The kid who cannot be a magician

My 10 year old son came to me and said , I am going to do a magic , he had a magic book of tricks given as a gift. He asked me to sit down and said "now I am going to do this magic, for which I would be needing a full sleeve shirt".

I was surprised for a moment. It was a trick to make the wand disappear. Was he stupid ?

My wife too was surprised. But I realized why he did that after I reflected on it for a while. From his childhood he has been a very sweet kid. One who is very innocent and not taking delight in cheating others.

He liked magic but did not want to cheat ! How can one be a magician and not wanting to cheat ! ?( No offence to magicians).

I told him " you are too innocent to be a magician". Probably this is not the profession that will suit you, give it up, you are a magician anyways !

He said " I know dad, just let me do this trick it does not matter if you know how this is being done".

As a teacher I have tried to  achieve this from a long time and failed. Some of my students think I am a magician and therefore they cant do and learn what I teach, because they see a magical quality in what I teach. I am guilty of actually presenting things in a dramatic way and years after I started doing it, I realized that it actually is counterproductive because it fails in the very fundamental aspiration of education: the ability to make a student think that he too can do it !

Many think that Richard Feynman the great Physicist had the quality of a great magician. He seems to enchant you with his talent and knowledge. But yet he does not hide anything. He unfolds his own magical ways through the magnificent lectures he delivers.

Is it necessary for one to hide something to give it a magical quality ?

Feynman lectures are so famous and so simple that even a person who has no background in Physics can learn some great physics by reading them. (The transliteration of his video lectures are a book series which is presented in three volumes)

Many things in life, like a sunset, the smile of a child and the reflections on a dew drop are magical though there is no secret about it !