THEORY: Hogwarts curriculum

[Nora Renka]

No: HPFGUIDX 112216

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, annegirl11 at j... wrote:
> Nora:
>> Studying art in the context of 'hey kids, draw this animal because 
>> we're studying it in class' and, say, studying the aesthetics and 
>> history and practice of drawing are profoundly different things.  
> 
> As I've said several times, the basis of my theory is that there is 
> more to the class than we read. Maybe they do study theory and 
> aesthetics. 

I'm trying to figure out how to functionally work in a discussion, a 
serious and non-trivial discussion, into any of these classes so far 
as they've been presented, and I just can't come up with any good 
concrete specifics on how this would be done.  For example, methinks 
that Hagrid as CoMC teacher is not exactly going to be imparting a 
discussion of perspective, even if he asks the kids to draw one of 
the animals.  That class is overwhelmingly hands-on.  Potions is 
hands-on.  Transfiguration is all about making things change so 
McGonagall won't yell at you.  DADA is the one place I can see ethics 
coming up--Lupin is a good teacher, in part, because he actually 
makes them think through the process of dealing with a Boggart, and 
why it works to laugh at it, and what it means.  He, however, seems 
to be a little more of an exception rather than the rule.  We know 
what Ministry-mandated DADA is like, and it is the ultimate 
antithesis of critical thinking.
 
>> It is  an  interesting theory, but it doesn't address exactly what 
>> I was lamenting the loss of.
> 
> What I'm saying is that it's possible there isn't any loss to 
> lament. The humanities may be taught in a *different* but still 
> valid and effective way. 
> 
> When I was in school, two-a-week, one-half year music or art 
> classes were treated as cake classes compared to the more demanding 
> core classes. If Hogwarts does blend humantities in with the 
> lessons in the core classes, perhaps Hogwarts kids emerge from 
> school more appreciative of the arts than kids I went to school 
> with, who viewed them as lesser disciplines than "real" classes.

When you treat them like that, they *are* cake classes.  And I don't 
see any way that treatment of them at Hogwarts, if they're there, is 
any better, given the overwhelming emphasis on the practical side of 
education.  Taking the 'we're going to slip some stuff in here so it 
might catch' approach doesn't seem to me like it would really work 
when all the kids are paying far more attention to trying to get that 
potion right, or come up with the One Right Answer to a question.

>> Actually, it's a fairly canonical comment that most wizards have 
>> absolutely no logic, at the end of SS/PS.
> 
> I have no idea what you mean by that.

Sadly, I don't have the book at hand; let me see...okay, I am 
corrected--it's not most, but here you go:

"This isn't magic-it's logic-a puzzle. A lot of the greatest wizards 
haven't got an ounce of logic, they'd be stuck in here forever." 

>> it's going to trip up your average student, but not Muggle-raised 
>> Hermione. 
> 
> It's meant to trip up an average-intelligenced person (do we really
> think Quirrel or Voldemort are geniuses?) but not above-intelligence
> Hermione. Harry couldn't solve the puzzle, either. 

It's not intelligence per se that's really the determinant on solving 
the puzzle, it's the knowledge of the methodology.  Anyone can solve 
it, really, if you know how--it just takes a little time to work 
out.  Hermione, being sharp, walks through it fairly quickly, but 
that's more because she knows how to think in the way that the puzzle 
demands.  The different obstacles all test different ways of thinking 
and observing the world.

>> when you can get that close to real life, why bother developing 
>> anything else?
> 
> Muggle art can get close to real life, but they still develop other
> things. We don't know what other kinds of art exist in the Wizarding
> world except for the talking portraits. 

Generally, if one takes a short-fast-and-loose historical survey of 
aesthetics, it started from a groundpoint of 'art imitates life', and 
then expanded out from there.  Given the very, very little that we've 
seen of wizarding art and ideas so far, I don't think they've gotten 
terribly far on the path of artistic development--but I could be 
completely wrong.  They are, however, societally lacking a lot of 
things that do generate artistic progress.

>> isn't it interesting from a literary perspective that, even if 
>> it's 'actually' there, we don't get shown these art/music/drama 
>> classes?  
> 
> From a literary perspective, the books are about the wizarding 
> world. Throwing in random muggle things would muddle the world the 
> author is constructing. It's a kids' book: some things have to be 
> clear-cut, like the idea that the wizarding world is all-magic. 
> It's more fun that way.

But it still seems important that the all-magic wizarding world is 
lacking a hell of a lot of things--a serious concept of human rights 
is a good one, amongst other things.  It is certainly far from a 
utopia (and, perhaps, getting worse every book), and one of the 
themes which seems to be growing is how magic has both positive and 
strongly detrimental affects on society and human relationships.  The 
WW has worked out things that Muggles haven't, but Muggles have 
worked out a lot of things that the WW hasn't, and which are coming 
back to haunt them.  It's the rare visionary like Dumbledore who 
appreciates what his society is lacking.

-Nora thinks that what the WW needs is a good sociological study