The teachers at Hogwarts

[vegablack]

What was your opinion of the teachers at Hogwarts? Were they good at their jobs? Was McGonagall a good teacher, a good head of house? Harry calls Dumbledore the best (teacher, headmaster). Do you agree?

[magikcat]

I think most of the teachers would be tough but fair. They were firm in their expectations and didn't accept any nonsense, but truly care about the students and the school (saving the younger students in the final battle comes to mind). I've always had a soft spot for McGonagall for this reason. To be honest, Hogwarts, in terms of education style, seems a lot like a upper level university.

One thing that would be different from other public schools was that we don't see teachers giving private tutoring sessions (with the exception of Snape using remedial potions as a the cover-up for Occlumency lessons). I get the feeling the students were expected to get extra help from other students, rather than the teachers.

As for Dumbledore -- I could see him being the kind of teacher everyone would like. When he isn't laying plans to save the wizarding world, Dumbledore's clever and witty and has really a good sense of humor.

[pigwithhair]

A couple of people have posted elsewhere that they believe there had to be other teachers at Hogwarts who didn't make it into the books simply because Harry had no reason to interact with them.

I disagree with this myself - it seems to me JKR would have at least mentioned something about other teachers being there if she intended that - but what does everyone think?

This usually comes up during the "how many students were really at Hogwarts" discussions.

[vegablack]

They discuss what classes are offered second and third year when they have to pick their electives. Runes, Arythmancy, Astonomy, History of Magic, Herbology, Care of Magical creatures, Muggle studies, Divination, Potions, Charms, Transfiguration, and Defense against the Dark Arts. If there were other classes surely Hermione would have considered taking them at some point or at least discussed the subject. It would have come up when the students are considering their electives.

They don't need to have multiple teachers teach the same subject as the school only has four houses each house only has about ten kids in it for each grade level and there are only seven grades. One could argue for more than ten kids occasionally showing up but I can't see how you could add much more when that number is consistent through out the books. The school is small. The teachers we see teach the most difficult classes that are required for all students don't share the course with another teacher so why would the electives?

[pigwithhair]

Vegablack,

I agree with you, especially since the classes offered are discussed - good point.

In an interview (maybe more than one, I'm not sure) JKR has said there were a thousand students students at Hogwarts. She has a history of being bad with and contradicting herself horribly when it comes to numbers, but it's that comment that has led others to believe there must have been more teachers.

It's never made sense to me, the theory that being in Gryffindor was that rare - well, it would have to be exceptionally rare if there were really that many students when there were only eight in Harry's year in Gryffindor - but that's where the theory comes from.

Personally, I agree with your numbers - that Hogwarts student population was more in the realm of 250 to 300 max - but there you go.

[MWPP]

(Plus, there could be all sorts of Timeturner-ing so that the same teachers could teach more classes-per-day.) We never really do get any backstory on teachers' time off, where they live (do they live at the Castle or can they Floo home most nights? or?), what they do on off times (except for a couple scenes at the Three Broomsticks). I think we are supposted to think of them the way most seven-year-olds do, that they just start and stop with our walking in or out of the room/scene the teacher is in.


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[pigwithhair]

Well, we know Snape, McGonagall, Dumbledore, Flitwick, Filch, Sprout and Madame Pomfrey are all there all day and night thanks to the books, so I guess they live at the school full time, though perhaps they go elsewhere from time to time.

Of course Snape did have a house to go to in Spinner's End, yet he was at the castle numerous times during the night.

And, while I think the Time-Turner idea is intriguing, the Time-Turners were all destroyed in Book Five - or all the ones the Ministry knew of, anyway.

[Rugi]

We were discussing the [ir]responsibility of the Hogwarts teachers towards the students in the Least-Favorite-Character thread, and I thought it fit better here.

I was wondering whether people thought that the rather lackadaisical attitude of the teachers was symptomatic of wizard culture in general or whether it was based on Dumbledore's hands-off approach. Or was it a reaction to the previous Voldemort stuff? I mean it always interested me that Slytherin House was a big recruiting ground during the first war and no one, as far as I can tell, made any effort to make certain that it wouldn't be used that way again. No one said, "Maybe the kids shouldn't be left alone so much..." or "Maybe there should be more teacher-student-counseling..." or "Maybe reckless homicide should be treated as a serious offense from now on..."

