Snape

[Alex boyd]

No: HPFGUIDX 114939

Carol wrote (In response to me)
>I don't have much to say here because I more or less agree. Certainly
>he didn't have any RW models or training on which to base his teaching
>methods. They have to be based on what he observed his own teachers
>doing--and his own personality traits, which include sarcasm and
>contempt for ignorance and weakness.

If I were going to comment on Snape's motivations for how he treats his 
students--which I do only with the warning that I *know* any such remarks 
are wildly conjectural--I'd say that when he displays contempt for ignorance 
and weakness (eg, Neville's entire personality),  I'd suggest that A) he's a 
very unhappy man, and that can't help but come out in his teaching, and B) 
he's projecting like a big projecting thing.  In Snape's Worst Memory, we 
see him being too slow on the draw to defend himself (that is, weak and/or 
incompetent).  Weakness leads to humiliation.  His hatred of 
James/Sirius/Harry (the first two being the immediate cause of his 
humiliation, the last an unpleasan reminder of the first) is only (in my 
interpretation) a massive screen for his actual hatred of himself-as-victim. 
  He's hostile to those who show weakness not because he's unable to imagine 
himself in their place, but because he *can't help but* imagine himself in 
their place, and that causes him to erupt with a toxic stew of rage-n-shame.

Which is not to say that Student!Snape actually *was* as incompetent as 
Neville seems to be, only that when he looks back at those days (which he 
probably doesn't, often--remember he tells Harry how foolish it is to wallow 
in sad memories {not the exact wording, but something along those lines}) 
that's what he remembers.

Like I say, wildly conjectural.  No canonical evidence at all.  But when you 
teach, there are two kinds of students you have to watch out for--those who 
remind you of your childhood tormentors, and those who remind you of your 
childhood self.  And we teachers are at *least* as likely to react with 
inappropriate emotion to the latter group than the former.  The really good 
teachers can provide the students that remind them of themselves with the 
kind of educational experiences they wish they'd had at that age; the rest 
of us have to constantly be on guard not to unfairly punish them for having 
the flaws we wish we hadn't.

Alex

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