[HPforGrownups] Re: Favorite Snape Scenes - He's such a lovely professor, no really.

[Charme]

No: HPFGUIDX 122566


From: "Shaun Hately"
>
> On 20 Jan 2005 at 21:41, Charme wrote:
>
>> Now I can tell you some of the parents I know, regardless of what their 
>> kid
>> did, would not condone a teacher treating a student in that manner. 
>> Neither
>> would the public or the school system.  It does make you wonder what 
>> Snape's
>> temper has caused him to do in the past.
>
> I don't want to get into a huge debate about this because it's very
> hard to keep it calm and rational in my experience, but as a matter
> of simple fact and record, a great many parents and many school
> systems have, until quite recently, tolerated far more severe
> physical treatment of children than we see in the Harry Potter
> books.
>
> Including many of the types of schools that Hogwarts seems to be
> most closely based on.
>
> Certainly many parents, and many school systems would not condone
> treatment like that. But quite a number would and did.
>
> Hogwarts is not a modern school with modern ideas. It's drawing on
> rather specific traditions.
>
> Most modern schools wouldn't tolerate detentions that require an
> armed teacher as escort either.
>

Charme:

No worries about not being able to keep it calm and rational with me, my 
friend. :) I love Snape, however I think that canon is there for a reason - 
I've never gone to school in Britian, so I've no idea what was acceptable 
there, nor how long ago such discipline was commonly practiced. My next 
question is not meant to inflame, incite or suggest any sort of argument - 
are you suggesting that the reader should ignore that canon as something 
explicable by tradition?

In my experience here in the States, I am one of the fortunate ones  (danger 
Will Robinson, my age is about to show) to remember during my elementary and 
middle school years, teachers could still paddle students. I moved around a 
lot here, and have attended schools in more the average number of states in 
the Northeast and Midwest and all of them discontinued such "accepted" 
practices shortly after 1978 or so. Teachers here,  private and parochial, 
cannot touch a student in the manner Snape did mainly for legal and 
liability reasons, and such items are as a matter of routine included in 
most, if not all, school district employment contracts with their employees. 
As far as your comment regarding an armed teacher as an escort for 
detentions,  I am not sure what you mean.  Here, school districts seperate 
the armed escort part by employing security people for such purposes, 
thereby providing that function separate from teachers.

Still, for me it goes back to the main concept of Snape's ability to control 
his anger and it does still make me wonder what he might have done in the 
past (or perhaps will do in the future) as a result of his struggle to 
control it. It makes me go back to Snape's diatribe with Harry during one of 
his Occulmency lessons: paraphased, he refers to those who wear or cannot 
control their emotions openly being easy prey for LV. Makes me think that 
scene means more than meets the eye. :)

Thanks -
Charme