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	Jon Stewart Head of the class?

Billions of students’ lives have been changed by teachers. Jon Stewart is not one of those teachers, but he could be. In the first of two shows at the Orpheum on Saturday, he proved he’s qualified to equip America’s youth with the wisdom and the skepticism they’ll need to become productive citizens. When the bratty anchor of Comedy Central’s The Daily Show stepped on stage in more casual threads than his TV suit-and-tie ensemble, he had the sold-out crowd’s undivided attention. He kicked off the night by lambasting us for a lack of team spirit when we failed to unleash an enthusiastic cheer for home-town hero John Kerry. Then he slipped in a grammar lesson amid chatter about President Bush’s approach to terror: "How do you defeat terror? It’s not even a [proper] noun! It’s feeling! How do you defeat a feeling?" What followed was a mini seminar on logic as he endeavored to explain the rationale behind the Office of Homeland Security’s rudimentary color code for quantifying terror. Bombing other countries, he concluded, is necessary for teaching geography.

And he cares about the health of America’s youth. He explained that homosexuality is not a contagion and linked the "Just say no!" anti-drug crusade with the movement to ban condom ads. "How did drugs get such a bad rap but alcohol is some magical elixir for joy? Guess what leads to sex? Beer! Who ever got laid by having too many condoms lying around?"

But these are lectures we’ve heard in his late-night TV sessions. In person, the would-be nutty professor lapsed into some goofy shticks that demonstrated he could hang with the crudest kids in class. He added boorish gestures to freewheeling potty humor, the kind that might agitate the FCC if attempted on TV.

Stewart is also more personal in his live shows. He dropped morsels about his private life — his wife, his body hair, his take on his Judaism. He wrapped up with a lesson everyone can use: "Accept who you are, what you are. To all the minorities, I say, ‘Deal with it.’ " What could better prime kids for the world than such brute honesty? Come to think of it, that might bruise some impressionable minds. Maybe he should stick to his Daily job of making up news. Maybe he shouldn’t be trusted in a professorial position after all. He’s more at home with those kids at the back of the room snickering at the rules and undermining authority with mental spitballs.