[HPforGrownups] Re: Sadism or not ? McGonagall and her punishments

[Shaun Hately]

No: HPFGUIDX 186653

a_svirn:
> I would agree with your every word if I found Parvati behaviour
> objectionable. Since I don't, it is McGonagall's behaviour I am objecting 
> to.

Shaun:

Fair enough - but I do find Parvarti's behaviour objectionable. Hogwarts has 
a school uniform. She's violating the rules concerning uniform, and so it's 
entirely appropriate for a teacher to reprimand her for doing it. Now I come 
from a cultural background where school uniforms are normal, I wore one from 
the age of five to seventeen, and every school I've taught in has had a 
uniform. I'm generally speaking in favour of uniforms - but only if they are 
properly enforced. If they are not going to be enforced (and that means 
students facing some sort of sanction if they break the rules) they become 
pretty useless. If they are enforced, they are useful in many cases.

The fact is Professor McGonagall is responsible for ensuring the students in 
her class follow the uniform rules. Parvarti was not. That's not appropriate 
behaviour and it's entirely appropriate for a teacher to address it.

a_svirn:
> Fair enough. I should have said "make sure certain adjustments are made
> to help Neville to overcome his disability" or something to that effect. 
> The
> point is still valid though that such adjustments were *not* made. Now, I
> understand that not all teachers have enough time ability or inclination 
> to
> deal with children with disabilities. However, from my unprofessional 
> point
> of view if a teacher can't be bothered to make an effort on such students'
> behalf, the least he or she can do is to try to avoid embarrassing them
> unnecessarily. Let alone punishing them for something that isn't their 
> fault.

Shaun:

Let me be quite clear about this - I *do* believe teachers should work to 
address student's disabilities in the classroom. It's something I actually 
take extremely seriously as a teacher. As a teacher, it concerns me that 
with the exception of the reference to 'Remedial Potions' being used to 
disguise Harry's occlumency lessons, there's no real sign at all that any 
formal effort is made at Hogwarts to address the needs of students who are 
struggling (that reference at least seems to indicate that the concept 
exists).

But here's the thing - the absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. 
We don't know that Professor McGonagall isn't giving Neville special help 
outside of normal lessons. For all we know she is. Or something else may 
have been set up to help Neville. The books are not about the education of 
Neville Longbottom (while I'd find such a book fascinating, I don't think it 
would have done as well among the public at large!).

If *all* that has been done to try and address Neville's problems is a 
punitive approach, that's a problem. But it's also an assumption.

>From what we know of Neville's marks, he got an 'Outstanding' in Herbology, 
and 'Exceeds Expectations' in DADA, and Charms, along with an 'Acceptable' 
in Transfiguration.

Well, Harry got an A in Astronomy and failed Divination (he failed History 
of Magic but that was as a result of circumstances). Ron failed two 
subjects - Divination and History of Magic and we know got no Os - I think 
we can assume a mixture of As and Es for him. There's nothing wrong with 
getting an A. It is 'Acceptable'.

Neville does OK in Professor McGonagall's class. I don't see any reason to 
assume she's not teaching him satisfactorily in her class, and if she's 
doing that, I don't see any reason to condemn her for not going easy on him 
outside of class.

a_svirn:
> Choosing to write them down was his only resort. Neville had difficulties 
> under
> normal circumstances, in this instance, however, even students without any
> learning disabilities were having trouble remembering those frequently 
> changing,
> crazy multisyllabic passwords. Neville had realistically no chance of 
> pulling it of.
> McGonagall, who, in my unprofessional view, had moral if not contractual
> obligation to help him out (especially, since it was a security issue and 
> there
> was a very real danger out there) had done nothing. What was Neville to 
> do?
> He hit upon the only sensible option - wrote them down. And when 
> McGonagall's
> neglect backfired he was the one who got punished. Seems to me he *was*
> punished for something he couldn't help. And for McGonagall's professional
> shortcomings of course.

Shaun:

The problem is that Neville didn't just write the passwords down. He wrote 
them down and *then he lost them*. All right - he wasn't supposed to write 
them down, but, yes, I can understand why he did that. I don't think he 
should have done that, but I can understand that that might have seemed to 
him a good idea and I could easily forgive that. But there's two more steps 
in the process which I wouldn't forgive.

