SHIP Ron/ Hermione /Golpalott's Third Law

Shaun Hately drednort at alphalink.com.au
Wed Apr 26 05:47:55 UTC 2006


No: HPFGUIDX 151473

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, silmariel <silmariel at ...> wrote:

> Shaun:
> > Well, your opinion is as valid as anyone elses, but let me explain
> > as someone whose done a lot of work with a lot of gifted kids over
> > the years, why I would say Hermione is definitely gifted and more
> > than gifted.
> 
> Silmariel
> I knew your opinion, and I don't doubt you are right and JKR intended Hermione 
> to be 'the brightest witch of her generation', or something to the effect. 
> 
> What I'm saying is that, not being an expert in the field, it's perfectly 
> acceptable not perceiving her as gifted.

Shaun:

Indeed, you are correct. Hermione's giftedness cannot be proven - it's
definitely a matter of opinion, and certainly it's valid to feel that she isn't.

> Silmariel:
> As I have three gifted cousins in 
> the family, I'm used to them. The one that dedicates to collect Phds 
> (chemistry, physics and mathematics the last time I asked) is quite lazy 
> (procastinator?) and would never work so hard.

Shaun:

That's not uncommon among gifted people either. Giftedness expresses itself in
a lot of different ways, based on so many different factors. Some gifted
people take advantage of their giftedness by not working particularly hard at
all - after all, why work any harder than you have to when you can achieve
what you want to achieve with less work? But others are incredibly driven. The
differences come from so many different places - experiences, personality, etc. 


> Shaun:
> > First of all, just because Hermione studies very hard doesn't mean
> > that she actually needs to study that hard. Hermione seems to be
> > what we would generally describe as a gifted perfectionist - and
> > that's an area I know a lot about. It's the area of giftedness, I'm
> > most cited on.
> >
> > http://tinyurl.com/oolxd
> 
> Silmariel:
> Yep, I'm aware, as a long time lurker that read your posts, in some groups.

Shaun:

Sure, but I felt it was worth pointing out that this issue of 'perfectionism'
is one I am particularly interested in. It's an issue I had to deal with
personally, and not always very successfully. When I look at Hermione, I
really do tend to see a girl wrestling with the same problems I wrestled with
at times (only at times - I had a somewhat unsteady childhood in this regard -
at other periods I was incredibly lazy - though in my case even that partly
came from my perfectionism - being lazy gave me an excuse not to be perfect).
Incidentally, I see some of this in Percy as well - I'm afraid to say I was
probably a lot like Percy! - but because we see so much less of him, it's
harder to work out how much of what I see in him is real and how much is
projection.
 
> Shaun:
> > I should that some gifted children actually do need to study quite a
> > bit. Giftedness has different forms and some of those actually
> > require a lot of study to express themselves - the giftedness in
> > those cases is more in the ability to synthesise and express ideas,
> > rather than in the area of having such a good memory that study can
> > be minimised. Personally I don't think Hermione has that type of
> > giftedness - I think she probably does have a good memory - but
> > there are gifted kids like that.
> 
> Silmariel:
> Ok, if you say so, you are the expert. Maybe I'm confused because I'm used to 
> the combination of factors. My family mixes creativity with reasoning and a 
> lot of memory. If it puts it in context, I'm a black sheep in the family and 
> I was able to prepare and pass 300 sheets of mathematical theory exam 
> regarding optimization (3rd year at College,  computer field) in 3 days, and 
> I had no idea of the asignature, I had not gone to classes.

Shaun:

Giftedness can be expressed in so many different ways - memory is common as
part of it, but it's not universal. I have a rather poor short term auditory
memory myself - it's on the low end of the average range - for example. My
visual memory is excellent - but not my auditory memory. If it was the other
way around, I would need to do an awful lot of studying to do well
academically - but I'd still have the same general mental ability.

Personally I think Hermione's memory is very good - I think she studies so
much because she studies a great deal more than she actually needs to - but I
mention the memory issues, just in case.
 
