Patronus at DADA OWL (was Re: Harry's Future...)

[kizor0]

No: HPFGUIDX 106371

cincimaelder:
> The reason this bothers me though, is that everyone was so impressed
> that Harry could produce a corporeal Patronus.   
> "Impressive," said Madam Bones, staring down at him, "a true
Patronus
> at that age...very impressive indeed."  OoP US version, pg 141.  
> So I guess it just seemed to me to be very unusual that a student
> could do it.  I had the impression that Harry was VERY exceptional
for
> producing a corporeal patronus at 15, where 17 doesn't
> seem that much older and certainly not 16.

I got the impression that Bones was referring to how Harry produced a
corporeal Patronus on third grade, which he had mentioned about five
seconds before. I could be wrong, of course.

Cathy:
> And, as it seems...I only say seems...the students did their
> practical exams in alphabetical order, Cho and Hermione would long
> since have been finished so we don't know if they were asked to
> produce a Patronus.

To nitpick, wasn't Cho a sixth-grader? That'd mean she was *long*
since finished. :-)

Come to think of it, there's no figures of how many of the DA were
actually fifth-graders (or I suppose there are, but you'd have to be
someone who's not me to sort through 27 students) which means far less
potential for Patronus injustice.

Del:
> But in a way, it only makes things worse :-) A school examination is
> specifically aimed at testing students on the curriculum, not on
what
> they might have learned otherwise. 

I'm not so sure about that. Another way of looking at things is that
while small ones may stick to details, a large school examination is
aimed at testing students on their knowledge and skill about a
subject, and the curriculum is aimed at training the students in those
two things as well as possible.

For instance, reading several dozen books in English, conversing in
English a lot, and similar geeky things were not a part of my English
class in any way, but when the massive end-of-school six-hour English
exam came they got me well within the best five percent of the
graduates without particularily trying (a fact that I'm now becoming
rather embarassed by).

> But as I said, I don't care in this particular case, because it was
> worth it, just to bother Umbridge and Draco :-)

I have agree completely on this point.

-- Kizor, grateful for the poor Finnish translation of Terry
Pratchett's books