[starsea]

I think it's a combination of all three, Rugi. Also (I feel like Alkari) you need to read "Stalky & Co" by Rudyard Kipling. That will give you a fair idea of the attitude towards injury in boarding school life: keep it hidden at all costs, and if caught about it, lie. The teachers were "in loco parentis" but how seriously they took this duty depended on the individual teacher. Schools were not subject to investigation as they are now. Children only came back for the holidays, and as long as they were not seriously injured or unhappy, parents assumed that everything was fine. There was also a belief that children needed to be "toughened up" for adult life and so the more hard knocks they got, the better. This attitude still lingers on, I'm afraid.

[MWPP]

I was wondering whether people thought that the rather lackadaisical attitude of the teachers was symptomatic of wizard culture in general or whether it was based on Dumbledore's hands-off approach. Or was it a reaction to the previous Voldemort stuff? I mean it always interested me that Slytherin House was a big recruiting ground during the first war and no one, as far as I can tell, made any effort to make certain that it wouldn't be used that way again.

Dumbledore had more than one reason to keep Snape away from DADA, or at least as Head of Slytherin House. Snape was capable enough to keep tabs on the general "feel" of the Slytherins, so they weren't exactly being an unknown factor. He was the master of Occlumancy afterall.


Also, Magical People have a different perception than Muggles. Muggles expect to stay within the boundaries of physics, while Magical peoples see those "laws" suspended all the time. The whole argument used in the Muggle world about "Gateway Drugs" applies to magic. Once you step outside of agreed-upon parameters (by trying the lighter-duty drug that they lied to you about, or find yourself sitting on top of the kitchen-roof after the bullies chased you) other concepts that were not realistic before suddenly are (or at leasst should be tried out and verified). All of which boils down to, I don't see the teachers as lacasadaisical. They allow the space for creativity. Mdm Pomfrey can deal with the more expected problems, while other teachers (most notably Dumbledore and Snape - Remus, Tonks, Flitwick, McGonagall, more ) can deal with the more outrageous problems.

Hogwarts teachers are pretty amazing when you think of it. It worries me to be in a small enclosed spaces with a couple dozen Muggle offspring; ramp up the abilities without full understanding of the damage possible - and - wow.


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[vegablack]

Whatever JKR may have said in interviews in the books she gives some pretty clear idea of the numbers at least in Harry's class. In book one when Harry takes his flying lesson that Gryffindor shares with Slytherin we are told that "The Slytherins werre already there, and so were twenty broomsticks lying in neat lines on the ground."

In book two Harry is in Herbology studying Mandrakes. We are told that the Gryffindors share the class with Hufflepuff and we are told that about twenty pairs of different colored earmuffs were lying on the bench. As it was dangerous for anyone to be in the room without earmuffs we can bet that about twenty people were there including Sprout herself.

So we have proof that in Harry's year Slytherin, Gryffindor, and Hufflepuff all contained about ten kids. For there to have been even a hundred kids in Harry's year Ravenclaw would have had to have been huge, which just doesn't make sense.

The kids sit through the sorting of every child who enters, if there were 200 kids entering the class that would take over an hour and a half if not two hours at least. The sorting seems tiresome but I don't get the feeling that the kids are sitting there for hours.

The school is small.

What matters to any author is what they write down in the book not what they say in interviews.


Rugi is this a reference to the twins locking of Montague in the cabinet or of Sirius luring Snape to visit the Werewolf? Actions by two of the "good" characters?

"Maybe reckless homicide should be treated as a serious offense from now on..."


I have two problems with the teachers at Hogwarts.

First they do not seem to take responsibilty for the welfare of the students.

When Neville is punished for losing the passwords third year, McGonagall never thinks "Well, I put a portrait too stupid to question a grown crazed looking man's right to enter a student's dorm as long as he had the correct passwords. I trusted Harry's safety to the ability of students as young as eleven to keep passwords secret. Maybe I should have stood guard myself or posted an adult or a prefect at the door. Someone with human adult brains." We know she doesn't feel that way because she never ends Neville's punishment. If she felt that way continuing the punishment would have been hypocritical.

