Snape the teacher

[Tonks]

No: HPFGUIDX 152348

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "Shaun Hately" <drednort at ...> 
wrote:
>
 Sax talks about how boys and girls react to different classroom
> management styles differently (Snip)Sax presents the idea that a
> confrontational, in-your-face approach to classroom management 
that can even involve yelling at a child works well with a lot of 
boys - but would be a very bad approach for most girls - who tend to 
respond better to a supportive, non-confrontational approach.
> 
> Stress improves learning in males - but impairs it in females 
(again, this is a generalisation - Sax actually devotes quite a bit 
of time towards the end of his book looking at some reasons why the 
generalisations are not always true, but as generalisations they do 
work).
> 
> The point is though - that gender may make a difference here to 
the way some of us are seeing Snape's teaching style. 


Tonks:
Thank you Shaun for that very insightful and informative post. I 
think you have hit the nail on the head here. I am female and defend 
Snape, but that is because I am putting myself in his place. If he 
were my teacher when I was a child, I would have been Neville. As I 
child I needed a warm, loving nurturing teacher. I got enough 
negative comments from my mother, so a kind teacher would have been 
the best thing for me. I was not rebellious like a boy might be, all 
anyone would have had to do to keep me in line was just to look a 
bit disapprovingly at me.

When I defend Snape and his teaching style I am thinking as a 58 
year old woman with no patience for children and even less for 
teenagers!! 

I can see your point that the teenage boys need someone like Snape 
to get their attention and get them to focus on the lessons instead 
of smarting off in the back of the room.

When I think of Snape, I remember a job I took once out of total 
desperation to have a job ASAP because I was broke. I had to be a 
substance abuse therapist for a group of teenagers. My second week 
the therapist that was training me gave me a group of 15 teenagers 
to do by myself. (First that is too big for a group with only one 
therapist, but that is another story.) Let me tell you those kids 
were a living hell. I could not get control of them. I am too nice. 
I wish I could be like Snape. I admire him and his abilities. Yes, I 
do!  And he makes no appologies for being nasty. He doesn't care 
what others think of him. I admire him for that. (In case you 
wonder, that was the last group I ever did. I quite the next day.) I 
would rather live under the bridge and eat out of garbage bins than 
to face a group of damn teenagers ever again. I hate them. So this 
is where I am coming from when I think of Snape. And yes, I wanted 
to help those kids, but they didn't want my help. They just wanted 
to give me a hard time. I think Snape sees some of his students the 
same way. I can see where Snape is happy to help students who are 
smart and want to do well and those like Harry.. well you do have to 
admit that Harry does mouth off at times.. and doesn't care about 
the class.. etc.

Now I know some are going to say that Snape gives Hermione, who is a 
good student, a hard time too. But he doesn't give her much of one 
compared to the boys. I can remember having male teachers and they 
were not by nature warm and cuddly, but they were nice to the girl 
students probably because they thought of girl as emotionally 
fragile back then. And they were harder on the boy, now that I come 
to think of it. I think that men are just harder on boys in general. 

I have a friend who is a good person, helpful and kind in his own 
way. But he is very curd and has that odd sense of humor that is 
very sarcastic. I am sure that some of his students see him as 
Snape. But he was seen as a good teacher and moved up from a sub. to 
a full time teacher with the more difficult students and that was a 
good match for all of them. He is the only teacher that those kids 
respect. But I can not be like him. I worry about hurting peoples 
feeling, I worry about being liked, I would feel guilty if I treated 
people like that. But my Snape like friend is a good teacher and 
just what some kids needs. 

So again Snape is not a child abuser. And DD does not condone child 
abuse by allowing him to teach. I just finished listening to the 
part of HBP where DD refused LV a teaching position. I think that 
shows very clearly that DD does protect his students. He would never 
let a person like LV anywhere near the students. Unfortunately he 
had no choice in the matter when it came to Umbridge. 

Tonks_op