[HPforGrownups] Teaching Styles

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 147776

On 7 Feb 2006 at 22:48, Bruce Alan Wilson wrote:

> I would say NOT.  Why not?  Because if you didn't learned what 
> your DI had to teach you , you could get yourself or your comrades 
> killed in combat.  Because if you didn't learn your lessons 
> properly, you might poison your patient. Because if you didn't 
> learn your techniques properly, you'd get pounded to a pulp on the 
> mat.  In English or History or some other soft subject, if you 
> don't learn your lessons, it is no big deal--you flunk your test; 
> while it may make a difference in your academic career or your 
> future professional plans, nobody will get hurt or killed; I 
> suggest that the consequences of not learning Potions or DADA are 
> far more serious.  Snape is a lot harsher than other teachers
> because he feels he has to be.  Perhaps he knows of someone whose 
> Potions or DADA teacher WASN'T that harsh and who got himself or 
> someone else killed or injured thereby?  Perhaps Snape himself 
> got someone hurt or killed because of some error or omission that 
> he (thinks) he would not have made if his teacher hadn't been a 
> little tougher on him.

You make some excellent points, in my view. And I've spoken on this 
before, myself - I had some very Snape like teachers at school, and 
they were very effective teachers. I had other teachers who were not 
at all Snape like, who were also effective, so I certainly don't 
subscribe to the view that the way Snape teaches is the only way for 
a teacher to be effective - but I really do believe that there is 
nothing inherently wrong with a teacher who teaches the way that 
Snape does.

Now, I've been involved in educational advocacy all my adult life, 
and I'm just about to begin the fourth and final year of my Bachelor 
of Education degree. I think I know a bit about education, but I 
confess that I do have some somewhat unfashionable views about it. I 
happen to think that the older methods of teaching were often very 
good ones - not for every child, but for many children. I've no 
problem with newer methods when they work, and they often do - I just 
don't think the modern way is inherently better. I was miserable in a 
modern school environment, and ecstatically happy in a traditional 
one, and that certainly colours my views.

But to my point - while I agree that part of the reason Snape is a 
hard teacher, even a harsh teacher, may well be because he realises 
the subjects he's teaches are ones that are very unforgiving of 
failure.

But I think there may be another good reason as well. And it may be 
that this is the way he feels *he* teaches most effectively.

As I have said, I have recently completed the third year of my 
education degree. Each year, I have had to do teaching rounds - 
practice teaching in schools, for which I am assessed. During my 
first two years, my assessments for my teaching rounds were adequate -
 I passed easily enough, but I didn't do incredibly well. And each 
time, one of the things that let me down was my classroom control. I 
tried in those first two years to use all the nice, positive, sweet 
methods that my lecturers advised. And found that I wasn't 
particularly good at using them. Not bad. Just not good.

For this last year, my third year, I finally decided not to use those 
methods, but instead to use some of the methods (I hasten to add, not 
the most severe ones!) that experience told me worked, rather than 
the ones my lecturers told me should work. I became a much stricter 
teacher, a much sterner disciplinarian. Why did I make this decision -
 partly because I've made a decision as to where I'd like to teach 
and those are schools more accepting of those methods than most 
schools, and partly because I've gained a bit of confidence to trust 
myself over my lecturers, having become convinced they're not always 
right (-8

Anyway - result of the new stricter me, using the old fashioned 
methods that worked for me as a child? Well, on my last assessment I 
was assessed as an 'Outstanding' teacher (considering my experience 
level) and while I do think that was somewhat generous, I have 
absolutely no doubt that I was a far more effective teacher during my 
most recent teaching rounds than in my previous ones.

I am a *better* teacher when I use traditional methods of classroom 
control, than when I use nice modern, fluffy methods. I don't have 
anything inherently against those methods. I've seen teachers use 
them effectively. But they're not right for me.

And I really do wonder if this is part of the reason for the way 
Snape teaches.

Let's face it. Snape is *not* a likeable person. He is never likely 
to be popular with his students. He is never likely to be teaching 
them lessons that they enjoy. It's a matter of his personality - at 
least I think it is. He's just not Mr Nice Guy.

It really seems to me that it would be a waste of time for Snape to 
try and be Mr Nice Guy, to try and run a pleasant classroom where 
everyone (even Neville) was always happy. And if he tried, I'm fairly 
sure it would be a disaster.

Snape can't be a popular teacher. He can't be a teacher where his 
students like his classes.

So why try?

Instead, why not try to do something worthwhile for his students. If 
they are going to dislike him anyway, then why not channel that 
dislike into his teaching?

My point is, really, that the teaching style a teacher adopts isn't a 
blank slate choice. Teachers can't just choose to teach in a 
particular way - at least most teachers can't, there may be some 
brilliant ones who can do so. But generally speaking, a teacher 
teaches best when they embrace the way they are, and teach to their 
strengths and don't try to fake their way into some other style of 
teaching.

Obviously, there need to be limits - a teacher shouldn't be allowed 
to do whatever they like and simply claim that's just their style - 
and I can understand why some people might think Snape goes too far. 
Personally, generally, I don't think he does - and that view comes 
from having learned from some masters who were very much like Snape 
(and incidentally the two 'worst' were classics masters - Latin and 
Ancient Greek - I just noticed somebody else talking about a Snape 
like Latin teacher).

Honestly, I think a lot of people have a rather narrow understanding 
of what teachers should be like, and how teachers should teach. I 
admit that I certainly do, although I try very hard indeed to be very 
broad-minded and I hope that I 
succeed. And those ideas tends towards rather 'modern' ideas. It may 
be that those methods worked for them, or for their 
kids, or perhaps conversely that more traditional methods didn't work 
for them, and so they decide that their experiences 
are somehow universal - that what didn't work for them is 'wrong' and 
what did work for them is 'right'. It's not that 
simple, though. Children are individuals and no specific teaching 
method works for all children, and virtually no specific 
teaching method fails for all children.

What we see in Snape is a very traditional method of teaching. 
Personally, unfashionable as it may be, I don't consider it 
surprising in a school that seems to be as traditional in focus as 
Hogwarts.

Expecting modern teaching methods in a school that seems very 
obviously based on very old fashioned ideas seems to me 
rather odd. So I think it can be taken as given, that the methods 
used are likely to be traditional. So I think the only 
fair way to assess them if by whether or not they work, especially 
when you consider the teacher.

Umbridge's classes are a prime example of a traditional method that 
really *doesn't* work very well, very often.

Snape's classes - in my views - are an example of a tradition that 
does work for a lot of students (and I've seen it work) 
though when it's wrong for a student, it may be very wrong - as it 
seems to me to be for Neville at least in the early 
books.

But guess what - the class cannot revolve around Neville Longbottom. 
He's one child in classes of about twenty (at least I 
think that's what the numbers show). His needs shouldn't be ignored 
(I really believe that) but we don't really see any 
evidence anywhere (except of Harry's fictional extra potions lessons 
masking occlumency) that much effort is made to provide extra help at 
Hogwarts. If this is a flaw, it's a flaw in the school in general, 
not a flaw in Snape's classes specifically.

I should say in the interests of full disclosure that I have recently 
been reading a book called 'Why our schools are failing: What parents 
need to know about Australian education' by Kevin Donnelly, and he 
takes the view that a lot of modern ideas in education are very 
harmful. I agree with a lot of what he has to say (not all of it), 
but I must say that this reading may have crystalised some of my 
views expressed in this post to be stronger than normal. I need to 
read some John Holt to balance myself out later (-8

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