Neither Pomphrey, Mcgonagall, or Dumbledore feel the need to put a guard outside of the shreiking shack during Remus's transformations. His friends let him out with only luck and their own animagus for m to keep him from devouring someone. This wasn't a gift to Remus. How would he have lived with himself if anything went wrong? The situation almost lead to Snape getting killed. What would have happened to Remus if he had hurt Snape?

Again the teachers trusted a kids ability to keep a secret and his fellows ability to respond to it responsibly. That seems naive.

They seem to believe that if a kid is killed by magic while in school it's none of their business.

I've read a biography of the 19th century Earl of Shaftesbury. His younger brother was beaten to death at Eton in front of the entire school in a boxing match held against a 17 year old when he was 14. I actually think the teachers were drunk during the match. That is my opinion from the description of events no one admitted to it at the time. But this happened in the 1820's surely modern Eton would have a different attitude toward a student's welfare today.

Stockey and co. was written by Kipling a 19th century figure.

Surely we can wonder as modern people about a society that retains the attitude toward children shared by a bygone age. Do they have child laborers working in mines and factories too?

Well they do have slavery so maybe that isn't farfetched.

No one investigates who pushed Montague into the cabinet that almost killed him. They apparently don't care to find out. Which leads to another problem I have with them. Underneath it all even McGonagall and Dumbledore seem to share the attitude that Magical might makes right.

No one investigates Hermione's cursing of Marietta. NO one talks to her about the responsibility that comes with the ability to do magic. No one points out to a teenager that the fact that she had the skill to make such a magical contract carry's with it a responsibility to use it without maiming someone.

They had to have guessed she was the one to make the curse. Who else had the skill among the students?

I don't think they cared.

[Rugi]

May 12, 2009 21:28:19 GMT -5 MWPP said:

Dumbledore had more than one reason to keep Snape away from DADA, or at least as Head of Slytherin House. Snape was capable enough to keep tabs on the general "feel" of the Slytherins, so they weren't exactly being an unknown factor. He was the master of Occlumancy afterall.

But I'm not talking about spying on the Slytherins to know what they are planning. I'm talking about protecting them, teaching them, and counseling them, to, possibly, lead them in the right direction. A Boarding School situation allows teachers to have a unique and overwhelming influence on the personal moral growth of the students - as far as I can tell, none of the teachers cared to even try. A school that allows a quarter of its students to be indoctrinated by an insane, murderous, para-military, anti-governmental organization has fallen down on the job.

Also, Magical People have a different perception than Muggles. Muggles expect to stay within the boundaries of physics, while Magical peoples see those "laws" suspended all the time. The whole argument used in the Muggle world about "Gateway Drugs" applies to magic. Once you step outside of agreed-upon parameters (by trying the lighter-duty drug that they lied to you about, or find yourself sitting on top of the kitchen-roof after the bullies chased you) other concepts that were not realistic before suddenly are (or at leasst should be tried out and verified). All of which boils down to, I don't see the teachers as lacasadaisical. They allow the space for creativity. Mdm Pomfrey can deal with the more expected problems, while other teachers (most notably Dumbledore and Snape - Remus, Tonks, Flitwick, McGonagall, more ) can deal with the more outrageous problems.

But the evidence seems to show that they can't. Marietta is still scarred by the end of book five. Montague was lost for weeks. Do we think he'll ever recover from almost dying for weeks on end, lacking any human contact? And this also ignores the fact that having a person physically hurt you is damaging regardless of whether you can be cured. If a student at my school broken my leg because they were mad at me and my teacher's response was, "Well he was curious about whether legs break when they are hit with lead pipes and we didn't want to limit him. Besides, what are you whining about? Modern medicine will have you right as rain in no time at all," I would think that the teacher was insane.

Telling a child that they are not allowed to hurt other or put them in harms way is a proper and moral limit on creativity that every teacher should be enforcing. We don't allow scientists to slip untested medicine on an unknowing public "to see what will happen," because that's what morality and responsibility demands.

Hogwarts teachers are pretty amazing when you think of it. It worries me to be in a small enclosed spaces with a couple dozen Muggle offspring; ramp up the abilities without full understanding of the damage possible - and - wow.

True. I think some of the issues in the wizard world stem from the fact that relatively young people have huge amounts of power. But that seems to me to show that the teachers should be more careful of their students, not less.

