Dumbledore as a judge of character/ Trelawney and Snape

[sistermagpie]

No: HPFGUIDX 166131

> Magpie:
> >So Hagrid would have been an excellent teacher of adolescents if 
only had to 
> >teach actual 13-year-olds. (Hey, Draco would have been a model 
student if 
> >not for Hagrid, one might as well say. He seems to do just fine 
with other 
> >teachers.) Hagrid has his own talents, but his lack of talents as 
a teacher 
> >are all his own and can't be blamed on Draco or any other mildly 
> >disagreeable child--that's part of the job of being a teacher. 
His 
> >shortcomings as an authority figure are also his own, and have 
been since 
> >the beginning of the series. I don't think Luna's "We in 
Ravenclaw think 
> >he's a bit of a joke" have anything to do with residual trauma 
over Draco 
> >whispering in class that day. On the contrary, when the Trio have 
trouble 
> >with Hagrid's teaching it usual revolves around things they 
consider all 
> >Hagrid.
> 
> Bart: 
> First of all, when I referred to Draco's interference, I mean his 
faking the severity of an injury, and his family influence being 
used to get the Board of Governors and the Ministry on Hagrid's 
case. The latter was a major blow to Hagrid's already fragile self-
confidence; had Hagrid had more time to get used to the position, or 
had Draco's injuries been treated like getting splashed by an 
exploding potion in Snape's class, Hagrid would probably not become 
as self-doubting. In addition, to all appearances, none of the other 
teachers chose to mentor him (and Dumbledore didn't think to ask any 
of them to do so). Some experienced advice would have put Hagrid 
over the hump as well. Professor Sprout in particular would have 
been very useful in helping him set up lesson plans; apparently, in 
Hogwarts, there's no such thing as lesson plans (well, Hermione said 
in P/SS that the WW people are very poor when it comes to logic, 
although I wonder what they study in Arithmancy if that is the case.

Magpie:
After six books of very consistent Hagrid, I just can't conceive of 
how he would become a significantly better teacher if he hadn't had 
a run-in with the Malfoys in PoA and if only he'd had a mentor. He'd 
be different if everything was different, but so would everyone. 

I don't see self-confidence as always being a problem with Hagrid, 
though where it is it's in a way that's consistent since Book I. It 
was bad luck for him that the student that got injured had a parent 
who would want the animal destroyed (I don't think Draco's milking 
of the incident mattered to him one way or the other--I think most 
of the kids there were far more influenced by what they saw than 
anything else), but years later it's Draco whose behavior has 
directly changed due to what actually happened. He's still 
insulting, but he's also jumpy and makes sure to listen to 
everything Hagrid says--Hagrid won, after all, didn't he? In the end 
the message certainly was, just as it was to Draco in first year, 
that if he doesn't like something Hagrid's doing he's going to have 
to just deal.

Hagrid himself still makes Harry nervous in a way Harry wishes he 
would fix, and he gets defensive and annoyed at questions about 
safety. Harry feels guilty for thinking the substitute is a better 
teacher. Hermione actually does try to help Hagrid with lesson 
plans, and he doesn't listen to her. His troubles in GoF seem to be 
along the same lines--it's not that he lacks self-confidence, 
although he does, iirc, seclude himself in response to Rita's 
articles, but that he's disconnected from the experience of the 
actual kids in the class. Iirc, there's a scene where the kids are 
all getting frustrated and burned by the Skrewts that they can't 
control and Hagrid watches and fondly says "they're having fun," 
which Harry knows refers to the Skrewts and not the kids. 

I'm sure a lot of teachers would improve with a mentor, but they're 
all in the same boat on that score. Nobody seems to be helping Binns 
or Trelawney or Snape either. They all seem to have problems as 
teachers that are reflected in their basic personality. Hagrid's 
problems on that score are so consistently reflected in his 
personality I don't see how he could be any different any more than 
I can imagine Snape differently as a teacher. The younger characters 
all treat Hagrid as a sort of quasi-adult not because he lacks 
confidence but because that's often the way he acts. JKR has said 
regarding Snape that kids "see through" somebody abusing the power 
of their position, and to me Hagrid has always seemed like a real 
double for Snape as a teacher, only with different issues. The 
kids "see through" him too. 

-m