Trelawney / Incompetent teachers at Hogwarts

[huntergreen_3]

No: HPFGUIDX 110585

"bciss1" wrote:
>>Hagrid--I love Hagrid, he is one of my favorite characters, but he
is NOT a teacher.<<

HunterGreen:
Far be it for me to defend Hagrid (since he is NOT one of my favorite 
characters at all), but I think he *could* have been a good teacher 
if not for the whole Draco/Buckbeak disaster. His first lesson was 
well organized and appropriate. After that he just lost his nerve. He 
did flobberworms for most (all?) of the year which certainly taught 
them nothing (assuming there's not more to flobberworms than we've 
been told), and then in his second year of teaching, he got his nerve 
back, but didn't use it to organize appropriate subjects. Rather, he 
spent his time using the students to raise an illegal animal (its 
strange than everyone was so worried about him being fired over the 
buckbeak thing, and he was put on probation for almost nothing in 
OotP, but in GoF he probably DESERVED to be fired, and it wasn't a 
concern). 
Anyway, that aside, I think he has it in him to be a good COMC 
teacher--he certainly knows the subject--he just first lost his 
confidence, and then after that he needed someone to help him with 
his lesson plans. Not from Hermione, its not her place but Dumbledore 
should have stepped in if only to give advice, Hagrid is after all a 
new teacher, and if he was expelled in third year he barely took the 
class himself, needing a little bit of help is understandable, if not 
expected.

"bciss1":
>>Snape--many people may argue this one, but his behaviour borders on
abusive to several of his students and occasionally crosses that
border. Although I will concede that it is possible that this
behaviour did not start until Harry came to school.<<

HunterGreen:
I shouldn't even touch this one (I don't want the Snape debate to 
start up again...I really don't). I'll just say this, that at least 
his students are learning (as evidenced by Umbridge's comment about 
them being 'advanced' in OotP). That's more than you can say for 
Binns or Lockhart.

"bciss1"
>>So, maybe DD kept Trelawny to keep her safe from the DE; maybe he is
just extremely soft-hearted and loves to take in strays; or maybe he
doesn't think Divination is a useful subject and so who cares if the
teacher is any good?.<<

HunterGreen:
He did say he had planned on dropping the subject altogether. I don't 
think its so much that divination is a stupid subject, just that its 
worthless to about 99.9% of the students who take it, since they 
aren't seers. If a real seer comes along, arranging private lessons 
would be better than teaching a class which requires students to lie 
and exaggerate to pass. I think he definitely kept her around in OotP 
because of the prophecy...Voldemort is surely bright enough to 
realize that if he captured her he could get the original memory from 
her head. Before that maybe he just kept her around at first because 
of the prophecy and then because he both couldn't fire her out of the 
blue, and in case she made another one (like she did in PoA, although 
it was less important).