Academic dishonesty

[lupinlore]

No: HPFGUIDX 139427

> Marianne S:
> As a teacher, I am disturbed by the conclusions I draw from Harry's 
> success with the HBP book. 
> 
> First, it seems very obvious to me that the potion directions Snape 
> put on the board when he taught were better than the students 
> would have seen in any textbook, which is why they were not in a 
> textbook. Had Snape not let his prejudice and hate for James color 
> the way he treated Harry, Harry surely would have been able to mix 
> potions successfully following Professor Snape's directions. We saw 
> an example of this after Snape's Worst Memory in OotP where Harry 
> made a perfect potion when he wasn't being so stressed and on edge 
> because of Snape's constant attacks (of course the actions of Draco 
> and Hermione prevented him from getting his earned mark). If Harry 
> had been free of Snape's attacks, he may have been as successful 
and 
> learned as much as Hermione did. 

Lupinlore:
True, and I think this is part of the irony of HBP.  You can see it 
from several different angles, of course.  Some have said that Harry 
might have learned from Snape had he only been willing to do so.  I 
would say the message JKR is sending is more likely that Snape could 
have taught Harry had he been willing to do so.  

In some ways, I think that HBP is a deeply tragic book, just as is 
OOTP -- but the tragedy is different in each case.  The tragedy of 
OOTP arises from what is, from the world that the characters actually 
face and the choices they actually make.  The tragedy in HBP is more 
subtle, but still profound.  HBP gives us a window into another, 
better world that might have been, if things had gone differently 
long ago.  In that alternate reality the pureblood prejudice did not 
work its way so deep into the social fabric of the Wizarding World, 
Dumbledore was wiser in the way he dealt with a young Tom Riddle, and 
the Marauder's generation was not so riven with jealousy and hatred.  
In that world it is easy to imagine a healthier and happier Severus 
Snape, still sarcastic and cynical but without the cruel edge, 
growing very fond of a certain brash, energetic, dark-haired 
Gryffindor, and said Gryffindor finding that his favorite professor 
is not a passive, emotionally repressed werewolf but his dry-witted, 
irreverent potions master.  Perhaps Dumbledore hoped that Occlumency 
would, among other things, allow some dim shadow of that better world 
to be salvaged.  But the deep tragedy is that the better world is 
only a dream -- a dream that was rendered impossible years ago by 
prejudice, blunders, hatred, and death.


> 
> Second, it doesn't seem like Snape was the best teacher. He gave 
the 
> students great information, he told them how to do things, but he 
> criticized and belittled students for their mistakes rather than 
having 
> them understand the errors. When students were successful, there is 
> no evidence that Snape facilitated their ability to understand why 
> certain ingredients worked etc. Had Snape really and fully taught 
> Hermione everything he could, rather than just showing her HOW to 
> make potions while not encouraging her understanding, she probably 
> would have done much better in Slughorn's class. 
> 


Snape certainly seems to be a living ruin.  In him, especially in his 
incarnation as the HBP, we can see a great teacher that might have 
been.  In the better world to which I alluded above, he might well 
have been a rival to McGonagall, or more exactly, to Dumbledore, as 
we really have never seen that McGonagall is particularly successful 
in inspiring a "love" or "feel" for Transfiguration in her students, 
as one suspects Dumbledore was.  Indeed, the only real example we 
have of a professor who truly seems to "connect" with a student -- 
save for Harry and Lupin which is a special case due to Lupin's 
history -- is Neville and Professor Sprout.  It just doesn't seem 
that good teaching is much of a Hogwarts' tradition.  Unfortunately, 
Snape is only a twisted mockery of what he could have become.


> Perhaps, though, Snape's methods were due to impending O.W.L.s; 
> his teaching could have been the greatest Academic Dishonesty of 
all. 
> Maybe the ministry had "No Wizard Left Behind" legislation (like 
the 
> American "No Child Left Behind" unfunded mandate that forces many 
> schools to spend all their time and resources preparing for high 
stakes 
> testing) that forced potentially talented potions masters like 
Snape to 
> teach to the test instead of instilling a deep understanding of 
content. 
> Not that I'm excusing his treatment of Harry and other Gryffindors, 
but 
> even the Slytherins weren't doing well in 6th year Potions now that 
Snape
> was no longer their teacher. 
> 

This may well be true, at least in part.  Testing, for all its 
necessity and usefulness, can easily have a detrimental effect on 
educational practices.  My teaching (and learning) experiences have 
all been in the American system, which is not nearly so test-driven 
as some other systems, even in the age of No-Child-Left-Behind (there 
is really no equivalent of the OWL/GCSE, and even the SAT is not 
precisely the same as the NEWTS/A-levels).  Nevertheless, the teacher 
whose career is based on "teaching the test, not the students" is a 
figure with whom everyone is drearily familiar.  

In the case of Severus, the prominence of the OWLS and NEWTS perhaps 
does little to call forth the kind of teaching of which he might, in 
a better world, be capable.  But, unfortunately, there seems to be 
little at Hogwarts, with the possible exception of Dumbledore's 
personal intervention, and very possibly not even that, which is able 
to call out the best in Severus.


Lupinlore