By Bobby Neal Winters
I wanted to write on a Halloween appropriate subject. I thought about making something up about monsters in the steam tunnels on campus, but then I thought: Harry Potter!
I’ve been re-reading the Harry Potter Books (by J. K. Rowling) over the past few weeks. I say “re-reading,” but the truth is that I get the audiobook version of them and listen to them while I walk. These books have been out for a while and as a product of the genius of the human animal to make money, there are now several versions available. I am listening to the full cast version that has special effects.
I have to say the special effects do add to the experience, but that is not what I want to talk about.
These books came out over twenty years ago. I say over twenty years ago so as not to say almost thirty. It went fast. At one moment I was standing at the stove making breakfast for supper while my wife sat on the floor reading the book to the whole family at once because we couldn’t wait long enough to take turns with it.
That was the power of the books at the time. My wife and I as adults in our forties enjoyed them at least as much as our children.
Now, as I write this, I turn 64 on Wednesday. My oldest children are nearing the age I was when first exposed to the books. This raises a question: How do they hold up?
The short answer is very well.
Let me now roll into a longer version of the answer.
The main formative experience I’ve had since my first exposure to Harry Potter is spending some time in educational administration. Before that I was a teacher and knew about my own approach to teaching and interactions with students, but because of that experience, I’ve seen a number of other approaches more closely than I would have otherwise.
Because of that I will say this. I think J. K. Rowling’s insight into the different types of teachers is amazing.
Every teacher is, of course, an individual. Rowling has picked some common tendencies and magnified them into archetypes. These come in good and bad. I will talk about Severus Snape, Rubeus Hagrid, Remus Lupin, Sybill Trelawny, Minerva McGonagall, and Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody.
In talking about Severus Snape, we will first say that he is brilliant. He has the potential to be a very, very good teacher. But Professor Snape is wounded. He carries the battles of the past with him and won’t let it go. Among other things, this leads him to pass on the grudge he had for Harry’s father to Harry. He seeks to elevate himself by pushing his students down which is why he ignores Hermione. (At this last part, yes, we’ve had to deal with students who would dominate the class to the exclusion of everyone else, but there are ways of doing this that are not abusive.)
Rubeus Hagrid also knows his subject, the Care of Magical Creatures, quite well. He has a much better attitude toward the students. His problem is that, as his passion is so strong, he has trouble recognizing that not everyone is as enthusiastic about the subject as nor as strong as he is.
Remus Lupin [see Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban] is one of the best teachers that we meet in the books. He does a lot of hands-on activities and matches these appropriately to the needs of his students. He does have a downside: He’s a werewolf. I would put him in the category of being an excellent teacher while being a recurring case of heartburn for HR/administration. On the whole, administration would rather get heartburn from a good teacher than a bad one.
Then there is Professor Trelawney. Some of her students simply adore her. Some. Tellingly, the good students don’t. She is so bad, she doesn’t know how bad she is, but her subject is so “fuzzy” that she can’t do any harm regardless of how bad a teacher she is.
On the other end of the scale is Minerva McGonagall. I think that Rowling presents her as an ideal to be striven for. McGonigal has good boundaries with the students. She’s not carrying any unworked-out psychological baggage. She supports the students and her fellow teachers in appropriate ways. (She is a much more strongly-written character in the books than in the movies, though she’s still Maggie Smith in my head.)
The last teacher I would like to point out is Mad-Eye Moody. For those who’ve gotten this far but have read the books, let me warn you that there are spoilers ahead.
“Mad-Eye Moody”[see Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire] is actually an escaped psychopath who is impersonating a new member of the faculty. That having been said, he’s one of the best teachers portrayed. Why is he such a good teacher? The man impersonating Moody is a practitioner of dark magic. As Professor of “Defense against the Dark Arts,” he knows his subject very well to begin with. Surprisingly, he gives the appearance of caring about the students and taking special interest in them. The students learn a lot from him.
This is because he put on the job as a role. He has an image of what a good teacher should be and because he doesn’t want to get caught, he acts out that role.
I mention him as an important example because this is something that can be imitated by others in the teaching profession: Take on the Role of a teacher. I mention this, in particular, to teachers in universities who know their subjects, coming to the university right out of graduate school, bursting with knowledge. They know their stuff but, as teachers, are…not quite there yet. Putting on the role and acting the part is a way to fake it until you make it.
Happy Halloween.
Bobby Winters grew up near Harden City, Oklahoma. He teaches mathematics and computer science, does woodworking, and blogs at okieinexile.com. He invites you to visit the blog and to subscribe
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