[HPforGrownups] Re: Duffers

[k12listmomma]

No: HPFGUIDX 188546

> Potioncat:
> I went to the HP Lexicon so I could look at all the Sorting Hat songs at 
> once. Here's the link.
> http://www.hp-lexicon.org/hogwarts/sorting_hat.html
snip
> I keep bringing up whether readers see Hufflepuff as duffers because I'm 
> not sure what really comes across about the house. I don't see them as 
> duffers, or as second rate. If we look at the basic criteria for the 
> houses I think Hufflepuff is as worthy as any of the other three. After 
> all, in the RW we may want brave policemen, but we also want just judges.
>
> I think the most recent sorting hat song, "Good Hufflepuff, she took the 
> rest and taught them all she knew," makes the house seem dummed down to 
> many readers. Helga, it seems, did not judge her students on bravery, wit 
> or blood status. She was willing to teach anyone who wanted to learn. 
> Again, bravery, wit and blood status have nothing to do with magical 
> potential. Hers is a "just" method of teaching. Hufflepuff's standards 
> aren't low, they are just and patient and welcoming.


Shelley:
I did a lot of tutoring in my high school and college years, and so many of 
the students I tutored were eager learners, but just needed more attention. 
That's the type of person I see Hufflepuff teaching- those who wanted to 
learn but were being discarded as "not the best and brightest" or being 
someone's first pick (much like grade school choosing of teams). Needing a 
tutor doesn't make you a duffer or a sluffer, nor does it make you stupid. 
Rather, if you are seeking help and the extra attention to help you learn, I 
consider that to be a VERY "smart" decision! I see Hufflepuff as the type of 
person who could see through every student to help bring out their own gifts 
and abilities, the gifts and abilities that were being ignored by the other 
teachers as "important" (bravery, ambition, etc). Patience, kindness, 
compassion are gifts in their own right, and make for excellent healers and 
caretakers. Some witches and wizards might have had a natural talent for 
music, for example, but had trouble working that talent into his or her 
magical studies. Helga knew how to reach out to touch those inner qualities 
in those students and how to bring out the best in them. In that respect, I 
would consider her to be the best out of all the teachers. Any teacher can 
teach the best and the brightest, for those students will get high marks no 
matter what method is used on them, but the best teachers are the ones who 
know how to draw talent out of each and every student in his or her care. 
The best teachers see the worth of every human being, and that is no small 
feat in my book. It's too easy to be prejudiced, to be biased, to grab for 
yourself the "winners", as Slughorn did with his Slug-Club, but the best 
teachers of all are ones who care about the individual they are teaching and 
measure success by how far you've come, rather than your position at the 
starting point. I almost think that I might have been placed in Hufflepuff, 
giving my compassion to help people reach their full potential, because my 
views mirror that of Helga Hufflepuff. I wonder if the Sorting Hat would 
have had a long discussion with me about the values I have that would have 
benefitted the other Hufflepuffs, despite my argument to be placed in a 
"cool" group like Gryffindor.