On the Count of Three: Magic, New Knowledge, and Learning at Walt Disney World

• In Event: 46.053 - The Disney Curriculum: Pedagogies of Being and Buying

Abstract

Walt Disney theme parks are more than anything else teaching tools. They provide a vast yet carefully integrated set of lessons and “new knowledge” designed to shape a particular set of norms and values (Bryman, 2006; Fjellman, 1992; Hermanson, 2005; Jackson & West, 2001; Marlin, 1994; Yoshimoto, 1994). Because of the close relationship Disney parks built with Americans (and now the world), people learned to believe that Disney could “balance an honest desire for profit with the public service of entertaining and educating” (Sammond, 2005, p. 321). People learned to at least try to overlook the high cost of a Disney “vacation” because of its value, which is largely tied up in the educating of the vacationer. At Walt Disney World, emerging in the 1970s from Walt’s efforts to create a utopian model of socio-economic organization, we find the most complete envisioning of the Disney educational narrative. Much has been written about the lessons offered in the various parks, from the environmental consciousness of Disney’s Animal Kingdom to the tall-tales of the old west in Frontier Land to the construction of the “other” in EPCOT’s World Showcase (Fjellman, 1992; Hermanson, 2005; Francaviglia, 2011) yet this is only part of the curriculum. What brings all of the lessons together is the idea they are rooted in magic. Saving the tigers of Africa, listening to President Obama, learning about how Hollywood stunts are created, or shopping in the bazaar at Morroco in World Showcase—while all pieces of the Disney lesson plan for understanding nature, history, science etc.—are paradoxically made real by being part of the Disney magic.

This essay explores what Disney magic is, how it operates within Walt Disney World and what is being taught to visitors about the way they should learn. Walt Disney World teaches us that Disney magic is the source of all possibilities and structures the fabric of reality, or at least a positive reality. What we learn is that Disney magic is not about the effects of waving a wand or the “magic of Hollywood” (though both are important at Walt Disney World) but about an intellectual and emotional state of awareness. It is a power that resides within each of us and in order to achieve an understanding of what is important about the lessons offered at Walt Disney World, we need to acknowledge and allow this magic to become real. This essay examines and considers the Disney magic embodied in a host of shows, objects, characters, music, foods, places, and moments at Walt Disney World and how they are designed to help us learn what Disney magic is, how to use it, and what we learn about the rest of the curriculum and the very idea of being a whole healthy learner by doing so.

Author

• George J. Bey, Millsaps College