Discipline in Schools

[bluesqueak]

> Alice comments:
 
> Did you find that sort of Snape-ish discipline at all convincing? I
> always had the feeling that the teachers were in fact really nice,
> easy-going Arthur Weasley type people pretending to be strict. 
> Sure,there were punishments, but it was all a game, and, mainly, a 
> TV show - not convincing, but fun to watch. 
> 


If you want *convincing* you hire professional actors [big, evil 
grin].

Yes, I think the producers had taken particular care to select 
teachers who were not genuinely sadistic or power crazed. ;-) But I 
experienced that teaching style, and I can remember some teachers 
who used it with an undercurrent of 'it's all a game'. 

It was probably as realistic as you could expect from modern, 
professional teachers who knew they were working with 16 year old 
kids who'd given up 4 weeks of their holidays. I'm quite sure it 
wasn't as nasty as the 1950's schools that most of the teachers 
remembered. ;-) 

And I did like the way the teachers were obviously enjoying being 
able to *make* the kids do things that the teachers knew they were 
capable of, but which the kids themselves hadn't realised they had 
in them.

I think what I really enjoyed was, after seeing endless posts along 
the lines of 'if Snape were a RW teacher he'd be fired in an 
instant' was something that showed JKR is using a recognised 
teaching style from the not-too-distant past. I'm about JKR's age, 
and I remember that style. And I remember teachers who abused it, 
and *were* genuinely nasty. And they were *not* fired.

Yup, a fun show to watch.

Pip!Squeak