Harry Potter and the Amulet of Lax Educational Standards (spoilers through book 6)

Cafe Society
21

I always had the vague impression that children in wizarding families were taught at home, but not so much like what we think of homeschooling. More like in those older English novels where the schooling is done at home by a nurse or a governess, and seems a bit lax, and then all of a sudden the boy gets shipped off to boarding school. Of course I can’t think of an example now … okay, <i>The Fortsyte Saga</i>, or <i>Love in a Cold Climate</i>. Anyway, I bet families like Neville’s or Draco’s had household staff, not menial workers because that’s up to the house elves, but skilled workers, like a social secretary, governess, etc. The Weasley’s wouldn’t have, of course, not having the money, so they would have managed without.

Yes, I realize that governesses have never been mentioned in the series, but that’s my impression because the books draw so much from the tradition of English boarding school stories.

Back to the this Muggle thing – one thing I have <i>never</i> understood is how so many of the wizards are so clueless about Muggles. <i>Plenty</i> of characters have Muggle in the family, not just Hermione, so surely they visit their muggle grandparents, have muggle cousins, etc etc. At one point in one of the earlier books, I think Ron even says that completely pure wizarding families are somewhat rare, because there simply aren’t that many of them, and eventually some Muggle blood comes in somewhre. JKR seems to have veered away from this in the later books. If Harry’s parents had lived, every indication is that Lily’s parents were proud of her being a witch, and I imagine that Harry would have had a relationship with them, holiday visits and all that.

22

You know, I get the impression that they don’t (especially because it’s simply not mentioned that language classes are offered), but this is very much idle speculation on my part. If you read pg. 238-9 of the American edition of HBP, when Harry finds/uses the Levicorpus spell, he seems to be casting it quite blindly, with no inkling whatsoever as to what it might do–and of course that’s relatively easy to figure out if you have even a rudimentary knowledge of Latin.

As xtisme said, I’d wager that you need it to get high-level jobs. Any bets as to whether Stan Shunpike is or is not a Hogwarts graduate?

23

That’s the second time I’ve heard someone say that, but I was under the impression that he did leave Hogwarts for a few years. After being expelled, he bummed around Europe for a few years, then (probably when society became more conservative and a scruffy-looking half-giant had a much harder time passing) came back and pleaded his case with Dumbledore, who made him groundskeeper.

Not sure where I got that idea; maybe from CoS.

24

Exactly. There seems to be no provision at all for learning of a purely academic nature, except perhaps Astronomy and Arithmancy. It strikes me as strange that there doesn’t seem to be some sort of effort to teach every young wizard and witch some famous literature, for instance.

Rowling’s stated that there are around 1,000 students, but there are actually only eight Gryffindors in Harry’s year: Harry, Ron, Neville, Seamus, Dean, Hermione, Parvati, and Lavender. (Well, we haven’t seen any others named. Wikipedia doesn’t list any besides those.) Perhaps there were just particularly few Gryffindors in Harry’s year, but it does seem like a bit of an oversight. Rowling doesn’t always sweat the details.

It just strikes me as inconsistent that some wizards dress so outlandishly when in Muggle society, while evidence suggests that when they’re not wearing robes, they generally don’t dress all that differently. Perhaps informality is more common among younger wizards, though - maybe robes were worn for every occasion back in their grandparents’ day.

Except we’ve seen their course schedules. We know what classes, at least, they’re taking. And there’s never once been a mention of a basic literature class, or of foreign languages - subjects that are pretty normal for high school students.

Uh, couldn’t you tell from the OP that this was picking over little details? If you don’t like that, you’re welcome to not read the thread.

:confused: Well, of course not. I didn’t say that they would.

Yeah, I mentioned that. I just thought it was peculiar that the wizarding community, which is pretty tiny, could possibly remain so insular that historical events in Muggle society wouldn’t be relevant.

Interesting. I guess I’m not familiar with the genre in question. I suppose that’s what it must be, although I hate to imagine poor Mrs. Weasley trying to teach Fred and George to read and write.

25

Why should they be? Their world does not seem to include such a focus. We DO know that some of our culture is similiar–they also have a tabloid newspaper, and Molly gets as twitty about Lockehart as any Muggle over Brad Pitt (this muggle, excepted-think he’s icky). WE may value Great Literature, but I am not sure that the wizarding world does or should. They do seem to elevate their great wizards–perhaps they just don’t emphasize written cultural expression. Maybe greatness comes in refining magic in some way. Or discovering it–Voldy says as much in book 6 (memory of AD’s)…something about “I’ve pushed the bopundaries of magic”.

I think I always assumed that there were more RAvenclaws and Hufflepuffs than mentioned–I also think that JKR refers to Gryffindor sorting those 8 or so kids, but makes reference to others. Not every student in HP’s year is mentioned–this allows JKR to introduce new characters (like Luna) every so often. I think she mentions something about (during the first sorting) …“and on down the list, until the final child was chosen for G House” IMS!

