Number of teachers? (WAS children responsibility)

[Hollydaze]

No: HPFGUIDX 34050

Alexander Lomski wrote:
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only 12 professors,1 director and 1 Filch to control them
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Is there any "agreement" on what the number of teachers at Hogwarts is. I mean have HPfGU agree on a number bracket? It's just that there is one comment that bugs me about the number of teachers (and yes it is related to the number of pupils!!)

In book four when HRH are trying to work out who should be in the "gap" at the teachers table they name some of the teachers. When they reach professor Sinistra, they say that it is "Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy Department" that would imply to me that there is more than on Astronomy teacher, otherwise you can't really call it a Department. We have departments at our school ad the smallest one is the Business studies departments (which only teachers years 10 upwards) with 3 teachers. Also there are a lot of references to the "Charms Corridor" and other "Subject Corridors". We have these in our school too. The Language corridor is a corridor of 5 classrooms, and the English corridor has 7 plus the Resources room, the English office, the Head of English's office and a storeroom. This implies to me that there are a few more teachers than we know about and at least two or three classrooms for subjects such as charms, transfiguration, DADA and potions (which seem to me to be like the core subjects Maths, English and Science, in that you take them right through from the 1st year, plus they are the ones we hear most about, possibly implying they have them more often than other subjects _don't hold me to this I am not at all certain even though I have been trying to work out the timetables since Christmas!!). One other thing that implies that there are more teachers is the list (in the same place as the above quote) in book 4.

"Tiny little professor Flitwick, the Charms teacher, was sitting on a large pile of cushions beside professor Sprout, the Herbology teacher, whose hat was askew over her flyaway grey hair. She was talking to Professor Sinistra of the Astronomy department. On Professor Sinistra's other side was the Sallow faced, hook nosed, greasy hair Potions master, Snape - Harry's least favourite person at Hogwarts.....On Snape's other side was an empty seat, which Harry Guessed was Professor McGonagall's. Next to it, and in the very centre of the Table, sat Professor Dumbledore, the Headmaster"

To make things easier to understand we will say Harry is reading of these names from Left to right.
Dumbledore is sitting in the Middle of the table. So if all these people are sitting on D's *Left*, who is sitting on the *right* side. We know that McGongall comes in and sits in the Empty chair next to D on his *left side* and Hagrid could possibly come in and sit on the *right* side (no empty chairs are mentioned on the *left side*), Moody comes in and sits next to D so he must be in the chair next to D on the *right side*. 

But who else? Ok there are Hooch and Vector but that is only two other people, there are 5 people sitting on D's *Left* so for him to be in the middle there must be 5 people sitting on his right. So far we have one as Moody is the only one we know for certain, we don't know where Hagrid sits down (it is likely that it is the rights side but not certain) and we can only presume that Hooch and Vector are there, plus there are the un-named Muggle Studies and Ancient Runes teachers, which would bring us to 6 (already one more than the *left* so who equals them up on the *left* side?). Is Binns going to be there, he is a teacher, that would equal them up. Trelawney says at Christmas in book 3 that she very rarely comes down into the main school and I find it unlikely that Harry would not have mentioned her if she had been there, mainly as she played an important part in book 3 (and also will in book 4) and I always saw this scene as JK re-introducing the main teachers to the readers (new and old). Is it likely that Pomfrey and Pince would be there as Filch probably isn't, from the fact that D says that Filch is banning new objects and surely if Filch was there D would invite him to tell the students?. Is it also likely that there are some teachers that are sitting on the "outskirts" of the table that Harry doesn't mention? as there are already two (one on each side) that aren't mentioned in the list.

This gives us:

Snape (known)
McGongall (known)
Flitwick (known)
Moody (Arrives later)
Sinistra (Known)
Binns (Possible)
Hooch (Possible)
Sprout (Known)
Hagrid (Arrives before the sorting)
Trelawney (Unlikely)
Vector (Possible)
Unknown (Possible)
Unknown (Possible)

Plus Dumbledore in the middle (6 on each side)

Is it really possible that 13 teachers (12 in reality as Hooch only seems to teach in the first year, how exactly do you carry on Flying lessons after one year, what else is there to learn? You can only practise.)

I just don't see how it is possible for the 12 teachers we have to teach that number of pupils (even if it is as low as 280 - 10 per house per year) unless they are ALL double house classes, and with no breaks, as that would be 20 per class and so 14 simultaneous classes which is already more than the number of teachers we have! And we know that Harry's year Gryffindors only seem to have Potions and Herbology with another house, it is likely that this is similar with other houses, especially if it is true that Ravenclaw don't have any lessons with other houses. There may also be other subjects that are introduced (either at year 3, O.W.L. or N.E.W.T level that we haven't been told about and so a couple more teachers, but this also introduced more classes as well!)

Please point out if I have completely missed something obvious.

HOLLYDAZE!!!


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