Harry's anger (was Re: Draco's anger.)

[Geoff Bannister]

No: HPFGUIDX 122580


--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at y...> wrote:

Carol:
> But teaching *style* and teaching *ability* are two different 
things.
> Surely there's no question that Snape knows his subject (Potions--
I'm
> not getting into Occlumency here), the first criterion for teaching
> ability. The question that has not yet been fully answered is 
whether
> his students are learning what he's teaching. 

Geoff:
You must also bear in mind that some folk have a deep knowledge of 
their subjects but are hopeless teachers - I can think of 
professional people who moved sideways into teaching in the days 
before it was necessary to hold a teaching qualification who were no 
good at imparting knowledge to others.

I shoudl perhaps explain for non-UK readers that, at one time a 
graduate could go into teaching without having any formal teacher 
training; it was very common in places like grammar schools. Many of 
the teachers at the school I attended were in this category. 
Fortunately, most of them managed pretty well. It was only the 
occasional member of staff who dropped into the Professor Binns 
category and bored the pants off everyone by basically lecturing 
pupils rather than teaching them.

In the village where I now live, we have a small computer centre 
where we run half day courses for absolute beginners - usually 
retired older folk - and offer one-to-one help. I am now the course 
tutor (sounds grand doesn't it!) and soon after I came, the guy who 
was already there handed over the reins to me because he was a 
retired engineer and admitted that, although he was highly trained, 
he hadn't got the communication skills to put things over to 
students. 

I accept that Snape has the ability, but I doubt that he has the 
style or the right personality to really get the learning environment 
which would benefit /every/ Hogwarts student.