The Art of Misdirection – Robbins

What Apollo Robbins does in this video is describe human behavior, attention, and the art of getting people to pay attention to what you want them to, using those two things, sometimes against the audience.

I taught using this video to students who had trouble remembering what was being said in lectures, which was both a meta lesson and teaching tool at the same time. Every time, at the end of the video, students would smile and respond. Remember, these were students who had issues mentally imaging and creating pictures with the words being said. They were in my tutoring care because they couldn't remember any of the things Apollo had said during the video let alone what he had been wearing (watch the video). The reason this video connected, again, every time, was because it allowed these students to connect with the whole audience, and to realize that if Apollo could manipulate an entire audience to pay attention to what he wanted them to, then they as a student could train themselves to do the opposite.

This video has always been fascinating, and is a great way to connect with students and maybe think about what we are asking them to pay attention to, how we engage them in a classroom setting, and why they should?