Defense of Hagrid, Hagrid's Teaching, Flobberworms, etc.(long)

[aldrea279]

No: HPFGUIDX 40371

Caroline called me on a misquoting-  Sorry Caroline!  I guess it was 
in one of your posts and I didn't see that you were quoting someone 
else.  My bad.

Jenny:
>>It is inappropriate. Would you have wanted to hear your teachers 
tell 
you about their personal problems?>>

If I were their *friend*, yes.  I care about all of my friends, no 
matter their jobs, and so if they had personal problems I would like 
to know about them to help them through them in whatever way I 
could.  And again, Hagrid never went outright and asked the Trio to 
help him with his problems, IIRC.  They always *offered*. And he 
certainly didn't go blubbering to them about Beaky while he was 
supposed to be teaching- I can see the inapropriateness of that.  But 
he didn't do that.

Jenny:
>>If you were a teacher, would you 
have accepted the help of your students when you knew they should 
have 
been doing their homework - or when you should have been taking care 
of things yourself?>>

I suppose you're referring to the Buckbeak incident?  Really, though, 
Hagrid couldn't have possibly put together a worthy defense on his 
own.  And the students OFFERED, for crying out loud.  He was even 
shocked at the proposal of looking up such things to help defend 
Buckbeak, IIRC.  But it's not unusual for students to volunteer to 
help teachers or for teachers to request volunteers- atleast, not in 
my experiences.  I remember being in 2nd grade, and my teacher would 
ask if anyone would like to help in grading papers.  Just this year, 
while at school, the superintendent was paying a visit and in the 
days beforehand alot of my teachers inlisted the help of myself and 
my classmates in cleaning the classrooms from top to bottom.  Also, 
in band class my band director asked for volunteers to be runners 
while the All Region try outs were going on one saturday.  So, I 
don't think the Buckbeak incident makes Hagrid an unworthy teacher at 
all. Some of his students volunteered to help him... So?  

Jenny:
>>I never said Hagrid should have put his hands on Draco and I never 
said that Karkaroff deserved to get slammed up against a tree.>>

And I never said that you said that Karkaroff deserved to get 
slammed.  I said that I thought he did. =P  And on the Draco thing- 
well, *shrugs*, guess I misinterpreted.

Jenny:
>>What I 
meant, though, is that Hagrid could have been much stricter with 
Draco 
and certainly could have made a good case (with all of his Gryffindor 
students to back him as witnesses, I'm sure) against Draco's 
behavior. 
Draco has been punished before - in SS and in PoA. He is not above 
punishment.>>

True.  But it was his first lesson of his first day.  And a student 
gets attacked. The son of one of the governors got attacked. Hagrid's 
first concern was to get Draco to the Hospital Wing.  And he did 
that.  And afterwards, the only thing we can tell that happened is 
that the Governors slapped him on the wrist and said "No, too 
dangerous.  Try flobberworms, they won't attack anyone!" And that's 
what he did.  We don't even know if it was even thought of to punish 
Draco- I guess being injured was enough to punish him.  There are 
plenty of times in the books when the Trio should be punished, but 
aren't.  Or when they shouldn't be, but are.

Jenny:
>>I think it's a shame that Hagrid can't 
think on his feet more often, something teachers generally have to 
learn to be good at.>>

*coughs* "learn to be good at".  Is that not what Hagrid is doing?  
His first class, a little disasterous, because Draco caused 
problems.  Next time Draco starts to even hint at goofing off? Hagrid 
is right there, making sure the little git doesn't do anything 
harmful again.

Pippin:
>>Flobberworms seem to have 
been the standard curriculum as recommended by the Board of 
Governors, which makes some sense to me. The students need 
to master basic animal husbandry before going on to interestin' 
creatures, and they also need to learn that, yes, taking care of 
animals can be dull and repititious. You can't stop taking care of 
an animal that's depending on you to feed it just because it got 
boring.>>

Jenny:
>>Hagrid as a teacher is just something that I don't approve of. In 
reality (and I know HP isn't reality - most of the time, anyway), 
Hagrid would have received all sorts of professional support and 
training right after the Buckbeak incident, but by the end of the 
year when the students had done nothing but fed Flobberworms for nine 
months, he would have been removed or transferred. Whether or not it 
was suggested to him to start with Flobberworms, he should have had 
the common sense to know to move on to other things after a few days -
maybe a week at the most. >>

After Pippin's arguements, I really can't think that the Flobberworms 
incident was that bad of a thing.  Hagrid does NOT deserve to get 
fired/transferred because he listened to what his superiors said or 
because Draco didn't pay attention.  Hagrid has taught the class, as 
Pippin pointed out, that taking care of Magical Creatures isn't all 
fun and games- sometimes it's flobberworms.  And sometimes it's Blast-
Ended Skrewts(did the class not spend most of the year dealing with 
those?). Neither of which are as enjoyable as unicorns or nifflers. 
But if Hagrid spent only a week on each animal, he'd get through most 
of the Magical Creatures(and this is going on the ones we learn in 
FB), before his classes graduated- he does have to teach them for 
five years.  I'd say he has enough time to spend almost a year on 
Flobberworms if he wants to.  It is, afterall, Care of Magical 
Creatures- and the class was taking care of a magical creature, were 
they not?


~Aldrea, who is starting to feel that she and Jenny will just have to 
agree to disagree on anything having to do remotely with Hagrid 
and/or his teaching abilities.  Otherwise, she'll never ever catch up 
here(about 8 pages behind!), because she'll be spending her time 
defending Hagrid against Jenny. =P