Academic dishonesty

[Matt]

No: HPFGUIDX 139671

--- I wrote:
>> "Perhaps a lab report would explain the source for 
>> unconventional methods used in the experiment, but the 
>> potions exercises don't call for a report; they are purely 
>> practical.  


--- Del replied:
> What is being taught is the ability to successfully make a 
> potion *according to a certain protocol*. Simply having the 
> students make potions would be a waste of time and resources. 
> Though the potions are what is used to grade the students, 
> they are not what really matters.

I think you are describing what you think should be being taught,
rather than what the Potions classes are actually teaching.  Your
second sentence rather proves the point: students are graded on
whether their potions come out right, not what instructions they
followed or how well.  The two might be easier to confuse in Snape's
classes, because his instructions are portrayed with a kind of
infallibility: mess up any one little step, and not only will your
potion not come out right, but Snape will know exactly where you went
wrong ("Did you do everything on the third line, Potter?" OP, ch.
12.).  But even Snape, like Slughorn, gives marks based on the actual
potions that are submitted at the end of class, not based on his
observations during class -- hence the incident in OP (ch. 29) where
Snape "accidentally" smashes Harry's potion and gives him a zero.

> What matters is how good of a potion can the students 
> make while following a particular method. It's the *skill* 
> the students develop and demonstrate that matters, their 
> ability to produce a certain result under certain 
> circumstances - including the method they are given. So 
> using another method makes the whole exercise worthless. 

That simply can't be the case.  If it were, then the preparations
would need to be much more closely supervised, and Harry would never
have gotten away with using the HBP book, nor would Slughorn have
praised Harry for his "instinctive feel."  

> Let me compare this to the first DADA lesson. In that 
> lesson, they worked on practicing silent magic. They didn't 
> learn any new spell, they just had to practice those spells 
> silently.... Would it have been more efficient if they had 
> used the spells out loud? Of course! But that wasn't the 
> point. The point was to see how well they could do silently. 

The contrast between the Potions lessons and that Defense lesson is
instructive, but what it shows is that when there are constraints on
an assignment those constraints are explicitly stated.  The Potions
students were not required to follow any specific set of instructions.
   They weren't told "your assignment is to prepare a Draught of
Living Death without the asphodel"; they were simply told (for
instance) to "make a decent attempt at the Draught of Living Death,"
with the understanding that it was "complex" and no one's potion would
be perfect.

--- I had asked:
>>  Do the "talented" potionmakers in the class actually 
>> understand what they are doing, or are they simply 
>> following instructions?  ...  I tend to assume that there 
>> is some talent, some feel, some art involved in 
>> potionmaking, as there is in cooking, but I fear that
>> none of the students we see has really picked this up.  
>> (Certainly not Hermione, who insists on slavishly 
>> following the recipe.)  

--- Del replied: 
> Your use of the word "slavishly" to describe Hermione 
> indicates to me that you missed the entire point of the 
> Potions lessons. That point was to teach the kids precisely 
> what you've just described: how potion-making works. The 
> ultimate point was *not* to have them make perfect potions, 
> even though that was what they were graded on. It was to 
> have the kids understand the interactions between the 
> different ingredients and the different moves.

I daresay you might be missing something yourself if you believe that
any educational lesson has only a single "point" to it.  But in
resolving who is closer to the "point" or "points" that the Hogwarts
teachers were getting at, I think that we need to look at their
methods.  Certainly there were theoretical aspects to many of the
assignments we saw given (for instance, Snape's essays on the uses of
particular ingredients).  But as you concede, the students' classrom
grades depended entirely on the *results* of their potionmaking, not
on the process used.  Even in the antidotes assignment, which was as
theoretical as any of the classroom work got, Slughorn was willing to
accept Harry's *practical* solution as superior to the process-focused
work that the other students produced.  You can argue that Slughorn
was shortsighted to do so -- even that it was poor teaching -- and I
would tend to agree with you.  But you cannot dispute that Slughorn's
focus, as demonstrated by how he actually chose to teach the class,
was on practical results rather than theory or method.

> By following the book's instructions precisely, Hermione ...
> studied the theory on one hand, and she applied it on the 
> other hand, thus learning the innards of potion-making. The 
> fact that she is indeed learning the art of potion-making is 
> demonstrated during the antidote lesson. She appears to be 
> the only one who actually knows what she's doing, and that's
> because she understands the principles of potion-making.

Following instructions doesn't sound to me much like studying theory,
but I have no quarrel with the basic premise that Hermione has learned
a lot about theory and principles.  What I wonder is whether her
degree of attachment to prescribed instructions has inhibited her from
developing a feel for the subject (something she appears to have in
Transfiguration and Charms).  If potionmaking is indeed an art, as
well as a science, then success surely requires more than just
studying theory and understanding principles.  Why isn't Hermione more
interested in the results that Harry achieves using the Prince's
instructions?  Why doesn't she want to experiment with different ways
of making a potion?  If she thinks there is only one correct way of
going about it, hasn't Hermione missed just as much as the student who
shows up at cooking school insisting that there is only one way to
make clam chowder?  

> You say you like to cook. So let me explain that in 
> cooking terms. [L]et's say the kids have this sauce to 
> make. The original recipe tells them [x].... Harry, on the 
> other hand, has this alternate recipe that tells him [y].
> As a result, he gets a much creamier and tastier sauce than 
> Hermione. But the problem is that he doesn't know *why*. 

The problem is that none of them, including Hermione, knows why,
because none of them seems to be interested in any experimentation at
all.  Possibly you mistake my point: I was not suggesting that Harry
learned more because he used the HBP book; I was wondering why none of
the students seemed interested in much experimentation or fiddling
with the instructions, and was simply noting that the deviations in
the HBP book gave Harry an opportunity to explore that subject, not
that he appeared to be doing so to any great degree.

> [Harry] can't identify the different ingredients when 
> tasting the two sauces [and] doesn't understand what 
> cooking does to a sauce, and so is unable to appreciate 
> why his own cooking was better than Hermione's. So now let
> me ask you: who do you think is the better student? 

Of course Hermione is a better student; she's the exemplary *student*.
 As to who is a better potionmaker, it's hard to tell from their
classes (which are not exactly fair tests given Snape's and Slughorn's
temperaments), but we know that Hermione did better on the O.W.L. 
Backing off from the ultimate question, I think it's sort of funny and
definitely telling that you say Harry would be "unable to appreciate
why his own cooking was better" simply because he didn't understand
the theory.  Both cooking and potionmaking can be and typically are
evaluated based upon the results, not theory or method.  The proof, as
they say, is in the pudding.

> About rewarding creativity, now. Slughorn doesn't reward 
> Harry's creativity for itself: he rewards it because it 
> worked!  

My point exactly.  Slughorn is perfectly comfortable thinking that
Harry deviated from the instructions, so long as the result was
superior.  That proves that he is not looking for students to get the
best possible result out of a flawed method; he is looking for the
best possible result period.

> So it's not the creativity in itself that Slughorn is 
> after. What he's rewarding is the fact that Harry 
> supposedly took a bet and won. What he thinks happened 
> is that Harry thought "hum! I think if I do this or 
> that, the potion might come off better", and he dared 
> trying it even though that could ruin the potion 
> entirely....

I think you were closer to discerning Slughorn's objective in the
prior paragraph.  He is rewarding successful results, not risktaking.
 Otherwise, as you point out, he should have been just as pleased when
Ernie tried his own concoction and failed.  

-- Matt