Re: Hogwarts Cirriculum?

In article <134aj3p4brous64@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, Richard Eney says...

In article <FS71i.48511$n_.23596@attbi_s21>,
Clell Harmon <c.harmon@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Joe Curwen wrote:
In article <do31i.48188$n_.40400@attbi_s21>, Clell Harmon says...
<<SNIP>>
Come on, math isn't hard, unless people make it so. One of my life
long gripes about the state of education in this country boils down to
this, Mathies are required to know, understand, and USE basic English
grammar or be thought of as morons.

I dunno. Einstein had an English vocabulary of only 200 words or so. ;)

and his grammar was impeccable...

He wrote several books in English. I think they had more than 200 words
in them.

My source is a review of a recently-published Einstein biography by Jurgen
Neffe. Here is a link to it:

http://www.signonsandiego.com/uniontrib/20070506/news_1v06einstein.html

Here is a quote from the article:

"(Even after many years in America, Einstein never really learned to speak
English. His adopted vocabulary reportedly consisted of only a few hundred
words. He preferred to speak German, and only hired assistants who could.)"

I've read further that a great deal of the time Einstein simply couldn't be
understood by English speakers. I imagine the great benefit of this was he
wasn't constantly mobbed by reporters asking for the reaction of the smartest
man on earth for every event that took place during his time at Princeton.


To me, all of this misses the point of a Hogwarts education. Wizards
couldn't care less about "muggle" academics.

Wizards, I agree. What of the Parents of the normal borns? ('Muggle'
seems so, I don't know 3rd grade). Can you really imagine parents who
produced someone like Hermione buying into this program?

Consider the metaphorical equivalent of a pair of highly trained scientists
with a child who is musically talented and is given a scholarship to music
academy. Yes, the academy will teach other subjects, but most of the hours
of the day will be spent on music, one way or another (theory, composition,
history, listening, and of course practice and performance). The stereotypical
scientists will be unfamiliar with the details but loyally alloy their child
to pursue her studies to make the best use of her talent, which they don't
understand. If the music theory doesn't include math beyond describing the
proportions of musical intervals, they just assume the child won't need
more than that.

Yes, this is the way I think people like Hermione's parents must think of it.



Besides, if Hermione decides magic isn't for her, she can still go to
dental school after Hogwarts. ;-)

Hogwarts is geared to provide a practical education with the goal
being a happy self-sufficiency. The higher level "theoretical" stuff
seems to be in the curriculum as a gate to limit the numbers of
applicants to the Ministry, which seems to be the biggest employer.

And other than shop keeper, Only employer. Are there other employers?

There's the bank, and the Knight Bus.


Note that most Ministry jobs are silly but safe make-work jobs - the
wizarding public doesn't need much government or government services
of any kind.

I'm not so sure of that. Given the number of scuzzy wizards hanging
around Nocturne Alley, and the apparently thriving market in Dark Magic
gadgets, in a population of apparently only about 3,000 adults for the
entire UK, I think the wizard public needs more Aurors.

They might need more, but they don't have more and don't seem very keen on
getting more, even in a time of war. The general attitude of their society is
that people should take care of themselves. Depending on your point of view,
Rowling's world is either a libertarian utopia a liberal dystopia.





The only purely academic subject we've been shown is History of Magic,
and it is shown to be worthless and a joke.

I would suggest that the instructor is the worthless joke. Anyone
who could take a subject like history and make it boring...

It's going to be important, I think. Binns gave them significant information
about the Chamber, and they've had to study goblin rebellions in every book.
Harry has friends in almost every group that has been mentioned - except the
goblins. He does have a part-Veela friend and a Weasley friend who work for
them, but unless Griphook decides he's going to help Harry, they're still
holdouts against the "everybody loves Harry" spell.


I'd be surprised by this: there isn't any time left for a big goblin subplot is
there? Although it might turn out that the goblins save the day the way the Ents
did in TTT if Hogwarts is under attack. But to me, this wouldn't change the
basic anti-intellectual attitude of the books.

--
Joe

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