Late Start to Magical Education (Was: Re: WQ)

Tue Mar 4 15:15:43 UTC 2003

No: HPFGUIDX 53156

 <bboy_mn at y...> wrote:
> Sorry, but I've snipped the entire post. The thrust is that logic
> would seem to indicate that magic kids should be much father ahead 
> of muggle kids when they first come to Hogwarts, and various people 
> had various explainations. 

I write:
Well, actually the thrust of *my* post was that Hogwarts doesn't
appear to assume that any of its students know anything about magic
before first year, and that it also appears (probably in part as a
result of this) that most magical families don't start teaching their
children anything much about how to do magic prior to this point. This
was, however, in response to the notion that at the very least
familiarity should constitute something of an advantage; I agree that
it should make things easier in some ways but get the impression that
Hogwarts has designed its curriculum to avoid counting on it. 

bboy: 
> But, I don't think they put enough emphasis on the fact that these
> kids are 11 years old. 

PK:
I could have missed or failed to remember something (actually, this is
almost a given), but I think the post I responded to, at least,
contained speculation on what children are taught before age eleven
and consideration of the cultural effects of growing up where magic is
taken for granted. 

*If* witch-born children were routinely taught anything about how to
do magic prior to Hogwarts, then logically they would be well ahead.
This is why I don't think they are. :) 

If I understand your post correctly (and may be excused for restating
it), your viewpoint is that being surrounded by magic does not
translate to understanding how it works, especially at that age, and
that therefore the advantage conferred by it should be negligible. 

I actually agree, in part. I believe I mentioned the possibility that
growing up around magic would lead to taking it for granted, much as
we habitually take for granted the operation of various technologies
(I mentioned electronics as an example). 

On the other hand, magic is simply the way things work, to those who
have grown up around it. The children of magical families are likely
to come in with a general sort of idea of things that they expect to
be done by magic, and no matter how often they're shooed out of the
way for more complicated endeavors, I'm not sure how they'd avoid at
least hearing the occasional spell and thus having some idea what
spells tend to sound like and what some of them do. 

We appear to be in agreement that few would know the mechanics ahead
of time; I am however inclined to think that having some idea what to
expect from magic based on observing adults and being accustomed to
what it does (not having to ask what a Portkey is or be surprised if
the inside of something is bigger than the outside), and growing up
with the cultural context of the wizarding world, could be something
of an advantage. On the other hand, much as non-native speakers may
learn and use better grammar... and tourists may find out and enjoy
activities everyone who lives beside them forgets all about... and so
on, perhaps there are advantages to coming at things from an
outsider's perspective as well. 

bboy: 
> So Molly uses magic in the kitchen, so what. My mother uses her own
> brand of motherly magic to make delicious pies from scratch, and I
> can assure you that at 11 I had no interest in or knowledge of how 
> these pies got make. All I wanted was to eat them.

PK:
An excellent point and one that probably applies to many magical
children and many spells. On the other hand, I had a *great* time
helping in the kitchen. Sometimes you get to taste ahead of time that
way, too. ;) There's this one stage in the making of chocolate chess
pie... which is wildly off topic, but does point out that there are
occasions when children do take an interest in not only the results
but the mechanics of what their parents do. Hence, familiarity,
whether any formal or informal instruction in *how* to do the spell
occurs or not.

Of course, cooking is a slightly odd example in HP anyway, since
wealthy families may have elves doing it and I somehow don't think any
human, much less an eleven year old, is likely to be duplicating
house-elf magic.

bboy:
> Why would magic kids be any different? I certainly knew more about
> heavy construction equipment than most kids, but that would have 
> been worth  very little when I start heavy construction equipment 
> school at age 11.
> 
> See my point here?

PK:
Yes -- but on the other hand, while you'd have had a very long way to
go, you'd still have started off quite a bit quicker than someone like
me who might have been scared of the great big machine and couldn't
remember where the brake was. (Granted, this makes me sound more like
Neville than any of the Muggle-born students I can think of.... Very
well, then. Not scared, perhaps, but unsure where to start and without
the first clue until told of how to start, stop, how much force it
would take to turn....) 

If the curriculum began with such things as what the basic pedals and
levers did, everyone would probably catch up to you fairly quickly. If
instead how to get the equipment moving were treated as something
everyone ought to know or covered in a very perfunctory manner, there
would be a serious muddle and kids who hadn't already had any
familiarity would have a much harder time catching up. There would
probably also be a higher incidence of injury, I'm thinking. (And if
you started out with some students who had never seen a vehicle with
an internal combustion engine, perhaps never believed they existed,
that might be an even better analogy -- most eleven-year-olds who've
ridden in cars probably at least know what the steering wheel does.)

Do you see mine?

PK