[HPforGrownups] Teaching methods was ( Re: Petunia)

[Laura Ingalls Huntley]

No: HPFGUIDX 41191

Irene:
>Who had his will broken as a result of Potions class, anyway?
>Not Harry and not Hermione and not anyone else we know about.

Harry's an exceptional kid who has spent his life being hardened against nasty comments.  I stress the exceptional part here b/c *most* kids brought up the way he was would be horrible, vicious people.

Snape's treatment of Hermione *is* detrimental to her.  He's particularly horrible to her and yet she keeps trying her best for him, every day.  How long before she gives up entirely?  I've seen a student/teacher situation very much like this, and eventually the girl (who was one of the smartest, hardest working people I've ever met) just gave up.  And dropped down to the next class level so that she wouldn't have to be around him, which is something I never thought she'd do, no matter what the circumstances.  When a child continues to give his or her best and gets nothing but grief for it day in and day out -- eventually they'll stop giving.  This *would* break Hermione, IMO.

As for the other obvious example -- Neville.  Snape is as good as teaching him that he'll never be good at anything, so why even try?  Snape has *already* broken Neville, IMO.  Whether or not he can be fixed is up to debate.  McGonagall, although I feel she is an excellent teacher, isn't the kind of person who could do it.  Perhaps Sprout will though.  I find the fact that Neville does well in and is interested with Herbology promising.    


Irene:
>But those children in Hogwarts don't get to be children in 
>our sense of the word! You don't set up eleven year old to 
>go and get the Stone. You don't give them midnight detention 
>in forest. You don't let them play anything like Quidditch. 
>I could go on and on.

First, it isn't canon that Dumbledore *set up* Harry to get the Stone.  He may have consciously given him the tools, just in case, but it doesn't stand to reason that he had any *motive* for actually *wanting* or *expecting* Harry to have to get the Stone.  If he knew that the stone was vulnerable and that Harry might have to save it in his absence -- why would he leave anyway?  For that matter, why wouldn't he move the Stone and just hide it in his bedsprings or under his hat or something?  It doesn't make sense.  Second, Harry is very unusual.  Ron and Hermione have countless times made their *own* decisions to go ahead and let his unusualness get them into unusual situations as well...think about it...if Ron hadn't been best friends with Harry, he'd have a pretty normal life (for a wizard) wouldn't he?  Don't Dean and Seamus seem normal and protected enough?

And why not give them midnight detention in the forest?  They've got Hagrid and Fang and they've been ordered to keep to the path (word to the wise: if you ever find yourself in an Enchanted Forest *stick to the paths*.  Stepping off them *never* helps).  I doubt if McGonagall or Dumbledore or Snape (in Malfoy's case) thought any of them would be in any mortal peril in the forest, they wouldn't have been sent.

As for Quidditch..again, why not?  No one's died in *years*, after all.  ^_^ First, wizards seem a little more physically resilient than Muggles.  Secondly, wizarding medicine is much more capable of healing a wider range of injuries.  

Anyway, none of this is what I was talking about, anyway.  I think it's silly to try to cushion kids from dangers such as these.  My mom was always trying to keep me from climbing trees or cliffs or getting too close to "wild" animals.  So I just did it where she couldn't see me -- kids are like that.  Quidditch sounds like a perfectly delightful sport to me (I engaged in more dangerous recreation activities at Harry's age), I'd rather have detention in a spooky forest than have to copy words any day, and the Stone situation is highly out of the ordinary.  

Irene:
>That's not my theory. If all the Slytherins (at least in 
>Harry's year) are coming from pureblood families who are 
>playing with the darker aspects of magic, may be they know 
>about wandless magic?

Personally, I feel that doing wandless magic consciously and with any *productive* results is matter of having a great deal of control and experience, none of which *any* pre-teen is going to have.

Also, I'm wondering if unconscious wandless magic, to a great extent, hasn't got some kind barrier on it at Hogwarts...which is why Snape has the nerve to torment Harry so.  Otherwise, why didn't Neville bounce when he fell off his broom?  It makes sense, doesn't it?  I mean, I imagine otherwise the teachers would have been running scared from their pupils.



Me:
> pssh.  The problem with this is that, as far as I can tell, 
>Snape really does *like* Malfoy.

Irene:
>Not enough to give him a grade above Hermione's, right? And 
>this, IMHO, should be enough to refute theories that his 
>grades are arbitrary, and he passes kids just to
>get rid of them in the class.

If feel that Hermione's just too *good* for him to get away with giving her anything but top marks.  It'd be too transparent to Dumbledore and well..*everyone*..if he tried to gyp her of the grades she deserved.  I bet Malfoy does well in that class..but I bet Hermione does everything *perfect*..and it's hard to find fault with perfection, no matter how hard you're looking.

Me:
>Esp. with Harry, who's anger is more likely to
>splatter a certain Potion's Master brains all over the wall >before it tries to please Snape.

Irene:
>Why doesn't it happen, though? Surely Harry is at least as angry with Snape
>as he is with aunt Marge? :-)

Esp. when Snape made that remark about Hermione's teeth, yes.  Harry was *murderous* with rage.  Which is why I think that Hogwarts -- or maybe just the individual teachers have some sort of wards up to protect themselves from stray, unconscious wandless magic done by the students. 


Irene:
>Not very different from the way his own family treated him 
>to get some magic out of him.

>That's a very sad thought. Poor boy had a childhood just as traumatic as Harry's, and he
>had not even got a break when he started Hogwarts.

You know, I don't think Neville's family was *that* horrible to him.  I think that they probably didn't constantly terrorize and emotionally abuse him, looking for magic, I think they just did alot of jumping out from behind corners and saying BOO! at him (only on a much larger scale, of course).  Bound to make the poor kid very jumpy, but not emotionally battered.

laura


[Non-text portions of this message have been removed]