> Shaun:
> > But I say, I think Hermione is a gifted perfectionist and that is
> > the reason for her excessive amount of studying. I really don't
> > think Hermione needs to do as much study as she does to perform
> > well, but being a perfectionist, she does a lot more than she needs
> > to (one of the two ways perfectionism most often expresses itself -
> > the other is in not studying at all, because if you don't try, you
> > have an excuse for failure).
> 
> Silmariel:
> Ok, I get it. Still, I suposse I would have like her seeing fully dedicated to 
> knowledge but not only to studies. A bit of hobbies related to but not 
> included in the OWL race, like -muggle example warning- astronomy. I 
> understant that Hermione is driven by knowledge, but, as Joe says, she can be 
> interpreted as a new Percy - achiever of marks. I think Percy is gifted, but 
> not 'the brightest wizard'.

Shaun:

Being gifted certainly doesn't always mean a person makes the wisest of
choices, and I would say this - if I had Hermione Granger referred to me as
one of my telems (the gifted kids I mentor) there are certainly issues that I
would hope we could work together to address. Her perfectionism is most
definitely one of them, her obsession with school work beyond what seems to be
necessary for high performance being an expression of that. And it is the type
of issue I have to address reasonably often, because it's not exactly an
uncommon problem.

And, yes, I suffered from it myself.

I'm 31 - yesterday I had an assignment to do for university. I did it in about
two and a half hours, and I am confident I will get a H1 (the highest grade my
university awards). Ten years ago when I was 21, I would have probably spent
at least two and a half *days* on the same assignment - and if I had the time,
two and a half *weeks* wouldn't have been an impossibility. And my final grade
wouldn't have been significantly better.

In my last year of secondary school I averaged nine hours of homework a night
- did I need to do that? Not really. But I was obsessed and I was a perfectionist.

I do think that Hermione may be dealing with similar issues - and it's not
wise and it's not particularly healthy to be this way. But it's not a sign
that a person isn't gifted either.

(And, incidentally, just for the record, even though this is not the best
situation, sometimes you have to let it be, because forcing the child to
change can actually wind up hurting them more - but if I had Hermione in my
sphere of influence, I'd be trying to help her deal with this).
 

> Shaun:
> > No, Hermione is not in a special school for gifted children.
> > But she's doing eleven OWLs when it seems it is normal to do nine.
> 
> Silmariel:
> So? That's not remarkable. Oh, sorry, it is, just not amazing, in my book. See 
> the Weasleys records.

Shaun:

I'm not sure if it's remarkable or amazing - I just think it might be. (-8

The trouble with assessing this is that we don't know exactly how the
educational and qualifications of the Wizarding World work - and in the real
world, depending on the model of education used, this may or may not be
remarkable.

When I was at school, in the standard education system I was in, it really was
truly remarkable to be doing extra subjects. That was a result of decisions
taken by the educational bureaucracy to make it very, very unusual for a
student to be allowed to do this. Today, a decade and a half later, it's not
at all uncommon for a students to be doing one or even two extra subjects.

My point is that we don't know how common this is. We've no way of knowing.
Maybe 1 in 10 students do it. Maybe 1 in 100 do it. Maybe 1 in 1000 overall?

A lot of people believe that the OWLS are based on the old British O-Levels,
and that seems to make sense, although we don't know it for certain. From
talking to people who know British education and who know gifted kids, 11 or
12 O-levels would have been quite a uncommon haul even for a highly gifted
student, though higher numbers were possible. And back at the time JKR was at
school, even 10 would have been impressive (in a single year at least). Or so
I am told.
 
> Shaun:
> > She also does *exceed* the highest level expected of students at
> > least twice that we know of.
> >
> > In first year, she gets 112 percent in her Charms exam.
> >
> > In third year, she gets 320 percent in her Muggle Studies exam.
> 
> Silmariel:
> Pity that she has to devote all that time, and she can't do it with two weeks  
> work -at most- per subject. And do something as intellectual but not so 
> workaholic the rest of the time.