Taken a look at Japan lately? They can’t help but be aware of our culture, yet the kids play with fashion and clothes and put them together in odd ways(odd to us, that is).
Take a look at Molly’s outfits–she dresses quite eccentricaly (sp?)-especially in the third film–is she wearing an afghan? The extras in Diagon Alley aren’t wearing robes for the most part-but they all look like something out of Bleak House ala Tim Burton. I doubt highly that the older folks could understand the sublties of our fashion world (sexy vs skanky, to use one example)–clothes just aren’t a focus. Also, it is a touch of humor.

But these are not Muggle “normal” HS students. These are wizards-apparently there is no James Joyce equivalent in their world (and thank Og, I say!). Maybe an advanced class for all Parseltongues (heh)…

But all societies are insular to some extent. Most are focused on their needs and concerns–the wizards don’t want a melding–they seem to almost fear it. And with good reason, look to the witch burnings etc in the past from the Muggle world. They know that not all Muggles are bad or prejudiced, but they also know that Muggles are paranoid and primitive in their acceptance of the occult. Frankly, I can’t see why a Presidential assasination or a sex scandal in Parliment or even a hurricane would matter to them. Why should it? I would like the series a whole lot less if JKR dragged in 9/11 or whatever. Escapist fiction is escapist for a reason!

Other books with governesses in them are The Wolves of Willoughby Chase by Joan Aiken, the two by Frances Hodgson Burnett–there are alot out there. Governesses or tutors were very popular through say Regency England up until WW1.

26

I’m about a third of the way through HP6, and (especially in Chapter 1) I think there’s indirect reference to the sort of terrorist scares that were are going through these days. He-who-must-not-be-named and the Death Eaters seem to be making a good job of imitating cetain terrorist organisations in our Muggle world, and bringing in the Muggle Prime Minister in HP6 seems to me to emphasise this parallel. But of course there’s no specific reference to 9/11, or to IRA bombings: why should there be?

27

I think the real reason for the lack of normal classes is very mundane: children don’t want to read about Harry learning algebra and biology. The first book is very much a children’s book, and she’s been forced to conform to the world rules she set up in that book (which explains why Quidditch is the way it is, among other things). I think it’s only since book three that she stopped writing children’s books and started writing adult books in which children are the heroes.

28

What no one realizes is that the Hogwart’s Express is enchanted. Every freshman student that climbs on board is magically zapped with basic education fundamentals of reading, writing, math, history, Greek, Latin, etc. Since most of that is rote learning, it’s easy to do. But they can’t zap them with fundamentals of magic, since that requires the mental conditioning that accompanies the training.

:smiley:

29

She found out from her letter from Hogwarts when she turned 11. She mentions it in passing on the train in the first book.

30

I always figured the reason there are so few kids in Harry’s year is that there weren’t a lot of people wanting to have children while Voldemort was still in power, and that maybe the wizarding population was diminished considerably during his campaign of terror. There may be significantly more children entering Hogwarts during Harry’s later years there than before.

31

Maybe she started having an uncontrollable urge to drink coffee.

32

<gives asterion a high five>

I still think the most reasonable place for an American magic school is Hollywood.

33

In Order of the Phoenix, at one point a Ravenclaw in the DA asks Hermione that very question and she said that the Sorting Hat DID consider placing her in Ravenclaw.

34

I have found a BA in philosophy to be most useful thank you very much.

In particular Logic 107 has saved me from more than one unneccesary argument.

Philosophy is a degree that requires 4 years actually spent learning how to think.

We need a little more of that these days, not less.

I studied philosophy because its focus on reasoning, analysis and writing, make it the traditional background for law school. Fortunately, it gave me the reasoning skills to avoid such a dire fate before I had immersed myself in $100k in student loans (my LSAT scores were good enough to get me in just about anywhere thank you, I was 20 when I graduated, helped in no small part by the edge my coursework gave me in my first year, but I decided to spend a year working for a law firm to see if I liked it and get older and viola! I saved myself a lifetime of misery!)

If not for my philosophy degree, I would never have been able to reason out the answer to a question that I was not supposed to be able to answer in a job interview that led to my entire carreer.

If not for my degree in philosophy, my ability to understand exactly why the arguments of idiots were idiotic and make that clear without makeing them so angry that I got canned. It also helped me save the arguments of those who were correct but were not able to put their arguments together correctly.

God save us from those who think a degree in philosophy is about whether or not things exist. It is about the whole history of thought from the beginning of human thought until today, including those thoughts that made all of modern science possible.

We just don’t see that because most people don’t know that history, or how close we came to not having it (Kant) or the freedoms of our American form of government (Locke) (yes, both citations are gross oversimplifications, but consider the comment that I am responding to.)

As for communtications, Walter Cronkite and Katie Couric have to come from somewhere, as do the technicians, that keep them on the air.

Now that I have vented.

