Amaze, amaze, enchant young people and adults through magic, illusion, manipulation, suggestion. But the word that sums up the intimate sense of magic is creativity. Creativity is essential to design a new personal number, but also to provide your own reworking of something already known. Giving young people and adults notions of magical art means allowing their minds to open up and understand a new and fascinating language, consisting of practice, knowledge and fun. The innovation that we want to probe and reach with this project "We need illusions more than reality" is to use "magic" not only to amuse and amaze, but to understand what the different ways of facing a reality that it may seem absolutely unreal, paying particular attention especially to disadvantaged people (young people and adults). We will try to enter into the mentality and knowledge of people, especially disadvantaged people, when they are confronted with something that seems impossible and that instead really happens; developing the useful tools, in case a situation similar to the past occurs, in order to also use illusionism to make him experience reality better. After a first theoretical phase of research-action, in which the magic and the added value it can bring to education will be analyzed, a second practical phase of realization of laboratories will be carried out, in which effects of levitation, disappearance and appearance will occur multiplication, suspension, transformation and all that illusionism allows. At the end of the shows and performances, a third phase of analysis will be launched, in which interviews and in-depth interviews will be organized to understand what is the real knowledge of able-bodied and disadvantaged people in the face of unforeseen and improbable events. Both the workshops and the interviews and interviews will be the subject of video footage and the most useful contributions will be used as evidence of the innovation and will be conveyed in a documentary film. The evaluation and reworking of the interviews and interviews will form the outline of the final publication, which will be used to equip young people and adults with the tools and skills necessary to find creative and innovative to address unprecedented risks and social solutions, as well as to uncovering opportunities that can be sought in a critical context.
In the two years of the project, the partnership has carried out exploratory analyses with which it has taken note that, increasingly, children in the various school groups, (from all three countries involved in the project) do not have knowledge and practice of abstract thinking. In some fields, such as the digital one, it is undeniable that there have been inventions (more or less random) such as social or App, useful to alleviate many of the daily problems. But what the partnership aimed at, implementing the project, was to stimulate, acquire and develop the ability to apply to a problem a series of different solutions that, albeit in their illogicality, could amplify the ability to analyze and go to the bottom even beyond the appearance that the problem poses. With the project "We need illusions more than reality" creative tools have been studied, designed and tested aimed at trying to enter the mentality and knowledge of people, especially disadvantaged people, to confront them with something that seems impossible and that actually happens. Creativity is essential to conceive a new magic number and create new wonders, but it is also essential to provide your own personal reworking of something already known. Giving young people and adults notions of magical art has meant allowing their mind to open up and understand a new and fascinating language, made of practice, knowledge and fun. The action strategy came slowly formalizing by analyzing the partial results of the various experiences and the suggestions given by the recordings of the shows and one-to-one interactions made with children and operators. Particular attention was paid to the filming of reactions and subsequent interviews, carefully recorded and analyzed. In fact, the shows and performances have always been made with the aids of a room facing the spectators, aimed at capturing with great attention the moments of emotional and emotional response. From this important and painstaking analysis work, the partners created the idea of the "reasoning room" and the subsequent guidelines with which to operate by means of the WNIMTR methodology. Therefore, the main objectives achieved were: - the development of useful tools to deal with uncomfortable situations, - the adoption of methods to recognise situations similar to those that have passed over time, - the use of the methodology of illusionism to make one's reality live better. The innovation probed and achieved was to use "magic" both to entertain and amaze, but also to understand what the different ways of dealing with a reality that may seem absolutely unreal, paying particular attention especially to disadvantaged people (young people and adults) may be.
What prompted the partnership to present the Erasmus project in the field of School Education on magic is the fact that the suggestion given by illusion can be useful for the development of children. The history of man is undoubtedly the history of the journey in the search for understanding of phenomena. It can even be asserted that the very essence of man lies in the discovery of the world, of the secret of natural events and of existence itself. But the suggestion (which creates abstraction, immaterial thought) indispensable for such cognitive processes, in most dictionaries is deciphered with the negative meaning of conditioning and plagiarism. With the Project "We need illusions more than reality" the partnership wanted to focus on a suggestion understood as a moment in which, suspending rationality, the human being, and in this case the boy, is able to seek and find solutions, triggering a process by which the mind approaches a given situation with new tools. Therefore, the need that faced the partnership was to look for new methodologies and new tools aimed at developing an enriched ability to invent and / or find explanations to problems, contaminating what you already know (through a rational learning approach) with what your mind elaborates abstracting itself from this acquired knowledge. This need has become increasingly stronger, especially in response to the serious cultural and creative crisis experienced as a result of the pandemic that has affected the whole world. The use of white magic, and in particular illusionism, has made it possible to reproduce different situations in a protected environment, putting young people to the test and trying to get out unscathed thanks to the adoption of innovative and creative methods and tools. This new methodology of informal education, created by this partnership, has brought benefits to the school: - as a new method of initial, intermediate and final screening to understand the level of learning of students, identify the presence of any gaps and find the most suitable teaching method, - as a new method of training and coaching for students through the simulation of certain situations, - as a new workshop activity to activate group work and understanding, especially of the needs of disadvantaged young people, to understand how they feel and what they feel, - as a tool to motivate young people in school, everyday and personal life.