[kelleypen]

I think Dumbledore tried to make sure the most sensitive subjects were taught by the most competent teachers--herbology, charms, transfiguration . . . but Snape, while a knowledgeable man, is a teacher in the old European private school sense of mocking, belittling, and challenging, until the student either caves in and gives up, or learns to stand up for himself. I knew a music teacher at Snow--he was Romanian--and he taught just like Snape. He explained that that was the way all teachers taught where he came from. He didn't last long at Snow. I think Dumbledore would have liked to have a most competent teacher at DADA, but no such luck except the year with Lupin. Why he continued to allow History of Magic to be a waste of time with a ghost for a teacher, or Hagrid's Care of Magical Creature classes, or Trelawney's Divination classes--I can only answer that he did not think those classes were to be taken seriously.

[birdg]

Well, Trelawney was to give him an excuse to protect her from Voldemort. I'm sure if he could, he would have tortured her for information about the entire prophecy. Hagrid as CoMC teacher was probably a bit like the DADA situation, minus the curse. The last teacher didn't leave in good shape, after all.

Binns, however, is a mystery. You think History of Magic would be a more important subject, what with a looming war and all. But perhaps Dumbledore never heard the Muggle saying, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it."

[queenie]

May 13, 2009 8:48:15 GMT -5 birdg said:

Binns, however, is a mystery. You think History of Magic would be a more important subject, what with a looming war and all. But perhaps Dumbledore never heard the Muggle saying, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it."

A cynical thought - because any teacher with a better grasp on more recent history might let it slip that Grindelwald and Dumbledore were friends in their youth, and Dumbledore can't have that bandied around the school, now can he?

That's the very cynical part of me. More likely, my thought is... we know there's a Spirit Division of the Ministry of Magic, they were referred to in Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. They confined Myrtle to the school bathroom rather than torment Olive Hornby. Possibly such an organization ruled that Dumbledore cannot limit the right of the ghost to do what he does. If ghosts have unfinished business, than obviously Binns' business is to teach, and Dumbledore has no right to limit that, according to the Spirit Division.
Unfortunately the Spirit Division never thought about what was best for the students of magical history.
But it does make sense, especially in view of the very bureaucratic ways of the rest of the WW.

As for Divination, Dumbledore probably thinks similarly to McGonagall, that it's -- well, not hogwash, but not something you can teach, either. You either have the Sight or you don't. Why teach it? It's always been on the curriculum. Notice he got a teacher with some actual insight into Divination and the futility of trying to predict the future as soon as he could - and that teacher wasn't even human!

[Rugi]

May 13, 2009 16:33:51 GMT -5 queenie said:

A cynical thought - because any teacher with a better grasp on more recent history might let it slip that Grindelwald and Dumbledore were friends in their youth, and Dumbledore can't have that bandied around the school, now can he?

Oh dear, queenie, I had the exact same cynical thought! Dumbledore did so love to be admired...

Your theory on the Spirit Division is clever, it sounds like a nice explanation.

As for Divination, Dumbledore probably thinks similarly to McGonagall, that it's -- well, not hogwash, but not something you can teach, either. You either have the Sight or you don't. Why teach it? It's always been on the curriculum. Notice he got a teacher with some actual insight into Divination and the futility of trying to predict the future as soon as he could - and that teacher wasn't even human!

I agree with this, though it doesn't make a lot of sense to me (it seems almost Flint-y though not quite). Why do the wizards bother to have an OWL and NEWT level subject that is hogwash? It seems like people would have gotten wise to it by the time Harry was studying it.

[vegablack]

I love your idea about the Spirit Division Queenie.

[dancingpony]

Binns, however, is a mystery. You think History of Magic would be a more important subject, what with a looming war and all. But perhaps Dumbledore never heard the Muggle saying, "He who does not learn from history is doomed to repeat it."

I didn't get the impression that Binns was a better teacher before he died than after, and he apparently had been teaching History of Magic for a very long time, so no one apparently felt history was very important.

I love the idea of the Spirit Division decreeing that Binns had to be allowed to stay in his post.