Shaun:

It'd probably be nice and maybe even healthier if she did, yes. But if she's a
perfectionist, it's unlikely she sees it that way.
 
> Shaun:
> > This indicates that Hermione does study more than she needs to. This
> > girl doesn't stop studying when she knows she's passed. She doesn't
> > even stop studying when she's met the standard her school regards as
> > perfect - worth 100%. She keeps studying even after she's done more
> > than enough. So viewing the fact she studies very hard as an
> > indication that she isn't as smart as she appears, seems to me to be
> > rather unjustified. She studies because she is driven to. The
> > standard the school requires doesn't interest her - she's aiming to
> > do as well as she possibly can whether that is at the standard of
> > the school, or even higher.
> 
> Silmariel:
> Written that way, it even may seem that Hermione is driven by studies instead 
> of knowledge. Unjustified, but understatable? Well, how do I know if she is 
> driven to for the knowledge of for the marks? My experience of what is if 
> gifted differs a lot.

Shaun:

It's very possible that she is driven by studies rather than knowledge, yes.
It's also possible she doesn't make a distinction between the two.

To be honest, what I see in Hermione is quite a common pattern in some of the
kids I work with, and I wonder if it's possible she might be dealing with some
of the issues they have dealt with.

Being a gifted child can sometimes be a pretty miserable experience for a
number of reasons - but one of the most significant reasons is a lack of
challenge in school - and I know this was a problem in some British schools in
the 1980s (it was also a problem in a lot of Australian schools). Especially
in primary schools.

We have some indications that Hermione, when she comes to Hogwarts, doesn't
have the best developed social skills in the world. Her attitude on the train
gives some indication of a lack of social graces, and Ron comments that she
doesn't have any friends.

When we see this in gifted children aged about ten or eleven, it's very
commonly (although not always) an indication that their primary education
wasn't all that it could have been. This is getting quite long, so I won't go
into all the psychology of it, but Hermione-at-11 presents to me as a gifted
child who had an adequate-to-good primary school education, which nonetheless
failed to challenge her academically. Not an uncommon problem.

When children who have had these experiences suddenly find themselves in an
environment that *does* challenge them (and with the kids I work with, that is
quite commonly the case, because of issues of identification, etc) one of two
things often happens. They either crash and burn (because they have never
learned the basic skills needed to do well academically in a challenging
environment - this is roughly what I did at first) or, for the first time in
their life, faced with the challenge they crave, they... well, they go a
little nuts. It's like they've been half starved all their life - and now they
have a smorgasboard before them. They dive into it head first and barely come
up for air (which I did after a year or so, once I was cured of chronic
laziness!).

That's really what I see with Hermione - slightly modified (though only
slightly) by her contact with Harry and Ron, which has forced her to see that
other things are important as well.

Hermione exhibits some of the classic behaviours I see in these kids -
actually I have to laugh. One of my kids - aged 12, and at the start of this
year started at an exclusive private school here - yesterday demanded I borrow
the history of her school from my university library for her. She wants to
read it so much - really reminds me of Hermione and Hogwarts. But this girl
really has a lot of Hermione like characteristics.

> Shaun:
> > Hermione works to her potential. Not to the potential expected of a
> > student of her age.
> 
> Silmariel:
> But a quite academic potential, sadly.

Shaun:

I'm not sure I'd call it sad. What counts to me is whether Hermione herself is
happy. When a kid is like this and it leads to them missing out on other
opportunities that they would like to have, that's sad. But if academics are
the child's hobby and source of pleasure - then in my view, they are as valid
as any other hobbies.

Percy, to me, comes across as rather sad. Hermione doesn't.

Even though I think they've probably made a lot of the same choices.

Hermione has features that would concern me if I was responsible for her
welfare. I'd want to explore them, and some of them I am sure I would want to
address.

But whether they are 'sad' or not - I'd need to wait and see what she had to
say about them.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
      (ISTJ) | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia





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