The first is that he *lost* them. As you point out, the passwords were a 
security issue. There was (as far as everybody knew) a mad murderer on the 
loose who'd already tried once to get into Gryfindor tower. Even accepting 
that Neville had a reason to write the passwords down, he should have been 
*incredibly* careful of that piece of paper. Poor memory explains a lot of 
things. It doesn't explain carelessness. And I really do believe Neville was 
careless with the paper - we find out later that Crookshanks took it from 
his bedside table - in other words from within the tower. As Neville appears 
to have left the tower subsequent to that theft without even noticing that 
the list was gone, he obviously paying very careful attention to it. And it 
also wasn't serving much purpose - there's no point writing down a list of 
passwords you leave behind inside the place you need them to get into.

McGonagall's question is this:

"Which person, which abysmally foolish person wrote down this week's 
passwords and left them lying around?"

Note that - not just wrote them down, but left them lying around. I can 
understand the first part. The second part is much harder to explain.

But then, there's an even bigger problem. Having realised he'd lost the 
password (and Neville has no idea where they've gone) he has exposed the 
tower to risk. There's a mad murderer on the loose, the security to your 
tower is maintained by passwords and you've lost a list of those passwords. 
Neville should have made sure those in charge knew he'd lost the passwords.

There's a considerable gap in time between the point Neville noticed he'd 
lost the passwords and the time Sirius enters the tower and Professor 
McGonagall subsequently discovers that he had the list of passwords. Neville 
notices the loss of the passwords on Thursday evening - it is not until late 
on the night of Saturday that Sirius enters the tower. Neville had two full 
days to tell somebody in authority that he'd lost one of the things 
protecting him and his fellow students - and he didn't tell them.

I'd also point out that Neville's grandmother seems to think he did 
something wrong as well - she sends him a howler over the incident. It's not 
just Professor McGongall who is angry at Neville - his legal guardian 
agrees. And while Gran does seem a bit of a dragon to me, the fact that a 
child's guardian endorses a punishment is fairly compelling in general 
terms.

a_svirn:
> Does basic behavioural theory teach that embarrassing students by
> attracting a class's attention to their disabilities make them want to
>  overcome said disabilities? I must say my own random observations
> tend to point into the opposite direction. So do the Potter Books.
> Neville did not excel either in Potions or Transfiguration. However,
> with teachers who did not find it necessary to bully their students he
> achieved adequate to excellent results. Those who are strong and able
> enough might regard adverse stimuli as a challenge, but for those who
> are already challenged? From what I've seen, usually such stimuli have
> an adverse effect.

Shaun:

First of all, Neville does achieves adequate results in Professor 
McGonagall's class - he does get an Acceptable OWL. It's not his best 
subject but he does do well enough to pass.

Now to answer your question - behavioural theory does support the idea that 
embarassing a student about underperformance will lead to an improvement in 
performance - provided one particular important criteria is met. The 
student, in question, needs to be male. I believe Neville qualifies. There's 
actually quite a significant difference in how boys respond to such an 
approach as to how girls respond. I can provide references on most of these 
points, by the way, if people are seriously interested, but I'm not going to 
turn this into an academic essay - I will reference this particular point, 
because I have just checked to make sure I'm describing it accurately - 
pages 88-92 of Dr Leonard Sax' "Why Gender Matters" - part of the reason why 
boys academic achievement is declining relative to that of girls in most 
western countries is because teachers are increasingly using strategies that 
work better for girls than for boys in the classroom. The old fashioned, 
traditional 'harder' forms of teaching worked better for boys than for girls 
(not surprisingly as in many cases, educating boys was given a higher 
priority).

It's also key that you have to be talking about 'underperformance'. A boy 
who is already doing as well as they can is not going to miraculously 
improve further because of a negative stimulus. But the boy who is not at 
the limit of his performance potential is likely to. It also needs to be 
within sensible limits - occasional embarassment has very different effects 
from constant humiliation.

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately | www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       | drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one
thing in common. They don't alter their views to fit the
facts. They alter the facts to fit the views. Which can be
uncomfortable if you happen to be one of the facts that
need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who: The Face of Evil
Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia