[HPforGrownups] Re: Teaching Styles / Sorting Hat

[fair wynn]

No: HPFGUIDX 157882



>Shaun:

>I've been teaching a class of 26 recently. With 25 of the children, I had
>absolutely no problem getting them to learn without having to resort to any
>real unpleasantness. But #26 was a different matter. Nothing I tried worked
>with him - and I tried quite a few different things - until I started 
>taking
>a heavily punitive approach. Basically, I found myself forced to scare the
>poor kid in order to get him to take care and pay attention to instructions
>in class. And that works with this kid.
>
>With regards to Neville and his toad - in my view (and I've outlined the
>evidence why I hold it on previous occasions), Trevor was never in any real
>danger. Snape let Neville think his toad was in danger to frighten him, but
>that is all. And considering the class I have a hard time seeing that as
>unreasonable. If students misbrew potions they *could* kill themselves or
>others. There are *very* serious consequences for carelessness in that
>class, and students must learn to take the risks seriously. So far that
>doesn't seem to have happened with Neville.

wynnleaf
I do know from experience that kids usually pick up on the fact that 
over-the-top threats aren't really something to be afraid of.  Other real 
punishments are, of course, a different story.

>Shaun:

>At the school I attended with the strongest house system, our placement in
>houses was *mostly* random - this school had the advantage of many students
>having previously been together at its prep schools, and so they did tweak
>house allocations for particular reasons based on the knowledge they
>gathered on students, but at least 80%, probably 90% of allocations were
>random (during my time at the school, they started looking at the idea of
>having a less random selection).

wynnleaf
Shaun, I was wondering if you found that the Houses took on distince 
characters, even though the students weren't chosen by personality, but 
mostly by random choice?  The youth homes we had at the international school 
where I taught were all different in character -- partly because of 
different traditions, some by the personalities of their heads of house, or 
maybe other reasons.  It seems to me that getting rid of the Sorting Hat, 
and sorting at random would certainly create more diverse groups of 
students, but the Houses would still likely be very competitive and would 
still develop different House characteristics.

wynnleaf

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