Hermione the "know-it-all" (Was: Scary Teachers - Good Teachers)

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 152899

Clare wrote:
> Can I give a teacher's perspective here?  I teach English Literature
 and Language to 11-18 yr olds.  <big snip>

>  
> For the record, Hermione would annoy the hell out of me.  I had one
 and although she knew the answers, she was self-obsessed and the
teacher has to give others their chance, no, their right to
participate and  communicate.  One cannot always pander to the know it
all, they will  succeed anyway and there are others who need to be
pushed, prodded and  forced along the road to comprehension. <snip>

Carol responds:
I was an English teacher for eighteen years at the university level
and one year ("The horror!") at the high school level, so I appreciate
your perspective, especially the part relating to the House system,
which is entirely outside my experience.

But I was also, I'm sorry to say, aomething of a Hermione once upon a
time--hand in the air before the words are out of the teacher's mouth,
knowing exactly what the teacher is going to ask and what the answer
is. I must have been exceedingly annoying. I can think of at least
three teachers who thought so, all female, none of them Snapes. 

However, I never had to suffer a Hermione of my own in the years I
taught, only woefully ignoratn students who had to be taught to
examine a work of literature critically and untaught the
five-paragraph theme. I do see your point, however, about the damage
to a class in which one student has all the answers and everyone else
is either too discouraged or too lazy to respond. ("I don't know, but
I think Hermione does. Why not ask her?")

I'm starting to rethink my statement about Grubbly-Plank being an
exemplary teacher. I still think she's the best we've seen, but she
seems perfectly willing to keep awarding points to Hermione without,
to use your term, "prodding" and "pushing" the other students to learn
the material. Since the points are awarded to Gryffindor as a House,
the other Gryffindors don't even need to make an effort. Hermione will
win points and they can keep their own ignorance unexposed--not to
mention that she's providing the information they need to know without
their even opening a book. (Of course, I'm talking about CoMC here,
which is rather different from English literature or composition, but
much the same thing happens in Charms and Transfiguration and even in
Potions once Slughorn is teaching the class.)

Even more disturbing, when she's not mad at Ron and Harry, Hermione
practically writes their essays for them. They seldom crack open a
book (until the HBP seduces Harry into an interest in Potions) and
they cheat on their Divination homework by making up answers because
Hermione isn't in the class. Ron says something along the lines of,
"But if you don't help us, we'll fail our OWLs! Do you want that on
your conscience?" (Lovely bit of irony there.)

Is Hermione really helping them? How is what she's doing any different
from Harry's using the HBP's notes to get unearned praise and high
marks in Slughorn's Potions class?

Now, granted, Ron and Harry wouldn't have gotten past the Devil's
Snare, or even past the locked door, in SS/PS if it hadn't been for
Hermione, and she figured out that the monster in CoS was a Basilisk
traveling through the pipes. She made important contributions, perhaps
not quite so significant, in the other books as well, and she would
have deterred Harry from going to the MoM if she could. But in terms
of Ron's and Harry's education, she may have done more harm than good.
If she had not befriended them, they might have been forced to study
on their own. Spells, of course, must be practiced and can't be faked,
but theory and background information are another matter. Has Harry
really learned anything about the history of magic or astronomy or
potions? Has he learned anything, aside from some extremely useful
defensive spells like Expelliarmus and the Patronus Charm, except how
to escape from Grindylows and Kappas and what a Bezoar is?

Would Ron and Harry have earned more OWLs if Hermione hadn't been
there? Would they have actually understood the material rather than
repeating back Hermione's notes? Would Harry have been able to figure
out Golpalott's Law if he'd had to study Potions on his own in earlier
years? 

If Harry and Ron survive and want to train as Aurors, surely they'll
need to really know the material, not just defensive spells but the
theory and practice of Potions, Transfiguration, Charms, Herbology,
and DADA. And despite their E's in those subjects (and Harry's O in
DADA), I'm not sure that they've really learned those subjects, at
least not the part that involves book learning, and certainly not how
to use the material creatively, to analyze and synthesize and make it
their own.

Maybe it's not Hermione's fault. Maybe it's the Hogwarts curriculum
that's to bleme. But I don't think she's done them any service by
"helping" them to pass their classes or their OWLs, and if they ever
get their NEWTs, I hope it will be through their own efforts and not hers.

Carol, starting to wonder if the material is worth learning, anyway,
and wishing the Hogwarts curriculum had a humanities component