Snape as teacher

[lea.macleod at gmx.net]

No: HPFGUIDX 17312

Amanda has brought up the Snape issue again, so I hope it´s ok that I 
unite her two recent posts on this thread.

>>I think, if there's no deepening or changing of relationship with 
Snape, that it will be as much Snape's fault as anyone's. Snape seems 
to me to be a man on emotional autopilot. I think this "autopilot" 
mode is a form of self-defense, in that Snape's  been through some 
major-league trauma and he simply doesn't bring all of himself to bear 
in day-to-day life anymore. He can get by just fine, doing his job and 
living at Hogwarts, using the shallow emptinesses of the rules and 
professional courtesies and etiquettes and that sort of thing. None of 
that demands introspection, self-examination, intimacy,  or effort. 
It's a "coasting" mode.
The times we have seen Snape truly emotional have all been when the 
past was invoked. His emotional involvement ended there. He's 
emotional about Harry because he touches on the past.
 So I wonder how the new information Snape's been handed--that Sirius 
is in fact innocent, as is Lupin, that James was right about Sirius, 
that Harry has met and eluded Voldemort again--is going to affect his 
whole manner of being, let alone his teaching or how he interacts with 
Harry. All of this touches on the past, all of it must affect his 
viewpoint and actions, all of it must be assimilated--and all of it 
had been nicely sublimated and must be exhumed. Hmmm.<<


I agree with the first bit. We´ve discussed this on the "authority" 
thread before. But while imposing his authority on the students seems 
to agree with Snape´s character, I don´t think observing professional 
courtesies and etiquette does - otherwise we wouldn´t have seen him 
congratulating Prof. McGonagall on Gryffindor winning the house cup 
"with a horribly forced smile" at the end of HPPS. 

I disagree with the second bit, though. The great "break" in 
Snape´s view of his own past and especially regarding his old 
enemies came at the end of PoA, not at the end of GoF, so we already 
*know* how Snape reacted to it: *not at all*.

When I had finished PoA, I somehow thought: How will Harry ever be 
able to take Snape seriously again, as a teacher? How will they ever 
find back to an everyday mode of getting along with each other on a 
student-teacher-basis?

I mean how would you interact with your teacher after you´ve seen him 
go positively mad so you had to knock him out?

But all JKR says about it (at the start of GoF) is that Snape had 
attained new levels of vindictiveness over the summer, and right as 
she is, is that a realistic reaction?

Amanda would of course suggest that´s just the way he handles these 
experiences - ignore them.

-----------
Amamnda on teaching qualities again:

> But I think Snape, in his own mind, does not consider himself first 
and foremost a teacher. It's what he's doing, he does it well (I 
think), but it's not how he identifies himself.<

I agree so far, that´s what I meant when I said he´s *not* a teacher 
by character.

>It does not bind his behavior outside the walls of his classroom. He 
allows himself liberties that someone whose life and being is teaching 
would never consider, including a cruel response to someone who is 
your student. I think whatever his administrative position is at 
Hogwarts--and I think he must hold one, over and in addition to his 
teaching post--is separate in his mind from his teaching duties. 
Because he *does* seem to carry the administrative role "with him" 
fairly regularly.<

I disagree again. Snape´s behaviour does not change one jot whether 
he´s in the classroom or outside it, as long as he is at Hogwarts and 
there are students around (the shrieking shack was different). The "I 
see no difference" remark could have been made in the classroom 
(remember him reading out the Rita Skeeter article in class) as well 
as outside it (remember him warning Lupin about Neville´s stupidity in 
the staff room). He does *not* separate his teaching duties from his 
other Hogwarts duties (whatever they may be). Instead, his inability 
to seperate them is one of the reason most students hate him so much. 
I remember after the Neville-staff room-comment, they agree that it´s 
mean enough of him to bully Neville in his own classes, so it´s 
especially bad if he does it in front of other teachers (and it is, I 
must say).

So Snape´s problem really is (apart from all the many others we don´t 
know about yet) that as much as he tries not to be influenced by and 
show his own emotions, he doesn´t even manage to do his teaching job 
rather unemotionally and mechanically.

So if Amanda is entirely right with her "emotional autopilot" 
statement (which was a brilliant metaphor, I think) we would see Snape 
in class as a second Prof. Binns. Which he is not, obviously.