The teacher matters

I have some time now to browse the net. Just remembered one of my delicious bookmarks of a guy at Stanford university giving a lecture on a "sort of introductory course on programming". This particular video interesting not only because of the content (I am also a "sort of " programmer), but also because of the lecturer.  

He is just hilarious!  See yourself!
Here are other course materials if you are interested.



I usually don't look at the comments on Youtube, but in this case it is also worthwile. Majority of the people are praising the lecturer, some of them even express the wish to go to Stanford. An other quote from a commenter:  
" I wish my teachers was like him :(

 i'm in highschool and my teachers are

like serious 80% of the time and angry 20% of the time." 

So here is my point:
The personality and the mood of the teacher matters at least as much as the wise things s/he want to tell. I am not saying that every student has to laugh through all classes, but a well placed joke or an occasional smile could help a lot.

Sidenote: If you are interested in programming you might want to check out the game Light-Bot 2.0. It teaches programming basics in a fun way.