Lack of traditional academics...

[joanne0012]

No: HPFGUIDX 33845

--- In HPforGrownups at y..., "Lucy Austin" <lucy at l...> wrote:
> >Terri Lyn said:
> we noticed that there was a
> complete lack of traditional coursework at Hogwarts.  This would be work in
> English (grammer, literature, etc.), Mathematics (where's the calc, algebra,
> and trig?  There's arithromancy... but JKR neither explains the content nor
> is it a required class), more traditional science than is in
> potions/herbology/COMC.  What about art classes?  Music, painting, and the
> like?  You can't tell me that Fat Lady just showed up like that... someone
> had to have painted her.  We know there's insturments (the harp and flute by
> fluffy), where are they taught how to play them?  Does Hogwarts have a pep
> band (either in general or per house) that plays during Q'ditch matches?

> 
> My fiance is also very bothered about this - we don't know what primary 
>schooling wizards get, but at the very best, they apparently go through 
>secondary schooling with no more knowledge of maths, english, science, music 
>etc than an average 10 year old. I can only suggest that they do have these 
>sorts of lessons, but that it isn't much fun to write about them compared to 
>the Magic lessons!

Why would Hogwarts have a curriculum that mirrors the college-prep programs 
that Muggles have developed only during the past century?  JKR has said there's 
no higher education in the wizarding world.

Having sealed itself off as much as possible from the muggle world since the late 
1600s, the wizarding world offers a curriculum typical of that time, offering 
mostly a trade orientation.  Even royalty and elites of that era were educated 
mostly in foreign languages and philosophy.  Just as alchemy offers an early 
version of our modern chemistry studies, the Hogwarts courses in herbology and 
magical creatures serve as ancestral biology courses, arithmancy and 
astrological charts teach maths (including trig) and so on.

But I agree that music is strangely lacking at Hogwarts, coming up only in 
celebrations or magical contexts (Fluffy, etc.), whereas homemade music played 
a significant role in the lives of  ordinary people in the millennia before the 
introduction of electronics.  I'll bet you fifty cents that JKR herself doen't play 
an instrument.