Teaching Styles / Sorting Hat

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 157925

Alla:
> 
> Even if Snape just makes threats and have not injured or killed 
> anybody's familiar yet, which I will not put past him, I  personally 
> find it not very relevant in evaluating this scene.
> 
> I don't think that when Neville comes to class and hears that 
> teacher threatens to poison his toad, he should be expected to 
> remember back to the conversations in the great hall or dorm and 
> realise that oh, yes, there are no conversations about Snape killing 
> anybody's pet, so this threat is not real.
> 
> As we know, Neville is indeed terrorised by Snape ( Boggart) and 
> that is what matters to me.
> 
> I am also thinking about detention Snape asigned to Neville in GoF. 
> What was he expect to cut? Pieces of toads or something?
> 
> So, yeah,  I find the fact that Snape considers to **making** those 
> threats to be effective teaching tool to be so very disgusting.
> 
> JMO,
> 
> Alla.
>
Carol responds:
Technically, Snape doesn't threaten to poison Neville's toad. What he
says, after Neville had dramatically messed up the potion and Snape
has explained exactly what he's done wrong, is threaten to *test* the
potion on Neville's toad at the end of class. Hermione offers to help
Neville and Snape tells her not to. He wants Neville to do it on his
own. Of course Snape sees Hermione helping him, and of course he knows
from the color of the potion that it's somehow been made right (one of
the more improbable bits of HP canon, but, oh, well).

Only when Snape is ready to test the potion on Trevor and knows
perfectly well that it's okay does he mention poison and pour the
drops of potion into Trevor's mouth, after which he pours the
antidote, which he's had in his pocket the whole time, onto Trevor's head.

I'll grant you that this method of teaching (trying to pressure a
student who doesn't thrive on pressure) to perform is not particularly
effective. Nevertheless, it's different from "Get it right,
Longbottom, or I'll poison your toad." And the points he deducts are
from Hermione, who has disobeyed him and is preventing Neville from at
least trying to fix the potion himself.

Just as Snape knows that he's not going to expel Harry because he
doesn't have the authority, he knows that he's not going to poison
Trevor. What would have happened if Neville had tried to fix the
potion himself, we don't know. But it's a safe bet that Snape, who can
look at any potion and tell exactly what steps have been omitted or
incorrectly performed, knew that no harm would come to Trevor when he
put the drops of potion in his mouth. (If Snape really did go around
poisoning students' pets, we'd have heard about it.)

Carol, who finds Crouch!Moody's approach to teaching the Unforgiveable
Curses much more disturbing than anything Snape does as a teacher