Hello! I am a teacher and a magic hobbyist. I am interested to know if there are any teachers who sponser a magic club for the students at their school. I'm thinking about how I would do it, and I've come to realize I am clueless. It would probably be geared toward middle school students (we have grades 6-12). If you do something like this, here are a couple of questions I have:
1. How/What do you teach?
2. How do you keep from having it turn into a "learn how magicians do it" club?
3. How do you use it as an opportunity to build confidence and inspire creativity?
4. How do you keep it entertaining and educational?

Thanks!
Mike Engstrom

Mike,

This might be a bit different because I'm working in South Korea, but our school has a magic club. I'm not involved with it -- instead, a local magician basically comes in and the students in the club work with him to develop magic skills, and when the variety show happens every year each one does a small performance for it.

The tricks that they do are mostly gimmicked stuff that's meant for stage. In terms of creativity (with regards to the effects themselves), there's not much there, but their presentation skills actually aren't bad.

The kids are pretty disciplined about magic as well. They're not showing off their stuff in the hallways or anything like that.

They meet once a week.

That sounds great! Thanks for the info!

Mike