Trelawney

[meboriqua at aol.com]

No: HPFGUIDX 21336

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., pigwidgeon37 at y... wrote:

> The "old fraud" theory, IMHO, is corroborated by the fact that she 
> really "laps up" the predictions invented by Harry and Ron, because, 
> even if the predicted *facts* might pass closer examination, the 
> planetar constellations they refer to certainly wouldn't. 
> This does nothing to diminish my fear of her real character. On the 
> contrary: Just imagine *you* were a teacher( if you really are, 
> that's even better) and two students hand you in a piece of homework 
> which is so obviously and insultingly made up you can't just look 
> past it. Would *you* "read out great portions" of it 
> and "congratulate your students"???
> If you were a Snape-type, you would completely destroy them before 
> the whole class and give two weeks of detention.
> If you were a teacher with a pedagogic conscience, you would speak 
to 
> those two in private and have a serious word with them about their 
> behaviour in class and their lousy technique of making up 
predictions.
> But WHY would you react as Trelawney did?
> I still have to think aout this (feeling still more uneasy) and 
would 
> like to hear what everybody thinks of it!

I knew there was another example I missed as to why I feel Trelawney 
is a right old fraud!  You nailed it on the head for me.  As for being 
a teacher, I certainly would not read to the class an essay that I 
believed was made up or copied word for word from another source.  
When we grade the English Regents exams here in NYC, we are given many 
instructions as to how to grade each essay.  One of the notes says 
that if an essay is completely copied from the text, the grade should 
be a ZERO.  No credit should be given.

The fact that Trelawney did not even recognize that her students were 
making things up makes me question how well she knows her topic.  I 
can tell if a student hasn't read a book that she wrote an essay 
about, and I do not accept it.  I don't pull a Snape and humiliate the 
student, but I'll write a note at the end of the essay expressing my 
suspicions and concerns.  I've have many a discussion with students 
about handing in work that is not their own, and they never get the 
credit from me for it.

Harry and Ron clearly knew they could get away with faking it for 
Trelawney.  What is sad to me is that she accepts it so readily.  I 
also do not like that the students who haunt her classroom during 
lunch times (like Lavender) are the ones she tells have the makings of 
true Seers - now that's being biased!

--jenny from ravenclaw*************************