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Mr. Bob was exhausted. Last night’s hockey game on tv went into double overtime, so he didn’t get to sleep until 1:30 am. Luckily, as teachers know, in this situation it’s time to kill time by showing the class a video!

Billy had been thinking that maybe Mr. Bob couldn’t do magic at all. Looking down at a fuzzy caterpillar munching on a leaf, Billy had an idea.

Later in front of the class, Billy challenged: “If you can really do magic, Mr. Bob, change this caterpillar into a butterfly.”

“Sure,” replied Mr. Bob, not fazed by the challenge, and proclaimed “ALAKAZOO, caterpillar to butterfly!” There was a puff of smoke and a flash of lightning, and when the smoke cleared the caterpillar remained as it was before.

“I knew it,” Billy exclaimed, “You didn’t cast a spell at all!”

“Sure, I did,” replied Mr. Bob. “Take the caterpillar home and wait for 2 weeks. This spell takes a little longer, but you’ll have your butterfly.”

After a long day of teaching the kids how magic tricks work, Mr. Bob picked up his rabbit Fred and began to think out loud.

“You know,” Bob said, “It’s amazing to think how much thinking we do in a day talking to ourselves, and yet not out loud!”

Fred nodded.

“Imagine a world where everyone thought out loud and people thought whatever they wanted and never worried about what others thought!” Mr. Bob exclaimed.

Fred pooped.

“Anyway,” Bob remarked, “it was a good day of explaining fake magic so let’s cast a real magic spell and call it a day. ALAKAZOO! FRED OLDER!”

All of the sudden, there was a flash of lightning and a cloud of smoke, and Fred was slightly older when the smoke cleared than he was before the flash of lightning.

Adam had stayed in his seat after class looking depressingly out the window.

“Alakazoo” shouted Mr. Bob, as in a puff of smoke he transformed a closed can of Sprite into an open one and handed it to Adam.

“Thanks,” Adam said. “Just having a bad day today.”

“Nonsense,” Mr. Bob claimed. “Every glass is half full and every cloud has a silver lining. Turn that mess into a message; that test into a testimony; that trial into a triumph; being a victim into a victory. What I’m saying sounds poetic so it must be true!”

“Life doesn’t seem poetic,” Adam said.

“You know what the difference between a poem and a story is?” Mr. Bob asked. “With a story you try to skip over things to understand the general plot: the problem and solution. A poem is the opposite. Every word is looked at very carefully and returned to many times to try and figure out what it’s “doing” in the poem. Stories are for understanding meaning. Poems are for exploring what words are doing, how they are working in the poem. Life can be hard if the big picture looks gloomy, but poets know any situation can keep revealing new and wonderful things the more we live every little moment and appreciate it.”

“My mom is cooking corned beef and cabbage tonight,” Adam complained.

The teacher shrugged. “Sometimes we can’t think our ways out of things,” Mr. Bob admitted.

“Today’s Magic Class is going to be a little different,” Mr. Bob said. “We are going to try some word magic. Who thinks words have to make sense for them to give us ideas?”

All hands went up.

“But what about this poem by Lewis Carrol, author of Alice in Wonderland?

Jabberwocky

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!

The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!

Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun

The frumious Bandersnatch!”

He took his vorpal sword in hand;

Long time the manxome foe he sought —

So rested he by the Tumtum tree

And stood awhile in thought.

And, as in uffish thought he stood,

The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,

Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,

And burbled as it came!

One, two! One, two! And through and through

The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!

He left it dead, and with its head

He went galumphing back.

“And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?

Come to my arms, my beamish boy!

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!”

He chortled in his joy.

’Twas brillig, and the slithy toves

Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:

All mimsy were the borogoves,

And the mome raths outgrabe.

(Bibliographical info
Source: Jabberwocky and Other Nonsense: Collected Poems, 2012, by Penguin Random House. This poem is in the public domain)

“Now,” Mr. Bob said, “Does spelling matter if you want your writing to make sense?”

Again, all hands went up.

“Well,” Mr. Bob said, “What about this?”

Aoccdrnig to a rscheearch at Cmabrigde Uinervtisy, it deosn’t mttaer in waht oredr the ltteers in a wrod are, the olny iprmoetnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be at the rghit pclae. The rset can be a toatl mses and you can sitll raed it wouthit porbelm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mnid deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wlohe.

“So, you know what to do, let’s get going making some nonsense poems that still make sense!” encouraged Mr. Bob.

“We’re allowed to create gibberish?” Alice asked astounded?

“Just this once,” Mr. Bob smiled.

“And now,” Mr. Bob said in his most Mr. Bob-ish way possible, “All suits are red!”

He turned over the deck of cards in his hands and to the student’s amazement, the suits of all the cards had turned red!

“They must be happy,” Suzy remarked.

“Why?” asked Mr. Bob.

“Well, when I’m happy everything becomes rosy,” Suzy replied.

“Yes!” said Mr. Bob, delighted. “Magic is all around us but hidden, and it is a special magic of the mind that nudges it to the surface to see the light of day. It is sensed before it is seen with the mind’s eye. I think you win this deck of cards Suzy.”

“No thanks,” she replied.

“But why?” asked a confused Mr. Bob?

“How can I play with a deck of cards that has only one color?”

One thing cool about Mr. Bob the magic teacher is he always did a class participation warm up. For example, one time he tore a sock in half and asked the class what happened? “Its ‘wholeness’ was destroyed” Marty said. “Exactly” said Mr. Bob. “And I bet you didn’t even notice the sock’s wholeness was there until we lost it.” “Abracadabra wholeness” Marty shouted! Mr. Bob continued: “You know what’s similar? We know what the different parts of the brain do because when a brain part gets damaged, we can see what stops working. How can this kind of thinking help us learn other things?” “A better question,” Marty pouted, “is how you’re going to explain my torn sock to my mom!?”

Mr. Bob taught magic class at the school. He tried to switch things up by explaining how the trick works before doing it. For example, he showed how a hat has a hidden compartment to pull a rabbit out of. This should have been boring but wasn’t as he went ahead to accidentally pull a small hat out of the rabbit’s mouth.

If it so happens, as it sometimes does, that you walk along Magnetic Creek (which flows up rather than down) early in the morning and cross the endless woods, you may come into a little clearing where a very old schoolhouse has stood from time beyond memory. If it is the right day and time, whenever that might be, you will find a quaint grade seven class with a blue boy staring out the window and restlessly tapping his finger. As it so happens, today the little boy blue was doing neither of these things but was rather waiting patiently at his desk – since today was different! Today was Magic Class …

Have you ever known someone who both can see and can’t see at the same time? We all are like that sometimes. Did you ever have a friend who really wasn’t a very good friend, but you didn’t really notice until later? May they only wanted to hang out because you had an Xbox and they didn’t?

QUESTION:

Can you come up with times where you only understood what was going on later?