the potions textbook

[potioncat]

No: HPFGUIDX 135212


> Jim Ferer: 
> <If Snape had been a better man and teacher, all the NEWT students 
might have had a copy of _Advanced Potions, Second Edition_, by 
Borage & Snape. If Snape wasn't sharing his tricks of the trade then 
that doesn't speak well of him as a teacher.>

Potioncat:
But we don't know what Snape's NEWT students had for a text book. Or 
if they used a text. This is Slughorn's choice of texts, and he's 
using the same one that he used for all those many years! 

"If" Umbridge was correct, and Snape's students were advanced, he 
must have been teaching all the levels differently than Slughorn did. 
Now, I don't know why Snape didn't write a text of his own...might 
have earned him an Order of Merlin. Could he have been too busy with 
classes in the winter and Order business in the summmer?


> weildman: 
snip
This absolutely genius improvement in a 50 year old textbook is 
allowed to gather dust instead of improving the knowledge of 
students. I believe Snape failed as a teacher when he failed to use 
his greater knowledge of the subject to improve the text for the 
course.  I don't know what his reasons for withholding this knowledge 
was, but in doing so he failed his students and the wizarding world. 
The fact that he could
> have shared this knowledge and didn't is really telling about his 
> character.>

Potioncat:
I don't think this greatly improved text book was gathering dust in 
the potions lab all these years. I think it had been stolen.(Another 
reason he didn't write his own book; the notes were gone.) If Snape 
knew it was in the potions lab, he would have taken it when he moved 
to DADA. And I'm not sure that he knew before the incident with 
Malfoy that Potter had the book. 

This text wasn't used by the pre-NEWT students. They had two other 
texts for the 5 years. But they didn't concoct potions from a text 
(like they do in Slughorn's class) they followed Snape's instructions 
on the board. So we might assume they were Snape's personal 
directions.

The changes he made in the Advanced book had to do with 
preparation...using a particular tool or technique that differed just 
a little from the text. A subtle difference. Is is possible that 
Harry wasn't following the instructions so carefully from the board 
as he did from the H-B Prince? In Occulmency lessons Snape says 
something along the line of "You have no subtlety, Potter, that's why 
you're such a lamentable potion maker."

> hekatesheadband:
snip
Granted, he may have wanted students to experiment for 
> themselves - but with the way he berates them for failure when they 
> do deviate from the book's directions, how can he expect that they 
> would ever dare it? There would be no need to spoon-feed it to 
> them: the occasional "Arsenius Jigger says to do X, but I find that 
> Y can also be useful" or "For homework, think of how you might 
> modify these instructions, and explain them." He's never done 
> anything like.

Potioncat:
I don't think experimentation was the issue. Snape had found at an 
early age that a subtle difference in technique would change the 
outcome. He knew when the students hadn't done things properly. 
Homework, as I recall, was research. They were using "1000 Fungii" 
and going to the library. It was all theory related. You have to 
understand why something works before you can come up ways to change 
it.

I do think Snape's book had been lost or stolen. If the Marauders had 
it, that may be how they learned Snape's nvbl hexes. Except they had 
learned some by the end of 5th year. I doubt the book went missing 
that early.

Just my thoughts.
Potioncat