Snape as New DADA Professor

[carin_in_oh]

No: HPFGUIDX 103428

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Deb" <DBoyken at a...> wrote:
> I think that, now Dumbledore's 
> told Harry the prophecy and so Harry (and the rest of us) know what's 
> riding on him, Dumbledore could not put Snape in front of the 
> classroom to teach Harry DADA. It's too important for Harry to learn 
> as much Defense Against the Dark Arts as possible--more important 
> than learning Potions. I like to think that Dumbledore is going to 
> find a top-notch DADA teacher to help Harry along (like he did when 
> he hired Lupin). 

I'm inclined to agree that this would make sense for Dumbledore as responsible 
headmaster, but I'm afraid the DADA job is, as it were, more in the control of JKR than 
of DD. Let me flesh this out a bit. It seems to me we have three types of teachers at 
Hogwarts: 
1) longtime teachers with a genuine expertise in their subjects (MM, Flitwick, et al.); 
2) those DD is sheltering or who would otherwise have trouble finding work in the WW 
(Trelawney, Hagrid); 
3) the DADA job. 
Now, Snape is an interesting case, as is Lupin: each is, arguably, there for reasons of 
charity and/or security, but both teach/taught subjects they are very well-qualified to 
teach, so they span categories.

But you would think that DD would have realized that having an effective DADA teacher 
would be a top priority at least from year two. The fact that he's let the evil, the awful, 
and the insufferable get the job 4 years out of 5 so far suggests to me that:

EITHER the DADA job is so much a running joke/plot device that JKR doesn't really give 
us the leisure to contemplate DD's role in hiring,

OR DD regards DADA as a subject that is basically not susceptible of teaching in a 
classroom setting, so that (with accidental exceptions) the real learning students do in 
DADA subjects takes place out of class. As a point of comparison, with Divination, real 
predictions of the future are very rare, and divination classes mainly just fill a space in 
students' schedules. DADA is more of a "real" subject than Divination, but the existence 
of formal classes is still essentially a distraction (for readers, if not for savvy students) 
from the core of what DADA really involves. _That_ Harry sums up neatly for us when 
disclaiming any special DADA talent when Hermione proposes the DA. What's needed is 
resourcefulness, bravery, quick thinking, a certain amount of luck, and a good 
repertoire of spells that students learn in other classes, especially in Charms. 

Carin