Why Snape is a good teacher

[cdayr]

No: HPFGUIDX 165736

--- In HPforGrownups at yahoogroups.com, "justcarol67" 
<justcarol67 at ...> wrote:
>
<snipping most of this excellent post for a couple of very small 
thoughts>

> Carol notes:
>(If Snape ever gets the
>opportunity, he should publish his improved versions of the 
>potions,
 >both NEWT-level and below. It would be a great service to the
> school--and to the lazy Slughorn, assuming that he's still the 
Potions
> Master at that point.)

Another thing that Snape may have given to up to keep his 
low-profile, double agent role intact - a career as a successful 
author. ESE or DDM, he really has had a sad, sad life.

> Carol:
> The only difference between his attitude toward his DADA 
students and
> his Potions students is that he allows anyone who has passed 
the DADA
> OWL to take that class (clearly, he thinks it's important for 
everyone
> to learn it now that Voldemort is back--even Crabbe and Goyle
> evidently get remedial lessons), whereas he won't tolerate
> "dunderheads" in NEWT Potions, which is for hard-working 
intellectuals
> like himself. 

This is a fascinating point to me, and adds still more fuel to my 
DDM! fire.  It seems clear, and certainly in this post you have 
outlined beautifully Snape's intense love of and expertise in 
potions. I like your idea that he identifies with the talented 
potions students as "like himself." All this makes the likelihood, 
in my opinion,  that he is really applying for DADA every year very 
small. He is in his field of expertise, using his own potions 
research and teaching to a very high level. 

As we have agreed on in the past, the long-term plan between 
DD and Snape involves him taking the cursed DADA position 
when the time is right and they put a year-long plan in effect, 
knowing Snape will be gone by the end of the year. The idea that 
he applies every year for the job is a cover story for Snape with 
VM and any DEs who may question his loyalty later.

The point you so clearly make above, about Snape's standards 
being so much lower for DADA, is further evidence for this idea, 
because it seems to show that he really does not love DADA 
more than Potions. He'll take the riff-raff and have remedial 
classes, because he is not as personally tied to the subject. He 
is just in the DADA position as part of The Big Plan.  I have no 
doubt that Severus is also an expert in DADA, as we have seen 
vividly in HBP, but I've always felt the passion and perfection he 
expects in Potions is lacking in his DADA teaching. He's 
teaching DADA for the good of DD and the Order, but my guess 
is that if he survives and somehow returns to Hogwart's in the 
end (could it happen?), it would be to teach Potions.

Additionally, as you say above, he is actively teaching everyone 
he possibly can *Defense Against* the Dark Arts. Not very ESE of 
him.

> Snape's story has not yet been told, but we'll certainly find out
> exactly what was going on in the tower scene and exactly why 
he took
> the Unbreakable Vow. either that, or Snape is nothing but a 
cheap plot
> device whose sole purpose was to kill Dumbledore, in which 
case I, for
> one, will feel throroughly cheated.

> Carol, who will be very surprised if Draco Malfoy is right and
> Dumbledore is wrong

Hear hear. In addition, I must add my extreme disappointment if 
it turns out the ugly, short, greasy-haired obvious villain wearing 
black really IS the villain. 

-Celia
not sure if I added much, but happy that now I'm thinking about 
the DADA curse again.