[HPforGrownups] Re: Who bought the Nimbus?

[Jenett]

No: HPFGUIDX 37090

At 11:51 PM +0000 3/27/02, saintbacchus wrote:
>Jenett writes:
>
>I'm a graduate of the American public school system,
>and we had those kinds of treats too - as carrots for
>either joining extracurricular groups or achieving
>some kind of academic or extracurricular achievement.
>But the point is that the reward was there for anyone
>who wanted to work for it, not just as a prize for
>being an orphan or whatever.

Some of those funds were things like spending money for financial aid 
students. (The few students who were on full financial aid also got a 
fair bit of spending money. It was something like $150 or $200 a 
month, and that was 10 years ago now.)

Harry doesn't get the broom until he's demonstrated native talent and 
hard work, remember. He doesn't get handed it for being an orphan. He 
shows he's capable of earning it, the same way the friend I had who 
was on full financial aid in boarding school earned his spending 
money and tuition by being both intelligent and hard working (if at 
something of a disadvantage, as he'd come from a fairly poor school 
system originally.)

>
><<
>The college I went to charged about $100 a student as
>a student activities fee - this money went into a
>general activities fund, and student groups were
>funded out of it (groups submitted a desired budget,
>and via a stated process and preferences, got a
>certain percentage of that budget to work with.)
>>>
>
>That's how my college works, too; but that's different,
>as it does in fact benefit the whole student body - or
>at least, those who choose to make use of the activities.

Yes, but depending on the club budget, it might only benefit a very 
small number. The club whose budget I was most involved with (the 
local Society for Creative Anachronism college branch) had a budget 
in the realm of $2,000 the last few years I was in school. For 
between 10 and 15 functionally active members. There were other 
groups where the benefit gained by the students were substantially 
greater than that given into the fund.

Now, theoretically, any student could join. But realistically, there 
were limitations on who might be interested in joining the group, how 
active they might be, and so on. If that's not clear enough for you: 
the same funding process was used for several student run musical 
groups and a drama group, so that not everyone who wished to be 
involved was chosen to be involved.

It's fairly clear to me from the books that the entire school 
*enjoys* there being Quidditch, and that they're eager for their 
house team to do well, the same way most folks are probably glad that 
someone on campus is doing good music and drama. But still, only a 
fairly limited number of kids actually participate. Same way it was 
in college. I knew plenty of people who didn't really benefit from 
their student activities fees.

>
><<
>Or perhaps (and note: we *don't* know if students pay
>tuition, after all, which removes a lot of your
>arguments about "Oh, Malfoy would find it so unfair...":
>if no one pays tuition, and there's extra money left
>over from the available funds there's no problem
>spending that extra, for example) they've simply
>designated some bits of the budget to house activities.
>>>
>
>Are you suggesting that Harry Potter is a house activity?

No, I'm suggesting that Quidditch is. And we *just don't know* if 
there might be specific funds for Quidditch or at house discretion. 
I'd rather assume there are ethical solutions here than that the 
automatic assumption is that there's unethical behavior going on.

>And since that's not what I said, I'll agree. What I
>said is that it's unethical to use school money to buy
>a broom that belongs to HARRY and not the team. As
>Uncmark put it, "spending house funds on a personal
>broom for one student would be like a school's entire
>athletic budget on a $5000 shoes for one member of the
>team." And no, I don't think it really matters if the
>$5000 was a drop in the bucket.

Then why say "Entire budget?" I don't consider it to be wrong as long 
as the same thing can be done for any other students it's necessary 
for as well.

Spending the entire budget on one student is wrong. Spending a sum of 
money on a student, when you *could* provide the same benefit to 
other students if required, and are not taking any resources away 
from accesss for other students is another question. Now, it's rare 
that any modern school can do that for a large sum of money: but we 
just don't know enough about Hogwarts finances to know whether this 
is a problem. I don't think it's fair to completley dismiss it as an 
ethical option, though.

Here's another example: I work in a high school library. We're pretty 
willing to go out of our way to buy a book that only one student or 
teacher wants/is going to use/etc as long as it's of reasonable cost. 
There's a *chance* that some other student might find it useful, but 
sometimes in these situations, it's something someone wants for a 
very specific project, and it might never be used again.

We have a very respectable budget for a library our size. Buying one 
book does not really limit our ability to buy other books for other 
students. (Again, as long as we're talking about reasonable costs)

The only difference is the 'keeping the broom' part. We have no way 
of knowing if Harry had not had the Nimbus broken, that if/when he 
replaced it, he might have been asked to donate it to the team, thus 
returning it to school use. It's only because it got broken before 
its expected retirement that this might not have happened. A little 
odd, but I don't think Harry would have huge problems with it, unless 
he wanted to give it to Ron and Ron would take it.

>The comment about the broom not being educational was
>meant to point out that Harry doesn't really *need* a
>broom. It would be different if he were too poor to
>buy quills and ink, or something. Obviously, the
>school would have to step in at that point.

There's different issues of need: Quidditch gives Harry a way to feel 
like he fits into to the wizarding world, that what he does actually 
*matters* to other people, that he's more than a cipher who gets 
ignored or treated oddly because he's the Boy Who Lived *and* gives 
him something to be known for that is his own direct doing, not as a 
result of something he barely remembers.

I don't know. I think the educational and social benefits of giving 
Harry a broom (once he'd demonstrated excellent natural talent) might 
very well be considered to be very important to his education and 
development. The same way that counselling or assistance with 
medication or any other psychological treatment might be assisted by 
a school in some circumstances. Not necessarily a muggle solution - 
but I can certainly see the logic chain working, again, once his 
native talent were obvious.

Again, just because most modern schools don't have unlimited 
resources to use that kind of solution doesn't automatically make it 
unethical. If they *do* have the resources to provide that kind of 
support to a variety of students, then maybe they do - and we just 
haven't seen it happen to anyone besides Harry, really. (And to 
Neville, to some extent, but the Neville stuff doesn't really need to 
involve supplying equipment so much as commentary and support)

In short: we do not know if there might not be sums available 
*specifically for the purpose of providing brooms if necessary*, or 
for house benefit with enough surplus that providing the broom won't 
take away from anyone else. Or if it were decided that this was 
beneficial to Harry's development and mental health in other ways, 
and worth funding for that reason. Or if it came from personal funds.

I'd prefer to assume that there *is* an ethical and aboveboard reason 
behind the gift, rather than assuming that any large gift has to 
short someone else or be unethical. I've simply been trying to point 
out ways or reasons that might be true.

-Jenett

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