[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Class size discrepancy of DADA & Relative School SIze

[Shaun Hately]

On 17 Jul 2004 at 7:41, Steve wrote:

> --- In HPFGU-OTChatter at yahoogroups.com, "Shaun Hately" <drednort at a...>
> wrote:
> > On 16 Jul 2004 at 21:48, Steve wrote:
> > 
> > > We have too small a window into size of individual class years,
> > > but it's illogical to assume they are identical. 
> 
> > Shaun:
> > 
> > Not necessarily.
> > 
> > Personally I reconcile the discrepancies between the size of the 
> > school in a somewhat similar way - ... for some reason ... it's not 
> > operating at capacity. If I had to come up with a reason I'd say 
> > it's because of a lack of available teachers.
> > 
> > But when dealing with a selective school (as Hogwarts seems to be) 
> > it's not illogical by any means to assume identical or near 
> > identical class sizes. It depends on the standards of selection - 
> > but with a selective school where it's the only school serving a 
> > particular population and there seems to be less places than there 
> > are potential students, I'd expect it to have pretty similar, if 
> > not identical, class sizes each year.
> > 
> > ...edited...
> > 
> > Shaun Hately 
> 
> Asian_lovr2:
> 
> Here is were I'm coming from on the issue of class size. Hogwarts does
> not choose students from the cream of the crop of the roughly 60
> million citizens of the UK. They are choosing from a select group from
> a small sub-culture. That creates a limited number of candidates.
> 
> If we work on your (I believe your's) permise that Hogwarts is the
> premier University of Wizarding in the UK, and that only a very select
> group of candidates are magical enough to get in, then we limit the
> pool of candidates even more.
> 
> To save people the trouble of asking, based on my memory of that
> premise, kids who don't make the grade are trained through various
> home schooling, and apprenticeship programs. So they aren't completely
> left out; the still get education and job opportunities. Just not the
> same opportunities as those who go to Oxford, Chambridge, or Hogwarts.
>
> My own personal take on alternate education is that there are-
> -School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (equivalent to Universities;
> actually only one in UK)
> -Schools of Magic (equivalent to trade/techincal schools)
> 
> A regular muggle school that has a pool of millions with high demand
> to get into these schools, where I suspect demand always exceeds
> supply, can easily select enough students to fill their capacity. 

And it all seems perfectly logical - it's just that it's not the 
only logical model given the situation that we're seeing. A case 
can easily be made for a logical model which means the school does 
take either the same, or nearly the same, number of students each 
year.

It basically comes down to how Hogwarts selects its students.

Given that it seems to be selective - ie, there is a minimum 
standard for entry, presumably based on some sort of magical 
ability level (I went into this in my MP/MQ post a couple of weeks 
back on the main list), it really depends on how that minimum 
standard is assessed.

Now, I believe Hogwarts can be fairly compared in many ways to 
schools for gifted children in the Muggle World, and for those 
schools in my experience, we can look at two basic models used for 
selection.

The first is the 'floor score' method - where to get in, you must 
achieve a particular score on a test. With gifted kids, it's often 
an IQ test - say an IQ score of 150 is required for entry. With 
such an entry requirement, you will tend to get fluctuations in 
numbers each year - because one year 10 people will qualify, the 
next 6 will.

The second is the 'ranking' method - where to get in, you must be 
in the top 'certain number' of applicants - say the top 20 
applicants get in. One year, number 20 may have an IQ of 144, the 
next number 20 may have an IQ of 139. But you end up with a 
consistent number of students.

(There's also a third model which combines both - top 20 applicants 
provided they score over IQ 140, say - but that's more complicated 
- and with that model whether or not the number is consistent 
depends on where the floor score is compared to the normal calibre 
of applicants each year. There's other models as well, too - but 
they are irrelevant to this discussion).

The point is, whether or not Hogwarts has a consistent enrolment 
each year really depends on a lot of different factors.

If there is no minimum standard, or if there is an absolute minimum 
standard considerably below the typical qualifying point each year, 
and students are selected by relative rankings, you'd expect to get 
about the same enrolment each year.

And that's an entirely possible and logical system. So is the 
system you've outlined. The point is that it's not illogical to 
postulate a system where the numbers are consistent, not that this 
is necessarily the case.

Now, just to respond to a couple of specific points.
 
> My own personal take on alternate education is that there are-
> -School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (equivalent to Universities;
> actually only one in UK)
> -Schools of Magic (equivalent to trade/techincal schools)
> 
> A regular muggle school that has a pool of millions with high demand
> to get into these schools, where I suspect demand always exceeds
> supply, can easily select enough students to fill their capacity. 
> 
> But Hogwarts doesn't have that luxury. If you simply don't have the
> magical talent to get in, there is really no way to work harder to
> make up for it in the way a muggle kid can study harder to make the
> academic grade. 
> 
> In this sense, Hogwarts is more like a music or art school, as opposed
> to a general education school. If you don't have the musical,
> artistic, or magical talent, there is just no way you can work around
> that in school.
> 
> So, things like low birth rates and a limited fluctuating pool of
> qualfied candidates could easily make it difficult for Hogwarts to
> meet capacity. 
> 
> Although, I do believe Hogwarts would take every available qualified
> candidate, and expand the staff accordingly. Given Dumbledore's good
> nature, he would not leave good candiates untrained because of a lack
> of capacity or staff.

If he had a choice, probably not - but you cannot assume he has a 
choice.

We have indications in the text that Dumbledore has a hard time 
finding staff for Hogwarts. He can't just wave a wand and summon 
three more Potions Masters, or two more DADA Masters, or another 
Divination teacher.

Finding qualified staff seems to be a problem at Hogwarts in at 
least some of the subject areas.

If you look at the school I attended, and similar schools in 
Australia - they started to have female teachers as full time staff 
members after World War II - reason - because there was a lack of 
qualified male teachers. The schools did not *want* to hire women - 
they had no choice, because there weren't enough qualified men.

In the Wizarding World, we seem to have a fairly equal society in 
terms of gender roles. So if something has caused a teacher 
shortage there - a shortage of qualified candidates to teach - it's 
likely it affects their entire potential pool of teachers - not 
just half of the pool.

> On the other hand, since Hogwarts seem financially sound, I don't
> think they would lower their standards to meet capacity.

It depends on how you define their standards.

I agree that there is probably a minimum point somewhere, below 
which standards wouldn't be lowered.

But selection currently could be considerably above standard.

Back to the gifted kid analogy simply because I know numbers.

I know a school here in Melbourne where to get in, students *must* 
have a measured IQ of at least 115. That is an absolute rock solid 
minimum score.

It's also a score that has been practically irrelevant since about 
1970 - nobody with a score of under 126 has got in since then, 
because they take the top 64 applicants.

One year, the minimum was 135, the following year the minimum was 
128. They didn't lower the standards the second year - the entry 
standard remained identical.

If Hogwarts is a school built to take 1000 students at its peak 
capacity when everything is running at full bore, and it's only 
taking 270, or 400, or 600 students, then depending on the reasons 
why it's operating at below peak capacity, there could be a *lot* 
of maneuvering room between current actual entry standard - and 
potential entry standard.
 
I'm not saying that this is how Hogwarts works.

I just think that a perfectly logical case can be made that class 
sizes are about the same, or even rock solid identical each year.

I attended two selective schools - and both of them had absolute 
rocksolid attendance numbers each year (I only managed to get into 
the first one because someone left opening up a very unusual space 
- I easily met the minimum scores, but they didn't generally take 
anyone at the year I was entering - and later on, when two 
classmates died, their places were filled within weeks).



Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]