JKR and the House system

[ecceq]

No: HPFGUIDX 56818

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "alice_loves_cats" 
<hypercolor99 at h...> wrote:

>"The very idea of sorting kids into houses according to their certain
>characteristics is, I think, almost as horrible as JKR's school 
>seating." 

Hello Alice!

I think that schools in themselves are horrible. 

It is a perversion of the naturally occurring sociological structures 
of life to lump together so many people of the same age... so many 
immature, not fully developed people of the same age.  

Schools are unnatural contrivances imposed upon over-large societies 
as the most practical solution educating the young in such a way as 
make sure an over-large society remains cohesive.    

Boarding schools are especially unnatural as the children are removed 
from their families for extended periods of time. 

Physiologically people are designed to function best in small, well 
ordered societies of mixed age.  But of course there are advantages 
to forming larger societies and since human beings are eminently 
adaptable we develop mechanisms to counteract the problems that 
living in an unnatural state brings.

When it comes to schools a nice simple way to do this is to break it 
up into smaller sub-societies, or houses.  But why aren't the houses 
more mixed you might ask, well because it's easier to keep order in 
homogenised societies and because people naturally seek out those who 
are similar to themselves anyway.  And for a child away from home for 
extended periods of time it helps to have an easily 
identifiable `family' around them.

I went to two different schools, one had a house system and the other 
did not.  I much preferred the one with the house system.  

Like Hogwarts there where four houses (though in the way back when 
there had been five) and like Hogwarts the houses where seen as 
having a different emphasis on various values.  

The advantage of the house system was quite simply that even if you 
didn't have many friends you still had loyalties and more importantly 
people who where loyal to you. And if you did have friends so much 
the better... a natural support network extented by house loyalties. 
In a houseless school you don't have this line of defence, if you're 
singled out and you have no friends, you're on your own matey.  And 
if you did have friends but the group that singled out was bigger 
than yours, tough.

True, a person can be rejected from their own house if they aren't 
seen to fit in, but that happens in families too and amongst all 
types groups
 which brings me to your next point:

>Alice: "It also gives them much less opportunity to develop their
>personalities. If you only see people similar to yourself around you,
>you will eventually become very limited in your opinions, don't you 
>think?"

People do not, as a rule, seek to socialise with people too different 
from themselves and forcing them to do so en mass is a recipe for 
disaster.  Look at how Harry is treated, even by his own house 
members, when he is believed to be too different.

Schools need to be well organised and safe as possible and no matter 
how good the teachers are, they are not omnipotent (well, with the 
possible exception of Dumbledore that is lol).  A house structure is 
a nice easy convienient way of providing a support network and 
keeping children in line.

Besides, members of a house are not clones of each other, there is 
enough difference of personality, ability and background for members 
of a house to learn from each other, grow and develop.  

If large numbers of children were pushed into being with people too 
different from themselves then the chances are it would be counter 
productive to their growth, as it is as likely to promote 
misunderstanding and suspicion as it is anything positive.  

Children need to feel secure in order to learn and develop well 
rounded characters; they feel the most secure around people they can 
readily identify with.  

Oh yes, and JKR using the house system is a convient means of 
deveoping the rivalry and tention of the characters.  It's good for 
the plot.

Well, that's what I think anyway... hmmm that is, that's what I think 
today at 20 past seven...

Ecce-Q: thinking of home educating her children...

[Mod Note:  Just a quick reminder to make sure replies on this thread stay reasonably on-topic.  Alternatively, the discussion of schooling could be moved over to our sister list, OT-Chatter, if anyone would like to delve deeper into various forms of schooling.]