Got cutoff by software . . . allow me to continue my rant.
Add Ed Oschmann to the list of teacher-magicians.
I despise the concept of learning modalities. Its the type of twaddle that is extraneous to this discusdion.
I know Ed and Gary fairly well. They were both public schoolteachers and are both fabulous magicians. Pete, I know primarily through his writings. I've only spoken to, him too briefly at magic conventions. James Riser I don't know, except through his website. I do know James has treated me with great contempt and derision, via email twice. This makes me even more certain he's an expert.
Look over James' career on his website. The.love he has for teaching and the innovations he used are truly impressive.
Public school teachers are great. I know their pay is lacking. Teachers are paid so poorly I hesitate to call it a profession. It's a calling.
I was trained to teach by the Navy's Nuclear Power program. I taught in Orlando for eight years: podium, chalk and lesson plans. We taught four hours a day. Then I taught in industry for another ten years.
Teachers will use and should use all the tools they can to get their information into their students heads. If you have animations, diagrams or other visual tools, awesome: my teaching bretheren, use them.
Learning magic is not an instructor-driven process. It is student-driven. You already have someone extremely motivated to learn. This student has spent money on instructional material. They should get to pick whatever the hell they want to use. Oh, and they will.
Blathering about modalities or whining about being a visual learner is all horsefeed, or it's what the horsefeed turns into.
Books aren't better than video because of any tool being better or worse. They're better because except for Dan and Dave's products and Liwag's two coin videos, magic videos are utter crap. They're poorly produced, because it's so easy to crank them out.
That's all I'm saying.
KG