Sadistic Teachers (was:Re: Teaching Styles)

[Shelley]

No: HPFGUIDX 148154

quigonginger wrote:
> The main point, I think, was whether or not the resemblance to 
> Trevor was a sign of Snape's alleged sadism.
> Had it been an actual toad,it would have been a freaky.  A frog 
> would have been close enough. <snip> Since you have pointed out 
> the frog guts, I have to alter my opinion and say that it was 
> probably intentional.  Does that make him a sadist?  Going by
> the definition of "one who enjoys cruelty" minus the sexual part, 
> I'd say he probably did enjoy giving Neville that particular 
> detention.


Shelley:
Ok, I've been reading this avidly and I'm going to weigh in.

I think it was brilliant of Neri to point out the cruelty of the 
Toad disembowling. And while I am admittedly a DDM!Snape apologist, 
I will wholeheartedly agree that Snape is mean.  He is particularly 
and unnecessarily mean to Harry and his friends.  And for some of 
his meanness, there is no pedagogical or 
keeping-his-cover-with-the-Slytherins justification.  The incident 
of gratuitous Snape meanness that always leaps to my mind is the 
Harry/Draco dueling scene in Book 4, where Draco's toothgrowing 
curse hits Hermione accidentally, and Snape's response to Hermione's 
need to go to the infirmary is to say 'I see no difference.'  There 
is *nothing* Snape was teaching anybody with that incredibly cutting 
remark.  And I do appreciate that as a potential spy Snape has a 
reputation to keep as a Gryffindor hater, espcially while Malfoy Jr 
is around to observe. But he could have simply barked at Hermione to 
go to the hospital wing in his usual foul tone, and that would have 
been more than sufficient to keep his cover with the Malfoys of the 
world.

BUT...that having been said...on the issue of the toad detention, 
I'd like to point out that these books are written from the point 
of view of a student.  And thus they partake to some degree of a 
perceptual/psychological fallacy common to students.  Students tend 
to think that their teachers think about them as much as they think 
about their teachers.  While the opposite is actually true-- 
teachers, from sheer necessity of teaching many students and having 
lives outside of their classes, spend much less time thinking about 
individual students than students spend thinking about their various 
teachers. It seems so much more likely to me that Snape needed toads
disembowled that evening and insensitively made Neville do it-- with 
perhaps a malicious smirk when he remembered that Neville had a pet 
toad-- than that he saved up this particular task to inflict on 
Neville for the malicious pleasure of it.

Bracketing his individual interactions with Harry, who is special 
case, Snape's general gratuitious meanness to the Gryffindors still 
seems to me to be more the off-the-cuff product of irritation and a 
very damaged
personality than a calculated pursuit of pleasure through cruelty.  And I
say this because it seems to me, from my limited experience teaching at
University, that the psychology of teacher-student relations is just not set
up to give off that kind of charge.  As a teacher, I cared about my students
and my class, I wanted my class to be good and my students to learn.  But
the teacher student relationship isn't a relationship of equals.  I didn't
go home at night and worry about what my students thought of me, I didn't
dwell on my interactions with them (though I did dwell on how my lectures
could be better)...there's a distance and objectivity in a teacher's view of
students that really lessens the emotional impact that any interaction has
on a teacher.   And while Snape is a very flawed teacher, he is *enough* of
teacher that I think that is true of him.

Which is to say, I suppose, that Ron, Hermione and Neville are just not
central enough to Snape's life or world for him to care if he hurts them
(again, Harry is separate case).  And I think you have to *care* to actually
get pleasure from cruelty.

Shelley (hoping you don't all think I'm a horrible person and teacher for
being honest about this)
--
In his experience, no good had ever
come of happy and smiling Gryffindors.
_Pansy's Volcano_ by BlueMidget


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