Harry's detention in HBP

[Ceridwen]

No: HPFGUIDX 168329

Marion
In the book we see that all the kids are listening in rapt attention 
to the fascinating teacher (and he *is* fascinating in a way any kid 
would agree with with his dungeon full of creepy stuff, his 
theatrical appearance and his soft wellspokeness <sp?> I know I'd be 
rivetted!)
*All* the kids? No, we are told that right after his speech Harry and 
Ron (the Hollywood Star Famous Boy and the kid brother of those Twin 
Hellions) 'turn to eachother with their eyebrows raised.
Well, in my country (and I'm sure this is true of the States, 
Australia, Germany and what have you that you, my listsibs, hail 
from) raising your eyebrows to one another when somebody in authority 
is speaking means "who the hell is *this* weirdo".
So I was not surprised when Snape whirled and singled out Harry to 
answer a few basic questions about the stuff that was evidently in 
their first Potions Book. Because this happened to me when I was a 
kid.
*(snip)*
I whispered back something like "lay off, she'll here us" and at that 
moment the teacher whirled, say me whisper to my neighbour and stated 
loudly, "Ah, Miss Ros apparantly knows what I'm trying to teach you 
all since she has seen fit to talk during my class. Well, Miss Ros, 
why don't come in front of class and explain to the students what 
I've been trying to teach you all."
The next two minutes were among the most embarrassing of my life. I 
stammered and stuttered and was sent back to my seat properly 
chastised and firm in my mind never to talk during class again.

Ceridwen:
This is how I remember it in the U.S., too.  Class stopped when 
students talked in class, or read comics, or wrote and/or received 
notes, or were daydreaming, or cutting up in some way.  The teacher 
would stand right at the student's desk and ask him or her to repeat 
what he or she had just said.  And if I recall right, the worst for 
hovering directly over a student were the slightly older women.  The 
men would stand back a bit, but maybe that's just because I'm female 
and there were certain proprieties.

And the student had to answer, or give the reason why he or she 
didn't know the material.  When he or she couldn't answer, he or she 
was rebuked and placed on warning.  On the next infraction, he or she 
would be sent to the principal, and his or her parents might even be 
called.

Students would also be told to teach the class if they knew so much.  
Some of them even tried.  When they couldn't, of course just being 
singled out was embarrassing, not being able to do the lesson was 
even worse, and clearly laid at their own door.

And that's where I thought JKR was going with the Potions scene.  I 
don't think Harry meant to imply anything like "who the hell is 
*this* weirdo".  Raising the eyebrows can also mean you're 
impressed.  Or it could have meant that he and Ron were surprised 
about the teacher's style without comment to his subject (which won't 
please the teacher either, I'll bet).  But I do think he must have 
done something to draw Snape's attention.  Coupled with his 
celebrity, that made him doubly important, from this style's point of 
view, to be set down.

Admittedly, I've been out of school for many, many years.  My brushes 
with being asked to tell the lesson happened more like forty years 
ago instead of thirty.  ;)  When I was in school, most students were 
ashamed to get detention, even when they blamed the teacher (or other 
students, which wasn't done - or even respected by the teachers, let 
alone the students - see Goddlefrood's Schoolyard Code).

But, Harry and his friends don't seem to be ashamed at all to get 
detention.  They sass back to the teachers a lot more than students 
in my schools.  Having gone back to college and seeing the recent 
graduates of our local high schools, Harry and his classmates aren't 
any snarkier than the real articles.  But, oy!  Hogwarts seems so 
much more old-fashioned in so many ways, and then there's this!

And, they don't mind breaking rules that are in place for the 
students' protection.  They found Fluffy when they went to an area 
that was off-limits unless the student didn't mind dying.  They 
fought a troll, had a clandestine rendezvous with a dragon and a team 
of dragon wranglers, Harry pined away in front of the Mirror of 
Erised, and that's just in the first book.

I have wondered, and I still wonder, if Harry isn't carrying over an 
attitude and a resentment against school from his Muggle school days, 
when Dudley and his gang seemed to get away with hurting and 
frightening him under the teachers' noses, and that's where some of 
this disregard for authority and school rules comes from.  To me, it 
would be perfectly understandable if he thought teachers, and by 
extension other authority figures, were ineffective in preventing 
things like Dudley's bullying.  Understandable.  Not right, no.  But 
we're talking about a child, beginning at age eleven.  And the 
Dursleys certainly aren't going to teach him anything!

Ceridwen.