid has a learning disability? It’s not really fair that they have to work harder to understand the same material. I’m taking this to somewhat absurd lengths, but sometimes life just isn’t fair.

Note, of course, that the same individual will almost certainly vacillate between these states throughout the course of his or her academic career. From greater focus on learning in kindergarten, to greater focus grades in middle school, back to greater focus on learning at the tertiary level.