One more Small Treasure Hunt to do

School Education Web Treasure Hunt

School Education

Read the article and answer the questions following it

July 08, 2009

Would you send your child to Hogwarts?

 Well, with the premiere of Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince, thisseems a topical question. It's alsoone which I'm guessing many Harry Potter readers will have asked themselves over the years.Your kids may love the idea of going (all that excitement, albeit with perhaps rather too much death and destruction), but I'm not convinced I'd send my children to Hogwarts (that's if they turned out to be talented muggles). Not only is it too dangerous, but what on earth would they learn there?!

In this essay by Steve Vander Ark, the consensus seems very much to be no, don't educate your children with Harry and co.After all, as he writes,the children really don't learn much, and the teachers do not treat their students well.He's right, isn't he? I don't recall much maths, foreign languages (although, of course they're no longer compulsory at secondary school in the real worldeither) or PHSE. Surely Hermione would love to read some English literature, whether a little bit of Forster (I think this would tickle her fancy) or something more challenging (the metaphysical poets?). Instead she's stuck with potion making, fighting off evil and learning magic. Hermione, Harry and friends also come up against so many truly terrible teachers (would Dolores Umbridge or Severus Snape be licensed to teach?)

English teacher and blogger extraordinaire Dana Huff has written a very detailed post on this very subject. In it she discusses the merits (or otherwise) of the main Hogwarts teachers, from Snape and McGonagall to Hagrid and Sybill Trelawney. Not many, other than Lupin (who makes the top fivein my list of the most inspring teachers in films), and of course, Professor Dumbledore, are very inspiring. Mind you, Ms Huff is perhaps not as much of a fan of Dumbledore as others might be.She writes:

 "We are never given an assessment of Dumbledore’s teaching skills, but based on his relationship with the students, he was probably fairly good. I do wonder at his skill in selecting some of his staff, but he seems, in all, to be a fairly good administrator. He is not always as supportive of his faculty as he could be, but often that’s because the faculty member in question is being unreasonable (Snape, most of the time)."

What do you think? Is Hogwarts an appealing educational establishment? Maybe I'd have a different view if I was currently at school, but for the moment at least, I'm glad that my daughter is learning to spell (beautifully and noisily are on her latest list) rather than learn spells....

Related links:

The 25 best boarding school books

Dolores Umbridge makes number one - in the 15 worst teachers in the movies

The 15 most inspiring teachers in films

Which film adaptation of a book is your favourite?

Questions

What is the author’s attitude to education at Hogwarts?

Explain the expression “to give smb. considerable leeway” that Steve Vander Ark (essay by Steve Vander Ark) uses while giving the account of teaching and the curriculum at Hogwarts. http://dictionary.reference.com/ How does he describe the Hogwarts teachers’ treatment of students?

Is learning foreign languages compulsory at secondary school in Britain?

What is PHSE? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Main_Page

Listen to the interview with Dana Huff and answer the questions:

 1) What kind of school is Hogwarts?

2) Do the children at Hogwarts miss their parents?

3) Do the children at Hogwarts learn English and Maths?

4) Do they do exams at Hogwarts?

5) How long do they study at Hogwarts?

6) Do they go to University after Hogwarts?

7) How would Dana feel about sending her child to Hogwarts?