Magischola, and Teaching Magic

A colleague at the University of Richmond recently alerted me to New World Magischola (NWM). He found out about it because the university sent the faculty and staff an e-mail to tell them that there might be strange-looking folks around the campus during several four-day stretches this summer. Mr. Dursley would have been highly irritated by this. Here is a redacted snippet from that e-mail.

“New World Magischola participants will be staying in [named buildings]; eating in the Dining Center; and using classroom space in [named buildings]. As such, the campus community might encounter participants in masks, robes, and costumes and/or observe smoke in classrooms or labs.” And in addition: “Event organizers have asked that faculty, staff, and students not interact with participants while they are on campus.” I wonder if that would the tarnish the Live Action Role Playing (LARP) experience, or alternatively it could be more realistic by having “magic-users” questioned incredulously by those not of their kind.

Apparently the founders were inspired by their experience in Poland (mentioned in my previous blog post) a year ago, and they were able to easily raise funds on Kickstarter (according to this HuffPost article). That’s perhaps an indication of how many people desire such an experience. I wonder if I can parlay it into a contract job as a “professor”. The Huffpost article has a gif illustrating what might be a potions class with solutions in Erlenmeyer flasks. The revolving banner on NWM’s website has several classroom scenes. Interestingly, some of them show students looking a little bored or stumped in the classroom, perhaps an indication of old-school boring lessons (maybe it was History of Magic with a ghost-like Professor Binns). There are also scenes that might be part of a chemistry lab course. In fact, I’m guessing this is the most interesting class they could run that would be akin to Potions. It’s not so easy to mimic Care of Magical Creatures, Charms, or Transfiguration. I could clearly teach Potions and Arithmancy, if this was the Harry Potter world. But it’s not.

According to the NWM website, there are six possible “paths” (akin to majors). You could study to become a Cursebreaker, Healer, Astromancer, Artificier, Cryptozoologist, or Marshal. The upcoming Fantastic Beasts movie is bound to increase the subscription for Cryptozoology, and there are many weird fascinating creatures out there. (Here’s my take on chimeras.) Of the six, I would be most knowledgeable in helping students on the path to be Artificiers. According to the description: “Artificiers develop the most detailed understanding of how magic affects the physical world.” Regular readers will know this sounds right up my alley and I’ve explored the topic in several posts. The rest of the description however is rather garbled, but there are some interesting claims. For example, “This type of magical creation is not nearly as forgiving as spell casting or potion brewing, requiring a detailed exactness in order to make functioning objects that also last.” And this is why, folks, you need to learn chemistry at the molecular level – detailed exactness!

How does one become a professor at NWM? Like other LARPs, you can apply to be one during the 4-day session but spots are limited. Doesn’t look like any training is necessary which makes me wonder about the depth or realism of the “classes”. But that’s not the most important thing at the moment since this is a LARP, and an introductory one at that. After several rounds, when participants are searching for more depth, that’s where I might come in. In the meantime I can start writing a textbook on Magical Theory. (I’ve been thinking about the introductory chapter and am converging on it being about the interaction between electromagnetic radiation and matter. And yes, this textbook is a disguise to teach chemistry.) Maybe I could even be the ghostwriter for Adalbert Waffling, who being addled and a waffler, might not be the most reliable textbook writer.

Or maybe I should make my project more manageable and do Seven Brief Lessons on Magic Fundamentals, akin to Carlo Rovelli’s Seven Brief Lessons on Physics, originally a series of newspaper articles introducing science to the general public. It has seven short chapters, my favorite being the one on statistical mechanics. Rovelli’s text is engaging, and has good examples. Here’s one that connects time, heat, entropy and the second law of thermodynamics. The punch line is excellent. If you know about the Boltzmann distribution, you’ll get it!

“While there is no friction, for instance, a pendulum can swing forever. But if there is friction, then the pendulum heats its supports slightly, loses energy and slows down. Friction produces heat. And immediately we are able to distinguish the future (toward which the pendulum slows) from the past… The difference between past and future exists only when there is heat. The fundamental phenomenon that distinguishes the future from the past is the fact that heat passes from things that are hotter to things that are colder. So, again, why as time goes by, does heat pass from hot things to cold and not the other way around? The reason was discovered by Boltzmann and is surprisingly simple: it is sheer chance.”

Maybe I can start with a serialized version of blog posts. To get a larger project done, it’s always good to break it down into bite-sized pieces. So instead of Potions For Muggles, I will be teaching Chemistry for Magic Users, which I have claimed is crucial for more powerful spellcasting. Certainly any Artificier had better learn some (or possibly a lot of) chemistry. And physics. Okay, some biology and engineering would be useful too. Okay, I’m off to ponder this some more on.

P.S. For her vacation reading, my spouse is re-reading the entire Harry Potter series. I’m trying to persuade her to write a guest post! (Looks like she’s almost done with Book 4.) Unlike me, she reads fast.