GOF Chapter 3: The Invitation

[oryx_leucoryx]

This is the obligatory Dursley chapter, in which we are treated to the home life of this family and learn how inferior they are to wizard families.

Dudley takes up a whole side of the square kitchen table. Ahem, I doubt a square kitchen table (as opposed to a dining room table) was designed to seat 8 people, 2 on a side. His parents excuse away his teachers' accusations of bullying. As opposed to the Weasleys who never receive reports making such heinous accusations against the twins (we'll see the school does occasionally owl their parents, but I don't see any awareness that some of what the twins do is bullying behavior). (This starts the theme of parents dealing with wayward sons in this book.) Dudley is forced into a diet of fruit and vegetables rather than his favorites. From the descriptions we get of the food Harry eats at Hogwarts I get the feeling Harry's favorites are closer to Dudley's than to the health foods, nor does he limit his intake. But somehow Harry remains thin, regardless of whether he gets starved by Petunia or stuffed by Molly or the House-elves.

Changing the food choices of the entire family is a good thing! However adjusting Harry's serving size to Dudley's (perceived?) emotional needs isn't. I don't begrudge Harry for working around a diet he doesn't need, but then I also sympathize with Dudley who does. Changing eating habits of years is hard.
This is also the place to say Dudley must have grown up as an emotional wreck. Knowing that his parents were capable of such physical and emotional deprivation of someone in their care - what if he ever failed to please them? I think a big part of his misbehavior is both making sure his parents know he *isn't* Harry as well as wanting the reassurance that they still love him, no matter what anyone else thinks.

Of Harry's 4 sources of help only one sends food he appreciates. Odd that even Hagrid managed to send an edible birthday cake. But how edible is it (or any of the others) 3 weeks later?

Harry is surprised that the Weasleys wrote directly to the Dursleys. Vernon is embarrassed that they didn't know how many stamps to use. But really, how hard is it to find out? Didn't they go to the post office to buy the stamps? What does it say about the exchange rate between Galleons and pounds that a family so poor finds it reasonable to spend on so many stamps for one letter? Molly's letter sounds as if she is trying too hard to make the Quidditch World Cup sound special and to make Arthur sound important. And of course she doesn't have enough imagination to realize that sending a letter by owl isn't normal for the Dursleys.

Harry is offended on Molly's behalf when Vernon calls her 'dumpy'. Since Molly likes Harry nobody is allowed to notice she is overweight.

I must say that the scene where Harry threatens Vernon with Sirius looks a lot less humorous now that I have seen Harry enjoy torturing a man for punishment, and Sirius engaging in Muggle-baiting.

If I am correct in my understanding that Ron is claiming that he and Molly wrote their respective letters at about the same time, then I am impressed with the UK post. Molly's letter arrived on Saturday morning. Pig arrived the same morning. Considering the speed of owls elsewhere, it looks as though Ron's letter was sent earlier that morning. So a letter got delivered the morning it was sent?

I am less impressed with the Weasleys. They plan on taking Harry regardless of the Dursleys' consent. One could argue that eventually Molly and Arthur realized their sons were not exaggerating when they said Harry had been imprisoned and starved, but seeing how Arthur views the treatment of Muggles, both in this book and in COS, I doubt this made a difference.

Harry is happy specifically because Dudley is suffering and he isn't. The seeds of the bully of HBP and war criminal of DH.

Comments

[oryx_leucoryx]

In some school systems they stopped holding failing students back, they just passed them to the next higher grade even if they flunked, because keeping a failing student behind would adversely effect their self-esteem.

Actually the claim was (and still is) that holding students back caused them to drop out of school. Of course in a US highschool if one doesn't complete graduation requirements one stays an extra year anyway if one intends to graduate. And if a student has to repeat a class s/he didn't pass s/he is still learning with younger students.

In reality whether a student is promoted or held back, a student who already failed several courses needs more help than just repeating the same class. Do the schools have the manpower to provide this support?

In Israel in my day there were still the kids whose report card said 'the above mentioned will continue to the next grade, but not in our school' - ie they had the choice of repeating the year or finding a school that would take them in at their performance level. In my school, if a student failed one or two classes in a year s/he had to take a test on it at the end of summer vacation - so if they caught up during the summer they could continue with their year. But failing 3 classes or more or failing the repeat exams left the student with the choice to repeat the year or change schools.

[ioanna-ioannina.livejournal.com]

Yes for the test, in front of three teachers. The same here.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

In reality whether a student is promoted or held back, a student who already failed several courses needs more help than just repeating the same class. Do the schools have the manpower to provide this support?

Most likely not, just like they don't have the manpower to deal with especially bright students, so the curriculum ends up being geared to the lowest-common-denominator.

When I was in high school there was a girl in my class, she was actually in the same homeroom as me, and it wasn't until either late in our sophomore year or early in our junior year that it dawned on us that while this girl was in our freshman year when we started, no one could remember her ever attending the junior high we'd come from...

At first we passed it off that she had transferred from another school, but sometime around the end of our sophomore or beginning of our junior year, it came out that this girl had been held back AT LEAST THREE TIMES, and that she was actually 20 y.o.! I actually thought it was a false, nasty rumor, but the girl herself one day confirmed it.

We were 15-16 y.o., here was this girl who was 4-5 years older than us, and the school system just kept holding her back.

I actually liked this girl, she was very nice, and while not a brilliant scholar, she didn't come off to me as being particularly stupid, so I don't know what the problem was that resulted in her being held back year-after-year. The girl herself was somewhat vague when asked about it (but I suspect a lot of that was due to embarrassment), but I think that at least one or two of the times was due to family/personal problems, she may have had some sort of learning disability also.

By the time she was my classmate, she managed to get mostly C's with one or two D's, but that was enough to pass her on to the next grade, and she graduated with us...we were 17/18 y.o, she was like 23...

But I really give her credit -- legally she could have dropped out of school at the age of 16, so even though she may have been learning-disabled, even tho she had to work hard just to get C's and D's, she cared enough about getting a high school diploma to stick it out long after she could have bailed...

[seductivedark.livejournal.com]

I keep thinking that students should be held back much earlier than they are when there's a problem. It's easier to learn when you're only behind by a semester or a year than it is to catch up later on down the line. But, those kids need their self-esteem boosted as June said, so off they go, swamped and overwhelmed by new stuff that needs the basics that were never learned properly. This lack of a sufficient base goes on year after year because the problem wasn't addressed when it first popped up.

[majorjune.livejournal.com]

But, those kids need their self-esteem boosted as June said, so off they go, swamped and overwhelmed by new stuff that needs the basics that were never learned properly. This lack of a sufficient base goes on year after year because the problem wasn't addressed when it first popped up.

And IMHO I don't think society is doing these kids any favors, because at some time in their future every one of these kids will need to get a job, and their employer won't be giving them a pass in performance reviews in the name of the employee's self-esteem...