[HPforGrownups] Re: In Defense of Snape (Against Snape in JKR's words)

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 122164

On 17 Jan 2005 at 6:31, Matt wrote:

> Some have said that Snape's teaching methods might not be the nicest 
> teaching methods, but that they work for some and even most 
> students, so it is okay.  However, when a teacher engages in 
> personal attacks on students, then there is a line that is being 
> crossed.  Even if many of the students benefit from a "hard" 
> teacher, if a minority of students suffer under that teacher (such 
> as Neville), then the method is wrong, and a better teaching method 
> should be found.

This simply isn't reasonable in my view.

It is pretty much impossible to expect a teachers' - any teachers' 
- methods to work for every child they teach. Every single method 
of education in existence fails to work for some kids, and harms 
some kids.

This is because children are individuals with individual learning 
styles. There are considerable overlaps among how children learn, 
but there are pretty much no universals.

If you eliminate from education, every single method that a 
minority of students could suffer from, you will wind up 
eliminating every single method of teaching.

I speak from real experience here. I had special educational needs 
growing up - needs that were not met by the normal methods of 
education used in the schools I attended. Except for one year 
(which I spent at a truly flawed school), the methods being used in 
the clasrooms I was in probably worked well for 99% of the kids in 
those classrooms. But they didn't work for me. That's a simple 
fact. They harmed me.

Should the teachers have been forced to change the way they taught 
simply for my benefit. No, no way. Because changing the way they 
taught would have involved disadvantaging everyone else to my 
benefit. It would have involved putting my right to an appropriate 
education above the right of other children.

Now, I happen to believe every child is entitled to the education 
that best meets their individual needs - but you don't achieve that 
by changing methods that work for the majority to methods that work 
for the minority.

You achieve that by having available a range of different methods, 
all being used alongside each other. That's how you are most likely 
to get education that works for all kids. You don't get it by 
unilaterally saying that certain methods shouldn't be used because 
they are somehow unpleasant.

I had to put up with years of being stuck in classrooms that didn't 
meet my needs, and were often actually quite harmful to me. I hated 
it, and I don't think I should have been in those classrooms - but 
I don't think those classrooms should have been changed just for 
me. They worked for most of my classmates. They worked well for 
most of my classmates. Changing them to suit me would have just 
been a matter of deciding to harm someone elses education. That's 
not an improvement.

What I wish had existed - and what I was lucky enough to find from 
the age of around 13 - was for there also to be other classes where 
methods that worked for me were being used. So all of us had a 
chance for an education that met our needs at least part of the 
time. If you can get an ideal world, all of the time is good. But 
some of the time is at least better than nothing.

Earlier today, Pippin said this:

"But I think if you've had bad experiences with a RL teacher who 
reminds you of Snape,  they get projected on to the character, and 
if you've had good experiences with a Snape style teacher they get 
projected too. IMO, we'd all like to validate our experiences by 
having Snape get the fate we wish our real life teachers could have 
had."

I think that is a very good point in many cases, and it's certainly 
true of me to an extent.  

In my own case, I do very much project my own experiences into this 
debate. But it's of relevance in my opinion.

Just consider what it's like to be in my shoes for a moment. I had, 
for the most part, a hellish education until I was 13 years old. 
Not because I was at bad schools (except for one year), but simply 
because I didn't fit into the way those schools operated.

At that stage, I suddenly found myself in an educational 
environment different from any I had previously experienced and 
where the education I received suddenly fit who I was - and not who 
other people had decided I should be.

One of the reasons the Harry Potter books appealed to me so much 
when I first read them was because I could so much relate to how 
Harry felt coming into the Wizarding World and into Hogwarts, and 
to finally finding a place where he belonged. I had those feelings 
so strongly in my own childhood at age 13. I can still taste the 
feeling.

The school I started at then was nothing like the schools I'd been 
at before - and it was finally a place where I could learn. Which 
fitted the way I learned.

Part of that experience - and only part of it - was encountering a 
few teachers who were very Snape like. I didn't like their classes. 
Yes, frankly, I was scared in some of their classes.

But I learned. I learned for just about the first time in eight 
years of schooling. I didn't enjoy the experience - but at least it 
wasn't a complete and total waste of my time.

I do project because of those experiences. And I don't expect 
others who didn't experience those things to fully understand why I 
feel the way I do.

