Radical puppets are puppets with a social message. Radical puppets encourage creative ideas that lead toward understanding global and environmental aspects of society through the "art of the puppet," a phrase coined by American puppeteer Bill Baird (1965). There is a blending of performance and visual art in puppetry. Through radical puppetry, ideas are expressed in a very direct way that "may not directly foster social change but ... seeks to generate dialogue about social and political issues" through art. This article presents results of a university level art education course called Puppetry in Classrooms, which featured the art of puppetry, its historical context, and the inclusion of social issues into the art curriculum. Students learned general construction techniques, tapped into the collective creativity of cooperative learning, and discovered personal connections using puppets. By designing and constructing performance puppets to generate dialogues on social, cultural, and political issues, art students connected with their communities and learned how the visual arts can make a positive difference. (Contains 6 figures.)