[HPforGrownups] Re: Snape as Neville's teacher / JKR's sexy men roll call

[Janette]

No: HPFGUIDX 168512

>
> > Betsy Hp:
>   There's nothing wrong with a
> teacher
> > hitting his students with near impossible questions to set up what
> > sort of classroom he's going to run.
>
> Phoenixgod2000:
>
> As a teacher, let me say sure there is.  You establish your
> classroom all right, you establish it as an unfair class and kids
> will tune you out.  There are few better ways to get your students
> to have their backs up and resist you than what Snape did.  Look at
> what happened with Harry. How many students over the years have
> decided they never want to have anything to do with potions because
> Snape killed their interest before it had the chance to develop?
>
> Snape actuallty starts out well with his Potions are powerful speech
> but undercuts it right away by setting up his classroom as
> adversarial. That is no way to get students to love a subject he
> plainly has passion for.
>
> >Sure, the student being asked
> > the questions feels like an idiot, but that's not an abuse of
> > authority, IMO.
>
> It may or may not be an abuse of authority but it certainly isn't
> good teaching.  It doesn't make the student interested in finding
> the answers to his questions, which is what a skilled teacher could
> easily do. The job of a teacher is to convey knowledge, not to make
> students feel stupid.


montims:
Maybe things are different now, but I went to an English girls' school in
the 70s, and my teachers spent the whole time telling us we were idiots and
dunderheads.  My French teacher used to tell us we were the worst class she
ever had - she hated coming to teach us - and she would pick on a girl each
class and grill her mecilessly.  Fifteen minutes of repeating Therese, in
order to pronounce the acute and grave accents differently, caused one girl,
who could NOT hear the difference, to run out of the class in tears one
time.  Because of that, my French accent is flawless and my knowledge of
French grammar meant learning Italian while I lived there was easy.  I took
French to A Level.  Most didn't.  I think this current trend of coddling and
protecting "children" is a phase that will pass, along with Dr Spock and
others.  When I grew up, the prevailing theme really was that children
should be seen and not heard, and that adults were their betters and
expected respect even when they didn't earn it.  And that is the attitude
that carries over in the JKR books.  Being called an idiot is not abuse, it
is a challenge...


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