Jessica Lahey has published a very interesting interview with the famed magician Teller on the similarities between teaching and performing magic. According to Teller, they include the necessity to make the audience (the student) "fall in love" with the subject matter of the performance (the subject), and then to engage the deeper engagement of the audience in the subject, even if it is uncomfortable or contradicts what they believe. Both education and magic performance require participation by all parties. As to the current trend to protect students from discomfort or engagement with difficult or unhappy content, Teller says,
When I go outside at night and look up at the stars, the feeling that I get is not comfort. The feeling that I get is a kind of delicious discomfort at knowing that there is so much out there that I do not understand and the joy in recognizing that there is enormous mystery, which is not a comfortable thing. This, I think, is the principal gift of education.
Read the entire extremely provocative article here.
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