The only way to learn is to do

Riffle shuffles, balance bikes and fronted adverbials

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The only way to learn how to do something is to do it. A few people in my magic sessions have asked about private lessons, and now those lessons are happening I’ve been reminded of a basic truth: in the end, learning is up to you.

When I do an in-the-hands riffle shuffle, for instance, as I’m separating the two halves of the deck my right little finger comes out, making sure that the cards heading towards my left hand stay in line. But here’s the thing: no one ever taught me to do that. In fact it was ages before I noticed I’d started doing it. My subconscious had found that little touch, and had got me doing it without me even realising.

So that’s what I say to the people I’m teaching: yes, you need some initial instruction, the basic explanation behind a trick or a technique. But after that, don’t be afraid of finding your own way of making it work. If the cards won’t fit in your hand a particular way, try them another. If the coin needs to rest on your third finger when for me it rests on my second, go ahead. As long as the trick works, that’s all that matters.

It’s more than just ‘practice makes perfect’. That phrase implies you’re doing the same thing again and again. No – practising something actually changes the way you do it. You put your own spin on things, find your own subtleties. That’s what makes learning fun.

This has implications for formal education – the only way to learn how to write, for instance, is to write. We all learn to speak just by listening to people, so why do we need ridiculous phrases such as ‘fronted adverbial’ before we’re trusted to write a sentence? The answer, of course, is that we don’t, and a whole generation of kids are having the joy sucked out of language by the idiots at the Department for Education who come up with phrases like ‘fronted adverbial’.

It also has implications for parenthood. You have to let your child learn by its mistakes. Try and teach them everything and you’re doomed to failure. Even if they do what you say, they won’t understand why they’re doing it, so they won’t get it quite right. It’s like riding a bike – in the old days, everyone thought kids needed stabilisers, but then along came the balance bike, and hey presto they were staying upright within minutes.

There’s still a role for the teacher in all of this – but it’s a monitoring role, being the other pair of eyes, the person who can spot what the pupil hasn’t spotted themselves, then use that to nudge them towards improvements. But the course is always set by the pupil.

That’s going to be my philosophy as I give magic lessons. Not least because the things the pupils discover by accident – their equivalents of the extended little finger – might be things I can take on board. Teacher, learn thyself!

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