Hagrid and Snape's teaching method

[mysmacek]

No: HPFGUIDX 144175

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "sistermagpie" <belviso at a...> wrote:

> Yes!  But that's central to Hagrid's personality.  Here he is in a 
> situation where he's acting completely inappropriately, not taking 
> responsibility as an adult when he should have, dragging the kid into 
> something illegal he's doing, expecting them to lie for him, and 
> never seeming to consider this wrong.  Iirc, all he continually cares 
> about is the dragon he wants--and he's looking longingly at the 
> dragon eggs in GoF as well.  As Betsy mentioned, his response to Ron 
> being bitten by Norbert is to yell at Ron for scaring the dragon.  
> Ron spends the next day not getting medical care for his bite because 
> he's worried Pomfrey will recognize the bite and Hagrid will get in 
> trouble--this while his hand is swelling to twice its normal size.  
> They know this is the guy teaching the CoMC class.

No, he was not. He was then only a gamekeeper, protected by DD and
forbidden to do any magic. He was more a friend for the trio than a
figure of authority. We do not see anyone from trio complaining (even
just Harry to himself), do we?

Generally, I think that the problem is that you apply modern standards
for Hagrid's classes. Draco *could* have been seriously injured, but
he probably was not - remember, it's the world where uncle Algy holds
Neville out of the window by his leg - and we haven't heard of him
landing in Azkaban :-)

By your standards, mme Hooch would be even more guilty, as she clearly
lets students fly high above grounds with little safeties. What if
some Sprout's mandragoras were just a bit more mature? Grubbly Plank's
bowtruckles would happily gouge your eyes out. Triwizard tournament is
clearly lethal. Etc, etc. About the only safe subject we know is
divination and history of magic. And DADA with Umbridge. I think it's
not wonder they are the less favourite ones :)

I understand Hagrid's frustration with his classes - I would rather
cared of screwts than making a list of unicorns properties (or
memorized names of boring poems of some long dead poet I do not care
of). Of course, GP's approach is safer OWL-wise, but then she has
probably tens of years as a teacher under her belt.

Mysmacek