Next Steps and Draft: Harry Potter

I'm actually excited to start writing! Sage and I had a great conversation about places we could go with our papers. We talked about exploring the different types of teachers there are and the comparisons we can make between them. Also, governmental involvement and its role and impact upon the education of Hogwarts.

 My plan for today is to just get as much as I can written in the hour of time I have. I want to write the entire time and, when I run out of something to say on a subject, move to the next thing. I imagine it may be jumbled, but my plan is to kind of see where it takes me.


4:02pm

My "In-Class" writing is pretty jumbled and crazy and nothing is cited correctly. But I got a little bit down and I feel like I have a start. Which is a great feeling actually. Still unsure about my thesis.. But I think I'm getting closer. I have so much I want to write about!

Despite the constant danger, exam cancellations, and deaths that occur almost yearly at Hogwarts, education remains a thriving feature in the Wizarding world, encouraging young witches and wizards to learn in a hands-on and stimulating environment.

Teaching Styles

                In Hogwarts, there are many different teaching styles at play. There are many teachers that teach many different subjects; each have their own approach to teaching and education. Due to the fact that Hogwarts is a magical school where young witches and wizards are meant to learn how to use and control their magic, it can be assumed that there is a certain level of hands-on education that must be instituted. Because how can a witch or wizard learn to use magic without the use of a wand? (Insert something about Umbridge and theory-based learning here). John Dewey is an educational theorist and describes some of the most important aspects of a successful education as including hands-on learning, focus on student interest, and connecting school and learning to everyday life (The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy). In the more successful teachers at Hogwarts, there is a definite suggestion that each of these fields are filled and focused on.

                JK Rowling uses a significant amount of parallelism to compare and contrast the teachers and their teaching styles. She places classes next to each other in Harry, Ron, and Hermione’s schedules in order to create a stark contrast of teacher successes, failures, shortcomings, and quirks. One of the greatest struggles of Hogwarts is the lack of qualified teachers. There is, apparently, no certification, education, or requirements in order to become a teacher at Hogwarts (The Ultimate Harry Potter and Philosophy). This leaves Hogwarts with very few examples of qualified teachers and a vast amount of extremely unqualified (and often dangerous) ones.

Trelawney and McGonagall

                The classes of Professor Trelawney and Professor McGonagall nearly always fall concurrent to each other in the schedules of the main characters.

These two professors are opposites in nearly every way. Professor Trelawney, depicted with a smell of Sherry and bottles clanging in her robes, has an over-reliance on alcohol and finds odd joy in predicting the untimely death of her students (find this citation in the book HBP). Seen more often as a fraud than not (and even McGonagall cannot hold her tongue concerning it), she is constantly attempting to build up her reputation by using gullible students to have her predictions come true. In The Prisoner of Azkaban, she abuses her role as teacher and uses the extremely nervous and shaky Neville to ‘prove’ herself by predicting his clumsiness of dropping a teacup (cite POA). When he, of course, does drop the teacup, the gullible students assume she used her seer powers to predict when, in actuality, she exploited a nervous young wizard into believing he would drop the cup. This exploitation of her students’ characteristics creates an uncomfortable and fearful classroom environment. It also shows Trelawney’s willingness to use students as stepping blocks to show her success as a true seer. Besides this, she also puts down students in order to set herself higher upon a pedestal. Trelawney makes an example of Hermione’s objectiveness to Divination referring to her logic (which aids her in every other subject) as an inability and lack of power. Not only this, she abuses the fact that Hermione is the top student in her class which, due to her know-it-all attitude,  creates an opportunity for the students who may envy her academic status to tease her. She opens up a student for abuse from other students in order to push the power of her own clairvoyance onto the class.

                McGonagall is quite the opposite of Trelawney. Stern and organized, yet not unafraid to bend some rules. McGonagall’s classroom demands respect, and respect is what she receives. Hermione, who has only ever spoken against Divination and Trelawney, especially gives this respect and watches McGonagall closely.

Snape and Lupin

                In the Prisoner of Azkaban, Snape and Lupin are obviously rivals, both in their past and in the classroom.

                Lupin is the Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher Harry and the rest of school always hoped they could have. Lupin’s classroom is one that is welcoming and interesting from the first day. Lupin focuses intently on hands-on education. He immediately has the students facing and warding off an unknown creature (the boggart). JK Rowling uses the boggart to create a symbol within Lupin and his teaching. In the very first lesson, Lupin encourages each student to face their own fear, the boggart, and send it away with laughter. The students entered the classroom filled with anxiety of the unknown and left having fought their own demons and feeling more confident than when they arrived. Neville Longbottom was an especially important aspect to this lesson. He entered and was particularly drained, nervous, and unconfident from Snape’s lesson immediately prior. To make matters worse, Snape tells Lupin in front of the whole class that Neville is essentially hopeless to all education (POA cite). Lupin, despite hearing this, takes Neville and gives him the opportunity and confidence to prove otherwise. Lupin gives hope to his students. He encourages and he uplifts them. He also creates lessons that the students feel are relevant to their lives after Hogwarts (Dewey theory/The Ultimate HP and Philosophy). This relevance is extremely clear when, throughout the books following, Harry, Ron, and Hermione run into many of the magical creatures Lupin teaches in his lessons, including boggarts and grindylows. (GOF and OoP). Lupin also takes a stab at exams. Rather than having his final exam in the great hall or classroom as most of the other teachers, Lupin decides to take the students outside and do an obstacle course. He uses this alternative type of assessment in order to help the students have a more practical test, more fun, feel more at ease, and less stressed (education assessment theory citation).  

           

Dangerous Teachers

                Gilderoy Lockhart-set a bunch of maniacal pixies onto a class of second years and then left them to deal with it when he couldn’t do it himself.

                Mad Eye Moody – turned a fourth year student into ferret and repeatedly bounced him around the grounds until McGonagall found him out.

                Quirrell – He literally had the darkest, most evil wizard of all time attached to the back of his head for 9 months and nobody noticed (except Snape, but who listens to Snape?).

                Mad-Eye Moody – He was a death eater that was helping Voldemort come back to power disguised as an auror. He also performed all three unforgivable curses within the classroom. He had the students practice being under the Imperius curse as well (also unforgivable).