OT: Drill Sargeant (with a tiny bit of ontopic talk...)

[nkafkafi]

No: HPFGUIDX 94694

Neri:
Hmmm, I'll try to stay on topic, but no promises...

Siriusly Snapey Susan:
HRH & their class of Hogwarts students begin w/ Snape
at age **11** and the war is **NOT** yet on. They are boarding
school students, not military academy students or enlistees. No one
has **told** them that their lives are in danger and they damn well
better listen & learn this stuff because their *lives* depend on it.
When a person goes into the military, he or she is 1) older and 2)
*knows* his/her life depends upon listening & learning every detail.

Neri answers:
Susan is absolutely right of course. Kids are not soldiers, and there 
is plenty of canon that Snape's Asshole Drill Sergeant (ADS) methods 
don't work very well. My point is that they won't work well even for 
grown-up soldiers, not to mention young children. Snape is doing a 
poor job even as an ADS, for reasons I'll discuss below.

EnsTren  wrote:
As I am a Psyc major and studing learning at the moment I thought I 
might chip in. <snip> Humans learn quickly when our lives depend upon 
it, it's a natural reaction. <snip> Army Training /deliberetly/ takes 
advantage of this. The Drill Sargeant is there, in your face, yelling 
at you inorder to convince your subconconcious that Yes, you are 
going to suffer horribly if you don't learn this and quickly.


{Silverthorne}
Um....*most* of the people I've talked to who have been in the 
military and
have also had these people for training would strongly disagree, 
Neri. <snip> Hmmmmm...then the military really *has* changed. 
Odd....maybe I should go
review Air Force training with my cousin Jason Nygren, see what 
exactly he
went through to get his wings...because the other three branches seem 
to
share a less...um...stress free method. (That would be Navy 
(Grandfather,
Lifemate, 2 co-workers), Marines (Uncle, best friend, boyfriend, 1
co-worker), Army (Three former boyfriends, 2 female friends, three
co-workers).


Neri answers:
I'm not a psych major and I was only a humble artillery sergeant 
(with some infantry operational experience, though), but I'll propose 
a simple experiment you can try with any of your military-background 
friends. First, ask them to write down a range of skills they learned 
during their service, from doing their bed to shooting a rifle to 
flying an F-16. Then ask them to grade each of these skills from 1 to 
10 according to how complex and difficult it is. Then ask them to 
grade each of these skills from 1 to 10 according to how much it was 
taught using ADS methods. I predict that there will be a strong 
negative correlation between the these two factors: as a skill is 
more complex and more difficult, it will be less likely to be taught 
using ADS methods, especially during the initial phase of teaching, 
when the skill is still new to the student. Don't take my word for 
this. Just try it with your friends.  

Besides, even the most asshole, stupidest meanest drill sergeant 
won't use ADS methods when his trainees are shooting their rifles for 
the first time. The reason is that he doesn't want to get shot by 
mistake by a hysteric trainee. 

In my humble experience, ADS methods are for maintaining discipline, 
not for teaching difficult and subtle skills such as potions 
brewing.       


{Silverthorne}
One person's humiliation is another's no-brainer. Some people 
consider being asked to 'get down and give me fifty' for a mistake a 
humiliation <snip>

Neri: 
No reasonable person will consider 'get down and give me fifty' a 
humiliation for long if he/she learns that all trainees are equally 
likely to do it. He will, however, consider almost *any* task a 
humiliation if he learns that it is invariably inflicted on people 
with a certain skin color or a certain foreign sound to their surname 
or from a certain house. Snape blew up even his drill sergeant 
credibility when he has discriminated against Gryffindors and favored 
incapable students such as Crabbe and Goyle. Snape may be a superb 
secret agent, but none of his "trainees" will follow him as a 
commander under fire.


Neri