More Reflections on the Hogwarts Education
Mar. 2nd, 2012 12:01 am![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
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deathtocapslockThe child is not well-favored, is not charming in the least, and indeed must be admitted to be rather socially inept. But the worst drawback is the lack of well-connected family. In the WW, run on patronage as it is, that deficit can be crippling to both spirit and prospects.
But the child is bright, and creative, and fiercely ambitious. The child quickly shows an ability to perform well above others that age, even above older children. And someone on staff—the headmaster?—sees this and determines to give the child opportunities that the unfortunate background would otherwise make impossible, to let the child learn what ambitions might be possible and how they might be fulfilled. By a child bright enough and ambitious enough.
And so the student is encouraged not only to study the materials learned in class (and sometimes the class above, or the one above that), but to research and experiment independently. The student’s research is monitored by adults, mentored; staff members foster those avenues of inquiry that are truly original and possibly productive. The research drifts onto subjects not covered formally in the school curriculum, and letters of introduction are written to outside experts. Papers are written, and re-written, and eventually are good enough to be of interest to other researchers. By the time the student graduates, the student has not only garnered high NEWTs and a collection of school prizes, but has published articles in several learned journals.
This could have been Hogwarts for Miss Granger or for the Prince. This was what Hogwarts offered to Albus Dumbledore.
When Dumbledore was a student his creativity was fostered, cherished, channeled into academic endeavors that could win him (and his school) renown. When Dumbledore was headmaster, we only see students using creativity in secret or in despite of authority. Why was Snape never encouraged to publish his potions improvements or his creative little jinxes, nor the Weasley Twins offered tutelage in exchange for not testing products on eleven-year-olds?
This even applies, more distantly, to Tom—was he so hardened a psychopath that he could never have been tempted to trade fear for awed admiration, had another form of ambition been presented him?
But the child is bright, and creative, and fiercely ambitious. The child quickly shows an ability to perform well above others that age, even above older children. And someone on staff—the headmaster?—sees this and determines to give the child opportunities that the unfortunate background would otherwise make impossible, to let the child learn what ambitions might be possible and how they might be fulfilled. By a child bright enough and ambitious enough.
And so the student is encouraged not only to study the materials learned in class (and sometimes the class above, or the one above that), but to research and experiment independently. The student’s research is monitored by adults, mentored; staff members foster those avenues of inquiry that are truly original and possibly productive. The research drifts onto subjects not covered formally in the school curriculum, and letters of introduction are written to outside experts. Papers are written, and re-written, and eventually are good enough to be of interest to other researchers. By the time the student graduates, the student has not only garnered high NEWTs and a collection of school prizes, but has published articles in several learned journals.
This could have been Hogwarts for Miss Granger or for the Prince. This was what Hogwarts offered to Albus Dumbledore.
When Dumbledore was a student his creativity was fostered, cherished, channeled into academic endeavors that could win him (and his school) renown. When Dumbledore was headmaster, we only see students using creativity in secret or in despite of authority. Why was Snape never encouraged to publish his potions improvements or his creative little jinxes, nor the Weasley Twins offered tutelage in exchange for not testing products on eleven-year-olds?
This even applies, more distantly, to Tom—was he so hardened a psychopath that he could never have been tempted to trade fear for awed admiration, had another form of ambition been presented him?
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Date: 2012-03-02 10:32 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-03-03 12:48 am (UTC)I tend to take the number of interviews in which she has insisted on a particular interpretation of her world and no other as a sign of the latter. Perhaps she realized that she had written a society filled with terrible, immature, emotionally stunted people but couldn't admit it enough to intentionally incorporate it into her story? I mean, as an amateur writer I can sort of relate. Nobody wants to realize that the characters that they like and have put so much time into are completely unlikeable, but it's still better than ignoring these character revelations instead of using them to make the story better.