But just as I am always aware that just because virtually every 
classroom I was in until the age of 13 was a classroom where I 
couldn't and didn't learn, and where my experiences ranged from the 
neutral to the absolutely hideous, doesn't mean I would seek to 
deny the validity of the experiences of the kids I was in those 
classes with who I know learned, and who I know often enjoyed the 
clasess.

No, I can't fully understand why they feel the way they do. But I 
accept that they do feel that way.

And I don't go around claiming that the methods that worked for 
them were invalid, because they didn't work for me.

A school would be a horrible place if every teacher was like Snape.

But, frankly, a school be a horrible place if every teacher was 
like Lupin, or Dumbledore, or McGonagall, or Sprout.

You need a range of methods in operation to create a good school. 
And nobody should expect all those methods to work well for every 
single child. Some kids are always going to miss out.

All eliminating certain teaching methods from consideration does is 
ensure that the kids those methods might work for when others don't 
always miss out.
 
> In the example brought up above, I agree that Snape probably knew 
> that Trevor would not be hurt from the potion.  However, his 
> willingness to let Neville think that his toad was going to be hurt 
> or worse is a nasty and horrid prank that one would not and should 
> not expect from a TEACHER.

Well, I had teachers who taught that way, and for me it worked. I 
won't tell you the horrible things that some of my teachers did to 
me, and threatened me with as a motivation and incentive to make me 
learn. It's hard to say whether they were worse of better than 
threatening Trevor, in all honesty. But they worked - and at least 
sometimes they worked when nothing else did.

And I benefitted from that. I really did. 

You know I am training to be a teacher at the moment. And when I 
sit in classes and I am told how to teach kids, I often find the 
bile rising in my throat as the educational experts at the front of 
the lecture theatre advocate and promote using the same methods of 
teaching that didn't work for me for eight years, and which caused 
me significant emotional pain and suffering. These are the methods 
they tell us work - and logically, I know that they do work for a 
very large proportion of kids. My reaction to them is visceral and 
has nothing to do with knowledge or logic.

I suspect that those who dislike Snape as a teacher have a similar 
visceral reaction in many (not all) cases - they just have that 
reaction to different things than me. Perfectly valid - I just do 
think that those people should realise (just as I have had to 
realise) that just because we might have an emotional and visceral  
reaction to certain ideas of how kids should be taught, that we 
need to look beyond that when assessing how a teacher performs.

Is Snape nice? No. He's nasty.

Is Snape kind? No. He's mean.

But do teachers have to be nice to do their job?

Do teachers have to be kind to do their job?

It's a bonus, sure.

But in essence to do their job, what a teacher *needs* to do is 
*TEACH*.

That is their job. That is their function. That is their first 
duty.

And if a majority of their students are learning a majority of the 
time, then they are doing a good job.

If they can manage that and be nice and kind, wonderful. It's a 
great bonus for their students.

But if they can't manage it, it doesn't matter how nice, or how 
kind they are. They've failed in their fundamental duty.

It is complicated to an extent - because a lot of kids (most kids, 
probably) do learn better from teachers who are nice and who are 
kind. But not all kids do, to be honest. I didn't. I just ran rings 
around most teachers like that (there were exceptions).

Umbridge is an example of an unambiguously bad teacher in my view. 
She is nasty. She is mean. But what makes her a bad teacher is the 
fact that she doesn't teach. Getting a class to read a chapter of a 
textbook isn't teaching - and it wouldn't be teaching even if she 
was lovely and wonderful.

Trelawney seems much nicer than Snape - but also seems to be a very 
ineffectual teacher.

Whose class do students learn most in? Trelawney's or Snape's? We 
can't know for certain - but I strongly expect it's Snape's.

Yes, I project to an extent.

But just think what it is like to come on here and see the 
educational methods that worked best for you, just dismissed by 
other people as bad methods. No wonder I defend Snape, sometimes... 
when you spent most of the first half of your schooling being 
denied an education appropriate to your needs, it can be rather 
hard to see people condemning the methods that finally gave you the 
chance and the right to learn.

Does it matter? Not really. It's a work of fiction. But, frankly, 
that's true of everything discussed here. None of it really 
matters. We don't discuss it because it matters - at least I don't 
think so.



Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200 
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the 
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be 
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that 
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia


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