Academic dishonesty

[delwynmarch]

No: HPFGUIDX 139533

Eggplant wrote:
"Actually I don't think Hermione has much understanding of the theory
behind potions, I say that because she has never made an original
potion, neither has any other student."

Del replies:

First, I don't consider making her own potion a valid test to
determine whether or not Hermione understands the art of
potion-making. One can understand car mechanics or electronics without
ever putting an engine or a computer together. Hermione might simply
not be interested in making her own potion, which would be very much
in character. She usually needs to have a good reason to create
something (Polyjuice Potion, Charmed Galleons), she doesn't create
stuff just for the fun of it (unlike the Twins, for example). But if
she needs to create something new, then she often can manage it.

Second, the potion class is the only place where she can legally have
access to a cauldron. But they are always asked to prepare a known
potion when in that class. Hermione wasn't around the *only* time
Slughorn let the students have fun. So expecting her to create her own
potion when she actually doesn't have the opportunity to do so is
quite unfair IMO.

Third, Ernie did try to make an original potion. He failed, but he
tried. So that's not "any other student".

Fourth, we haven't heard of Lily or Snape making their own potions
when they were at Hogwarts. So I fail to see why you are holding
Hermione to a standard that even the two known genius potion-makers
don't seem to have reached.

Eggplant wrote:
"Hermione knew a spell that would tell her what was in a mixture of
poisons and had memorized the antidotes to the individual poisons and
knew how to mix them together, but there is no evidence she had the
slightest idea why any of it worked."

Del replies:
What exactly do you mean by "why any of it worked"?? Hermione knew the
laws coming into play. What else should she have known?

Del earlier: 
"And yes, following instructions can be the very best way to learn
some things"

Eggplant replied:
"Following lousy instructions will not give you a better understanding
than following excellent instructions. "

Del replies:
That wasn't the point you were arguing. You were arguing that
following instructions (*any* instructions) can't help someone learn
something. I showed that you are wrong. The quality of the
instructions was never part of the argument.

Eggplant wrote:
"If you were 16 and in Harry's position what would you have done? I'm
not asking what a moral paragon would have done, nor am I asking what
you hope you would have done, I'm asking what you honestly think you
would have done in that class on that day."

Del replies:
Will you believe me if I tell you?

I happened to be best friends with the class top student. I could have
copied his homework and his classwork any time I wanted. But I didn't.
What I did is ask him how to do things, and if he could help me figure
out how things worked. I wanted to be able to do things myself,
because I was very aware that what really mattered was the final exams.

Moreover, I couldn't have used the HBP notes the way Harry did, even
if I had wanted to, because we were supposed to explain everything we
did, to write a report for every experiment we did. So there's no way
I could have used tricks without the teacher noticing right away.

However, when I was just a few years older, in University, I came
accross a situation that was very close to Harry's situation, except
that everyone was doing it. All the lab pairs would acquire the
reports of the previous year students and use them to write their own
reports and make their own experiments (the teachers were perfectly
aware of what was going on, in case you wondered). But I quickly
discovered that doing this made me extremely dumb. Sure we got good
grades, but I didn't understand anything of what we were doing. So I
played the game so we wouldn't get bad grades but I made sure to study
the reports closely in order to understand all the principles involved.

Of course, you don't have to believe me.

Del