Snape as a substitute teacher and Hermione

[darrin_burnett]

No: HPFGUIDX 56889

I've been away for five days and I made it through about 150 of the 
300 or so posts. But, I wanted to break down further Snape's day 
substituting for Lupin in PoA.

Snape commits several teaching sins here.

1) He gets his facts wrong. According to Fantastic Beasts, the Kappa 
is found in Japan. He tells a student. "that is incorrect, the Kappa 
is more commonly found in Mongolia." (pg 129, UK)

So, the student had it right and Snape had it wrong. Wonder if any 
apology is forthcoming?

Forgive me while I break a filling from laughing at the thought.

2) He walks into the room expecting the students to be stupid. He 
goes in there, expecting all of them to be behind first-year lessons 
("I would expect first-years to be able to deal with Red Caps and 
Grindylows") and then makes dark threats about going to Dumbledore, 
telling them how behind they are.

"Are you telling me that Professor Lupin hasn't even taught you the 
basic distinction between --"

Whoops. Our girl Hermione, who Snape must just HATE for figuring out 
his logic puzzle in a minute, does know the questions Snape is posing 
as a threat. Damn, this girl might even grasp that he doesn't know 
for sure where Kappas come from! Better slap her down.

(Oh, and by the way, she says, "please" and "sir" during the entire 
two-page passage)

"Five more points from Gryffindor for being an insufferable know-it-
all."

Even if I were to grant the bridge between this loathsome statement 
and trying to teach her a valuable lesson about not speaking out of 
turn (a bridge I would not dare walk on myself, unless I wanted to go 
swimming,) the "insufferable know-it-all" bit seals it.

Snape doesn't seem to give one red damn about helping Hermione. And I 
refuse to believe that any teaching technique that includes hateful 
insults is effective in the long run.

3) Continually insults, in front of students, a fellow teacher. 

I know there are teachers on this board -- including my friend 
JennyRavenclaw -- and I wonder how much they would put up with a 
substitute teacher insulting his or her organization, grading scale, 
and choice of lesson plans?

My guess is not for long.

4) Uses valuable teaching time for his own agenda.

I want to be very careful here, but hear me out. I have read on this 
board, at times, that Lupin's werewolf status is a parallel to AIDS. 
Let me follow that through.

Imagine a teacher with an axe to grind against a fellow teacher with 
AIDS assigns an essay on the virus, symptoms, etc., with the intent 
of getting the students to figure out that the teacher has AIDS and 
ultimately, to start a panic that gets the teacher dismissed.

Absolutely repulsive. 


Also, not on PoA, but I wanted to respond, as a journalist who covers 
12 public school boards, to the scenario in GoF, where Harry and Ron 
call Snape names after the hallway incident.

I believe, without quoting, that it was along the lines of "in my 
school, had a student insulted a teacher like that, he or she would 
have been suspended."

But let us remember the actual incident, shall we? And let's put it 
in real school terms. A student who is a bystander to a fight gets 
injured, through no fault of her own. The teacher responding to the 
scene not only refuses to have her escorted to the school nurse, but 
insults her appearance in front of her peers.

Let us remember what Harry and Ron were reacting to, hm? Perhaps they 
were reacting as 14-year-old boys will, with their mouths instead of 
their brains.

But what's Snape's excuse? 

Darrin
-- Good to be back. Got at least three FILK ideas from the radio.