March 28, 2024

Teaching as Art and Magic

The Atlantic featured a really good piece of reflection on the lost art of teaching by the great magician Teller, half of Penn and Teller.

 

“The first job of a teacher is to make the student fall in love with the subject. That doesn’t have to be done by waving your arms and prancing around the classroom; there’s all sorts of ways to go at it, but no matter what, you are a symbol of the subject in the students’ minds.”
– Teller

 

This fits nicely with my oft-repeated statement, “Schools have an obligation to introduce children to things they don’t yet know they love.”

Americans have a nutty notion that experts are bad teachers. My experience is quite to the contrary. You become an expert by obsessively focusing on often tiny, yet continuous growth. That precision and focus is easy converted into an ability to explain a learning process.

 

 Read Teaching: Just Like Performing Magic
With Teller and the Criss Angel of Chicago, David Jakes
With Teller and the Criss Angel of Chicago, David Jakes