Case Studies: Teaching Life Values to Children Using Magic.

I personally feel that teaching life values and positive character traits are much more important than academic results.

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I am super encouraged that local schools in Singapore are focusing more on these.

Recently, one of our regular students at Mr Bottle’s Magic Academy won a prestigious character award at school. Together with the positive behaviours of our students, as well as positive feedback from teachers and parents, these motivate us to continue to expand our magic classes.

6 case studies on how teaching life values is yielding positive results.

Having running more of our magic lessons and teaching life values, here are some of our observations from teachers, parents as well as myself which deserve mention.

1. Being respectful to other people.

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As a magician, I get kids saying, “I know how it is done” quite frequently. But 90-100% of the time, children DO NOT know how it is done. Yes, they were just guessing or they meant they knew what was going to happen.

Then why do children say this? They are growing up and need to prove to their peers that they are smart. They do not realise that this is the wrong way to react.

This observation can be seen very clearly when someone joins our magic lessons for a trial class. (That is also another reason we stopped our trial classes and run magic camps instead.)

Recently, a child was having a playdate with our students so the mummy requested to let her join our lesson for that week.

I agreed. As you probably guessed, she was the only one who kept blurting out, “I know the secret.” or “I know how it is done.” (She didn’t know the secret at all.) Our regular students, who probably have more knowledge of magic, chose to give the instructor the respect he deserved.

Children learn how and when it is appropriate to react in many of the scenarios in school and at home, which we roleplay with them.

2. Responsibility and accountability.

My students’ parents, who are a pair of twins, booked Mr Bottle‘s Birthday Magic Show for their children’s birthday party.

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While waiting for the show to start, one of the children came up to take Mr Bottle’s magic props to play. One of our magic students, who joined the course for 1 year together with his twin brother, approached the kid and told him to put it back.

I personally feel touched that she took the responsibility for the incident without me having to step in to intervene. This is, after all, their party and their friends, so it was much more appropriate in this case. (Eg. If a child misbehaves, I will usually wait for the parents to take any actions first before stepping in, if necessary.)

3. Our students give positive encouragement to others.

When I first started Mr Bottle’s Magic Academy, I consulted with Paul Critelli, a psychologist based in Grand Rapids, USA.

I wanted to create a grading system like piano or ballet. Since he was the chairperson of International contests for Society of American Magicians for more than a decade, I thought he could help me with this. However, he was against the idea.

You see, magic has too many genres and elements. It is just so difficult to categorise one just by a low or high mark. A person, who is bad in mental magic, can excel in manipulation. Instead, he suggested helping students to excel in areas they are good it. It got me thinking. I totally agree with him.

I remembered an incident, in which I was the judge for the SAM Contest in 2006. We dished out an award to a contestant with muscular dystrophy, not due to his condition, but how he remembered to greet people and how he treated his audience with care.

Mr Bottle

That is why our system is built on positive reinforcements from the trainers, peers, parents and more as well as backbones of values which are important in children.

Students are trained to give feedback to help others improve, and not to criticise. They give encouragement to others who have done well or tried their best. After each individual’s performance, you will be amazed at how many their classmates are the ones dishing out the praises for them!

That is why during our class, a form teacher said, “I am surprised with how positive James (name changed due to privacy) can be and so different in class.”

4. There is no such thing as shyness, only resilience.

He’s very confident! I’ve never heard him speak like this in class! Such precious moments.

Mrs Tu, English Teacher at a Primary School.

Similarly from the above advice from experts and consultants around me, our instructors do not label kids as “shy”, “naughty” or “quiet”.

As a very “shy” person myself, I know that this can trigger a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Since some of my magic workshop for MOE Schools is part of the resilience programme, I get children from extreme ends of the spectrum.

I do not give them a chance to be labelled shy. Hyper-active kids have to learn to respect others. Everyone gets an equal chance of performing and answering questions. That is why you get teachers telling us how their students behave so differently in our magic classes vs their normal classes.

As you probably know, our magic lessons teach children HOW to perform. We don’t emphasise on the secrets. They need to go through the presentation of the magic progressively with:

• the trainers, as a group,
• with a partner and
• finally individually.

That is why if they were to take on single lesson or holiday camp, continual encouragement and support from parents are essential.

What if the child is too nervous to perform individually in front of others? We realised that they just need more time, and we have methods to ease them into the situation and gain the confidence required.

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The result? We regularly get pleasant reactions from parents and teachers. Why? They are surprised to see their very “shy” children volunteering actively in our magic acts or even answering questions. They are even more astonished when their kids can stand in front of an audience to perform.

5. Tangible Rewards are secondary.

We have a scoring system in our holiday camps and in the progress book to encourage children to work hard towards their goals.

However, they are reminded that these tangible rewards are secondary because the real rewards come from learning life values and these new skills.

For our regular students, we worked with them to put our skills and values to use by participating in meaningful charity events:

We are encouraged by the feedback from parents how these real-life experiences and goals are more important than learning a lot of magic tricks.

6. Fairness and Empathy

Teaching Life Values like empathy is a big focus in our magic lessons.

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There was once in which I taught in a school and the scores were not enough for anyone to redeem Mr Bottle’s Magic Set, which I promised everyone.

I thought it will only be fair if I can give to the person with the highest score.

She came to me quietly to tell me not to give her the extra points since it would not be fair to the rest.

I was surprised but very happy with her reaction. I assured her that people do not feel this way and you can also be generous by sharing with the rest the magic set or performing this for them.

So is magic the key to teaching life values to kids?

Of course, our Magic lessons are not ‘magic pills’ to improve a child’s behaviour. Magic works because:

1. of the fun element, which makes learning values interesting and relatable.
2. This, in turn, encourages the kids to practise more.
3. Children are reminded of life values when they perform. Hence improving their understanding of these positive character traits.
4. Their peers, instructors, teachers and parents (as well as people around them) give them positive encouragement and we give notes to help the parents.
5. This positive environment creates a cyclic positive effect on them.

More importantly, it is Mr Bottle’s Magic Academy‘s core values and growth mindset that makes our lessons unique in the world.

Magic is such an amazing art which not everyone will understand. By getting the values right, I believe their paths to be a successful magician and person will be much smoother.