[HPforGrownups] Re: Dumbledore as a judge of character/ Trelawney and Snape

[Bart Lidofsky]

No: HPFGUIDX 166101

Lynda Cordova wrote:
> Trelawney certainly seems questionable as a teacher, as do Professor Binns
> and Hagrid.

	I think that Trelwaney and Binns say more about JKR than they do about 
the Potterverse.

	Trelawney can be understood, to some extent. Accurate forecasting of 
the future is a killer to fiction. Of course, JKR could have worked it 
so that WW prognostication techniques do not take into account human 
(and intelligent non-human) free will, which means that they are only 
accurate at the moment they are made, and the fact that they are already 
made in and of themselves makes them false. That way, they would be 
about as useful as Muggle weather forecasting, financial forecasting, 
etc. But JKR chooses to depict her as a parody of a Muggle New Ager.

	Similarly, I suspect that Binns is modeled after her own schooling. 
Now, I don't know about Great Britain, but, in the United States, 
history has been politicked down to, well, Professor Binns. Instead of 
fascinating stories, teaching of how events connect to each other, and 
resulted in our world today, it is all too frequently taught as a series 
of disjointed names and dates (for example, how many people here heard 
anything in pre-college history courses the many connections between the 
European discovery of the Americas in 1492, and the beginning of the 
Protestant Reformation a scant 20 years later?).

	Hagrid, on the other hand, is quite talented. If it weren't for Draco's 
interference, he might have made an excellent teacher. But, after being 
framed twice, he is a little too leery of authority. With some guidance, 
he could have become a first rate teacher.

	Bart