[HPforGrownups] How V got that way (was Future sacrifices?)

[Allyson]

No: HPFGUIDX 9902

Touché!!!

I have done just that Amy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I didn't want to stir the bucket with my original posting.  I was merely pointing out someone else's opinion of V.  

Our whole class (yes, I am the teacher) has been exploring Harry Potter in our Reading/Literature class each day.  Yesterday, our discussion took us to the level of uncaring and unloving that V possesses.  The children in my class are in a residential treatment facility (an alternative education type of setting) and MANY of them have had somewhat the same type of thing happen to them as V has.  Parents who abandoned them as babies.  We got heavy into that discussion.  The girl in question felt that as pointing out a certain set of situations that *could* have led to V's present state of mind/emotions, was in fact defending his behaviors.  It was pointed out that the question of why V is the way he is was not answered and their weekend homework was a 1 page essay giving their opinion as to how and why V has become so untouched by love.

Thanks!  I would also appreciate ANY other ideas for activities.  We are finishing CoS on Monday and I have to assign a book project for them.  One kid asked me if he could make a 'to-scale' model of Hogwarts.  OH HOW PLEASED I WAS THERE!!!!!!

----- Original Message ----- 
From: Amy 
To: HPforGrownups at egroups.com 
Sent: Saturday, January 20, 2001 1:59 PM
Subject: [HPforGrownups] How V got that way (was Future sacrifices?)


Scott wrote:

>I think that the person who said "Don't be making excuses..." is
>completely off base.

Interesting post, Scott.  And Allyson, I am very jealous that you have 
an excuse to discuss this book at work.

I'd make a distinction between making excuses and trying to understand 
the origins of someone's character and behavior.  I would like very 
much to know how Hitler came to be the way he was.  IMO he was 
probably born a normal child, with certain tendencies but nothing 
written in stone that *required* him to be one of human history's 
worst and bloodiest haters.  Asking how he ended up that way isn't 
making excuses--there is no possible excuse--it's an attempt to know 
how human spirits are shaped and, one hopes, how to keep from growing 
more haters.

You can still believe in demonic possession or in people being born 
evil, but since I don't I am interested in how V got to be the way he 
is.  "He's just evil" begs the question; it doesn't answer it.  You 
could assign it as an essay topic to your students.

Amy Z

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Many people said he hadn't noticed he was dead.
                        --Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
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