The need for wizards in the muggle world is self-sustaining. As indicated in the first scene in book 6. As long as there are wizards in the muggle world, wizards are needed to protect muggles from them. As soon as wizards are gone, they are no longer needed in actuality.

However, it is clear from the sales of Ms. Rowling’s book, that in the real muggle world, there appears to be a very real need for wizards in this muggle world, at least in our imaginations. Real enough for Ms. Rowling to now be worth over $1 B, more than the Queen of England. If that isn’t magic, I don’t know what is…

My apologies to all those others who had to see my rant on philosophy. But really, an attack on the study in a Harry Potter thread? The next thing you know someone will say that studying Latin is useless! :cool:

35

An attack on the study…

of philosophy…

36

I like the idea of New Orleans, or somewhere in the area, perhaps outside a smaller town such as Thibodeaux, because the school cannot actually be in a real city.

The only problem is that I sort of imagine the country having snow.

For me to have the isolation you need that might mean Wisconsin, Michigan, Maine (though the snow in Maine might be too long and too deep).

Having it near one of the Great Lakes would be fun but too hard to explain.

Hidden in an unplottable part of the redwood forest might also be a great locale.

37

Wizards seem to make up less than one-quarter of one percent of the population. 1000 kids at Hogwarts covering 7 years of education (but I assume that half of the 5th years don’t come back for 6th and 7th). Assuming Wizards all live to be 80 years old and never die of things before that, we’ve got 13,000 in the UK. If we include all of Ireland, the numbers thin even more.

Although Rowling talks about Wizards living longer than “normal people,” she’s never actually shown this in the books. In fact, aside from a few seemingly very old people, every time she actually puts dates down they’re quite normal as far as lifespan goes. And I’m excluding those who were murdered or had some hideous accident.

And consider that Dumbledore is mentioned as having defeated killed a powerful Dark Wizard with a sucupiciously Germanic name at the height of World War II. I don’t think that is a coinky-dink.

And that level of population is not sufficient to maintain a seperate culture. I don’t care what Rowling says, the constant influx of Muggle-born students and those with Muggle parents means that within a few decades there will be no more confusion on the part of any Wizard about anything in the “Muggle world.” And in any case, the Wizards are so spread out, Appartion not withstanding, that they can’t posibly deal with each other more than with Muggles.

They do have a magic item that finds all wizards in the country unerringly and writes their names and addresses.

38

My personal theory is that we are only viewing the upper stratum of wizard society. Like in the victorian era, the upper class was rigidly seperated from the working class and incredibly insular. It was considered impolite to even acknowledge the existance of a lower caste and people sort of lived in a polite fiction where things were just assumed to be that way.

This would make the entire situation make a lot more sense. People like Stan Shunpike as well as most people riding on the night bus would belong firmly in the lower class and probably never went to hogwarts. Instead, they attended some sort of local wizard primary school to gain a rudimentary education and then worked in menial jobs for the rest of their lives.

The reason everyone we encounter from Hogwarts is so incompetant in the muggle world is that, since there exists a lower class to do all this stuff for you, it is considered slightly scandulous to immerse yourself too deeply into the mechanics of muggle life. Interest in muggle culture and muggle artifacts like Mr Weasley’s is acceptable although eccentric. Kind of like how it was considered proper for a Victorian housewife to become interested in menu planning and housekeeping but scandulous for her to actually stand at a chopping board cutting onions. It becomes a point of pride at just how ignorant a wizard can be of the minutae of the muggle world because it emphasizes how many people under him he has to handle that sort of stuff.

In short, Harry Potter is a symbol of class subjugation and inequality highlighted through the affluent life of privledge of the upper class.

39

Thank you. Thank you very much.

Part of Rowling’s problem is that she is not a good world-builder. Now, if this series had stayed primarily a children’s series, this wouldn’t’ve been as much of a problem. Instead, she’s got many adults reading it, complete with a lot of criticism. (I wonder if she’s ever gotten the Harry Potter equivalent of “The Ringworld is unstable!” chanted at her.) She also wouldn’t have this problem if she didn’t layer in so many other things that it starts to feel that having a badly-built world is inexcusible. But instead questions start popping up. The math on Hogwarts. Why the interaction between the communities is so odd. (More time spent with Hermonie’s family and such would be informative.) What the global community is really like. If, as someone suggested, the total population in Britain is the size of a small town, why is there such a huge government and the like?

Then there are other questions. Like why they didn’t just kill the Death Eaters last time? After all, they’re murderers and terrorists (or is this one of them US/UK divides?) Why so little backstory on Harry’s parents. Rowling generally does not give the reader more information than Harry, but she has in the past, and why, as others have said, does Harry never really ask about his parents and extended family.

Maybe what Rowling really needs to do is to write the Harry Potter equivalent of the Similarion.

40

What seems strange to me about Ron and his family, is that they travel to London every year to put the kids on the train to school. Why don’t they know more about muggles? Don’t they walk out of the train station and look around?