Magic in schools
September 24th, 2008 Posted in EducationI found this article on the Daily Mail site. No, don’t worry, I don’t actually read the Daily Mail – I found this from a link. But anyway, the article is talking about how we should have magic training in schools because, according to Richard Wiseman, it might be “an unique and effective way of developing an important set of psychological skills.” This is interesting, as it was one of the suggestions I made in an earlier blog post about what children should learn in school. The point isn’t that magic tricks are a useful life skill (though I understand they are great for parties) but what the article shows is that the psychological benefits from learning a skill like this are extremely valuable.
Wiseman didn’t mention what I think is the most important point, however. Or, if he did, then it wasn’t reported in the article. And that is the simple fact that learning magic helps children realise how easy it is to fool people. Once you realise that even extremely intelligent people are very easily fooled, then all of a sudden rational thinking comes very easily.
