Teaching Styles / Sorting Hat

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 157893

fair wynn writes: 

> 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.

Shaun: 

Oh yes, our houses all had quite distinct personalities. I think it our case 
the personality was primarily set by the beliefs and ethos of the 
housemaster. My housemaster was a great believer in social justice, and our 
house reflected that by nearly everybody being involved in completely 
voluntary social work activities outside school hours. The people our houses 
were named after - our patrons - also influenced a lot of us, though by no 
means all - enough to have an effect though on the character of the house. 
Fortunately all our houses were named after fairly unambiguously positive 
role models but it did give a different focus - member of my house tended to 
be extremely opposed to racism because of the influence of our patron. 

With regards to Hogwarts, assuming it does remain open, and assuming the 
houses remained intact it'd be interesting to see if the characters of the 
new Heads of Houses for Gryffindor and Slytherin influenced their Houses. 

I personally think Remus Lupin will be the new Head of Gryffindor (I've no 
real reason for that - it's just a gut call - he'd be my choice), and I'm 
assuming Horace Slughorn will be Head of Slytherin. If so, that could be 
interesting. Slughorn, for all his faults, acknowledges talent can be 
anywhere - in any House, no matter what your parentage - he's still a 
Slytherin, through and through, but different from the stereotype I think 
many readers developed. Lupin is the type who seems to me to want to work to 
build bridges. 

It seems to me that the biggest fracture between the Houses at Hogwarts is 
between Slytherin and Gryffindor - could those two help heal that but keep 
the Houses intact? 

Of course, a bigger question is is this the type of thing, JKR would address 
at all. She has a lot to cover and she can't look at everything. 

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia