Snape the teacher

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 152353

Tonks:
> 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.

Ceridwen:
Same here.  But as a child, I didn't attract the ire of most Snape-
like teachers simply because a look was enough.  And Rowling puts a 
lot of effort into describing Snape's eyes - maybe he is giving 
Harry 'the Look', but Harry doesn't notice that's what is going on 
and ends up at the next stages of such teachers.

Tonks:
> 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!!

Ceridwen:
I'm only fifty, so this isn't *quite* a 'me-too' post.  *g*  I just 
went back to school after thirty some-odd years out, and I pray for a 
Snape-like teacher.  The students I have seen in class are rude, 
overbearing, insensitive to the needs of the students around them, 
and so thoroughly self-centered that they need to be sat down with 
something akin to the roar of old Leo of MGM fame.  I have suffered 
through students talking to each other in class to the point where I 
could barely hear.  One group of girls decided to have a confab 
during a test.  One had informed another that a mutual friend had 
died, and they were discussing the upcoming funeral.

During a test.

Fine and dandy, but really, even such devastating news is not for 
test time.  Take it outside, for the sake of students like me who 
were struggling with the material.  When the teacher called them on 
their talking, the one girl who had just found out turned around and 
called the teacher rude for interrupting their discussion.  Teen-
agers, even ones out of high school and into college, are not my 
favorite people.

Tonks:
> 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. 

Ceridwen:
This is a big 'me, too'.  Snape has control of his classes, as much 
as teachers can have these days.  Being back in a classroom with 
fellow students made me rethink my position on Harry and Ron and 
their attitude about Snape, and the one thing that keeps running 
through my mind every time there is a 'Snape is a rotten teacher' 
thread is Ron's smart-mouthed response that they didn't need to 
listen to Snape in Potions.  That about sums it up for me any more.

Tonks:
> 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. 

Ceridwen:
That's what teens do.  And, more and more, young twenty-somethings as 
well.  I can completely go along with Shaun's assessment of the 
fluffy-bunny teachers - they create monsters who are unable to handle 
criticism.  While they're in school, they have leverage over the 
teachers since they're kids, and the Simpsons have it pegged just 
right - 'think about the ***children***'.  Oy!  And now, look at the 
children who have been graduated from these sorts of programs where 
all of the teachers are definitely not like Snape.  They won't accept 
help, they think that they're the only ones with the right answers 
and no one in the last few thousands of years of human existence has 
come up with their *ahem* unique solutions to problems which have 
plagued Mankind for, well, millenia.  And they're willing to risk all 
of humanity on their experiments, never mind any wisdom of the ages 
and of successive generations going back to Lucy of the Savannah.  
Arrogant at the least, and on top of that, they don't care what they 
do to others as long as they have their way.

Tonks:
> 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. 

Ceridwen:
I had the same sorts of teachers.  But, I had some female Snapes, 
too, who were just as hard on the girls when it was warranted.  It 
usually wasn't, because in those days, girls were raised differently 
than boys, to be more agreeable and compliant.  But, the females who 
were strict and brooked no argument in their classes, expected a lot 
more out of their students, male and female alike, and did definitely 
see the desperate need to teach students to bear their 
responsibilities in a way that fluffy-bunny teachers did not.  The 
bunnies always had some excuse for the behavior without trying to 
stop it, disadvantaging the entire class for the few who misbehaved.  
I would love to walk into class today and see Snape at the blackboard.

We have all mentioned the Harry filter on occasion.  I think Snape's 
so-called abusive style is part of that.  He doesn't seem to have the 
same issues with Snape in HBP.  Even the over-the-top descriptions of 
Snape's style have pretty much gone.  Harry is growing up, has lost 
Sirius, is facing a war where he knows he must fight and possibly 
die.  Petty things like disagreement with a teacher seem to have 
slipped below his own radar, saving the annoyance for more 
substantial things like the disagreement in the way to fight 
Dementors.  I expect that Harry had the fluffy-bunnies in his Muggle 
school prior to entering Hogwarts.  These teachers did not confront 
students, but then, they didn't seem to do much to stop Dudley and 
his gang from terrorizing Harry on the playground, either.  Non-
confrontational means not confronting bullies as well.  And since 
Harry was being at the least psychologically abused at home, and 
obviously neglected since he wore Dudley's hand-me-downs when the 
Dursleys could afford better, these were the teachers who failed him 
the worst.

Ceridwen.