[HPforGrownups]Professor Binns

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 164505

From: Geoff Bannister <gbannister10 at tiscali.co.uk>
>> I'm sure that Mme. Pomfrey gives 'The Talk' to the girls.  Who gives it to the
>> boys?  
> 
>> Bruce Alan Wilson
>
>Geoff:
>Professor Binns possibly?
>:-))

Bart:
This reminds me of one aspect of the HP books that struck a nerve with me: Professor Binns and his history classes. Now, I don't know how history is taught in the U.K., but in the United States, because of various political pressures from both right and left, it is frequently taught as is illustrated by Professor Binns; in the dullest, most boring way possible. In addtion, it is usually altered to keep the personages from looking too, well, human (in either a good or bad way). A frequent whine heard from students before a history test is, "Do we have to memorize names and dates?", as if they are insiginficant. The fact that the question is asked at all shows that the history is being taught badly; as a series of unconnected events that lead to nowhere. In the United States, events like the Black Plague, the discovery of the Americas by Europe, and the Protestant Reformation, are taught disjointedly, the strong connections between them lost in a boring drone of names and dates. 

There's a saying, "Those who don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it." The frequent goblin revolts imply that the WW is not aware of this saying. I wonder if JKR is aware of this, and how it contributes to a view of the people running the WW as typical adults from a 1960's-1970's live action Disney movie (for those who remember, picture the late Joe Flynn playing Cornelius Fudge, and you'll see what I'm talking about).

Bart