[doriscrockford]

Regarding the number of students at Hogwarts: the most data we have is for Harry's year, and Harry and his cohorts were born in the middle of a war, which might explain a lower birthrate. The classes above and more likely below (remember the Baby Boomers after the Second World War) could easily be larger. Since there are the variables of muggleborns and squibs in this community, as well as it being a magical community and therefore not necessarily following our laws of probability (since they are easily able to get around the laws of gravity and whatever the laws that would prevent turning a human being into a ferret are) we don't really know how many students are in the school. If JKR says 1000, sure why not? It's her world; we just live in it.

As for the teachers, I think a lot of their lacakadaisical attitude can be explained by necessitites of the plot. I know, not a very fun or shiny answer, but it is why JKR set it in a boarding school and not a day school. But if you want a more interesting answer, we now know that Dumbledore and Snape had quite a few extracurricular activities going on (find the horcruxes, interview everyone who knew Tom Riddle, double agenting, etc) and McGonagall had Order things to do from Year 5 onward, so maybe the other teachers had outside lives, too. In the later generation Neville is married and so probably doesn't live at the school, so maybe the other teachers commuted too, and were called back whenever the trauma of the year occurred.

And also, the Wizarding World seems to exist in an era that has passed for our world: quills, radio rather television, even the titles used (when was the last time you called anyone Madam So-and-So?) and children were allowed a lot more freedom in the past. It didn't surprise me that the teachers were so absent in these books; it was what I'd come to expect from boarding school literature and what I remember from when I was growing up: my teachers never knew what we were up to outside of class.

[Rugi]

May 20, 2009 4:45:52 GMT -5 doriscrockford said:

Regarding the number of students at Hogwarts: the most data we have is for Harry's year, and Harry and his cohorts were born in the middle of a war, which might explain a lower birthrate. The classes above and more likely below (remember the Baby Boomers after the Second World War) could easily be larger. Since there are the variables of muggleborns and squibs in this community, as well as it being a magical community and therefore not necessarily following our laws of probability (since they are easily able to get around the laws of gravity and whatever the laws that would prevent turning a human being into a ferret are) we don't really know how many students are in the school. If JKR says 1000, sure why not? It's her world; we just live in it.

I'd agree that there probably was some baby-boom after the war (though in a population as small as the magical world, I don't know that it would be too big). I do have some vague memory of JKR retracting her 1000 count number, though - does anyone else? Which makes sense to me, because, if you assume, say, 50 kids in Harry's class, the other classes would have to have like 5 times as many students to bring the number up to 1000 - that's a bit more of a "boom" than I'm willing to accept. Though maybe it does make sense - when the threat is as personal as it was during the first war, maybe there was a drastic drop off in births that corrected itself once the war was "over."

As for the teachers, I think a lot of their lacakadaisical attitude can be explained by necessitites of the plot. I know, not a very fun or shiny answer, but it is why JKR set it in a boarding school and not a day school.

I'd agree, but that author still has to live with the choice she's made there. And I think that the consequences of that choice would be that the teachers appear to be terribly irresponsible and neglectful teachers and pretty irresponsible adults.

But if you want a more interesting answer, we now know that Dumbledore and Snape had quite a few extracurricular activities going on (find the horcruxes, interview everyone who knew Tom Riddle, double agenting, etc) and McGonagall had Order things to do from Year 5 onward, so maybe the other teachers had outside lives, too. In the later generation Neville is married and so probably doesn't live at the school, so maybe the other teachers commuted too, and were called back whenever the trauma of the year occurred.

But that doesn't really answer the root problem. A school that doesn't maintain sufficient on-site staff to assure the security of the students is a bad, unsafe, under-staffed school.

And also, the Wizarding World seems to exist in an era that has passed for our world: quills, radio rather television, even the titles used (when was the last time you called anyone Madam So-and-So?) and children were allowed a lot more freedom in the past. It didn't surprise me that the teachers were so absent in these books; it was what I'd come to expect from boarding school literature and what I remember from when I was growing up: my teachers never knew what we were up to outside of class.

Well I guess that's really the answer we must come to. Hogwarts (and the magical world in general) holds to more antiquated standards of safety, education, morality, personal responsibility, etc. And frankly, I think one of the failures of the earlier war generation was it's failure to face how their society and system actively encouraged people like Voldemort to take over - it's really why LV was able to come back. I do like that it appears like Harry's generation is learning and making some sort of progress.