[HPforGrownups] Re: British Muggle/Wizarding schooling WAS Graduation

[Kathryn Cawte]

No: HPFGUIDX 53849

 
Pip wrote -
 
I think you are forgetting that many teachers in the Nineteenth and 
early Twentieth Centuries *were* trained by apprenticeship. If you 
read (for example) Charles Dickens' 'Our Mutual Friend', you'll see 
the boy Charley Hexam being apprentice teacher (it was actually 
called 'pupil teacher') to Bradley Headstone.
 

Now me -

But since Hogwarts is the only wizarding school in Britain, if teachers were
trained in this way I would have thought we'd have seen it by now.
 
Pip again -

Lupin seems to have 
some kind of qualification to teach (Professor R.J. Lupin is on his 
suitcase in old and peeling letters). Hagrid, Lockhart and 
Moody/Crouch aren't called by the title 'Professor'. The people who 
are (Snape, Flitwick, McGonagall, Sprout) do all seem to manage well 
planned, professional teaching.
 
Further, when Harry calls Snape plain 'Snape', Dumbledore corrects 
him [PS/SS]. 'Professor' seems to be a title that's earned.
 
Me again -

To me this implies some kind of non-apprentice style training, since the
term 'Professor' is a term only used officially by universities whereas
gulds use a system of 'apprentices', 'journeymen' and 'masters'.
But I may be reading far too much into it.

Pip said -

But you don't need a college to go beyond NEWT's. You just need a 
tutor, who can guide your course of study. You don't need to attend 
a lecture if you have a mentor who will tell you which books you 
need to study, what spells or potions you need to attempt, who is 
prepared to set assignments and give you advice on how well you 
completed them. 
 
Me again -

That's actually the sort of thing I was envisaging when I said a college.
More the sort of teaching associated with postgraduate courses. While not
possible in the muggle world at a university the small number of wizarding
students would make it a lot more realistic. Although I could see certain
tutors holding larger tutorials if they were well-renowned.

Pip added -
 
There might be a Hogwart's college at Oxford, except a) it 
contradicts JKR's interview statements and b) it's extremely likely 
that anyone studying Magic would have been chucked out/risked being 
imprisoned for heresy in the Middle Ages, or for Dissent/witchcraft 
in the Reformation. The University of London (another collegiate 
university) was founded because large numbers of people were not 
permitted to attend Oxford and Cambridge; their dreadful crime was 
to be of the wrong religion.
 
Me -

Some people would think that being a Medieval Studies postgrad at the
University of London those arguements would have occurred to me ... However
since they didn't (and ignoring the JKR argument because I already admitted
to that one and don't have the quote to hand to try and twist it to my
benefit) I will try and address them now.

The college could have been hidden magically - but that would stop its
qualifications being validated by the university in question. Maybe the
college broke away during the troubled times and recently got itself
re-absorbed? Or maybe it was always an independent institution, totally
separate from the muggle university. Today the Ministry could have liased
with the muggle authorities to bring it under the auspices of one of the
collegiate universities in much the same way as many of the once independent
colleges at the University of London are now part of one larg umbrella
organization - and yet still often functionally independent.

Pip again -

The complete separation of the WW from the Muggle world argues that 
the times preceding the split must have been deeply traumatic. I 
can't really see Oxbridge protecting a college full of witches and 
warlocks during the 16th and 17th century witch hunts. St Andrews 
would have been even worse, as the witch hunts in Scotland were more 
virulent than in England.
 
So it's possible that wizards *did* have their post Hogwarts college 
once, and lost it in the witch hunts before the split. Post split, 
with relatively small numbers needing further wizarding education, 
they may have found that an apprentice style 'personal tutor' to 
guide students' further study was actually all they needed.
 
Me again -

*shrugs* I can't really argue with that other than to suggest that it could
have been later resurrected.

K