Continuing Education: A Wizarding Option?

[GulPlum]

No: HPFGUIDX 38015

alexpie at a... wrote:
> In addition, aside from the DADA teachers, most of the teachers at 
> Hogwarts seem to have chosen teaching as a career (particularly 
McGonnagall). 
>  Surely when they graduated Hogwarts, they were not qualified as 
teachers at 
> seventeen!

I don't see any implication that McGonnagal went into teaching as a 
career to the exclusion of anything else - after all, although she'd 
have been the right age, she would have been there in Riddle's time...

Considering the almost-medieval attitudes prevalent at Hogwarts, I 
would expect all teachers to have learnt their stuff from "the 
university of life", either as Aurors (Moody), "adventurers" 
(Lockhart), or looking after the grounds and beast at Hogwarts 
(Hagrid). After completing their education, some would have gone on 
to be apprentices in a chosen field, and some would have chosen to 
come back to teach the next generation. 

Some might perhaps have decided to dedicate their lives to an 
academic discipline (such a history) and a natural extension of that 
would be to teach, so perhaps in that way, they choose a career, but 
all the practical subjects will be taught by people who have actually 
had to call on talents in their respective fields in the real world.

Tangentially, I repeat my usual rant about students "graduating" 
Hogwarts. This causes great pain to my British sensibilities and 
shows a major lack of understanding of the UK education system as it 
exists in the real world, and Hogwarts as it's been depicted. 
Pupils "leave school" having sat their final exams, they do NOT 
graduate! There is nothing to "graduate", there are only exams to be 
sat (each one individually and in isolation from others), which are 
either passed or failed. 

If anything in a fanfic is likely to turn me off, it's the use of 
the "g" word and I know that most British readers feel exactly the 
same way. I repeat my exhortation for fanfic authors to take note of 
this.

-- 
GulPlum aka Richard