A thought on Hagrid's teaching (developed from HoIF list)

[azurelunatic]

There's only so much a teacher can do to keep students safe when the student doesn't obey the teacher's instructions, instructions that must be followed in order to stay safe. Imagine if Malfoy showed the same level of disregard for Snape's instructions in Potions class that he does for Hagrid's instructions. Chaos! Disorder! Explosions!

However, if a student were to show the same level of flagrant disregard for safety instructions in a class of Snape's, Snape would have the student out on their ear before they could say "Mandrake," because Snape is used to maintaining authority in a potentially dangerous class. Hagrid is not used to maintaining authority with students, which is what's needed when working with dangerous creatures. I would say that Hagrid's an incompetent teacher because he cannot maintain authority with little snots like Draco, and especially because he did not follow up Draco's disregard for safety instructions by booting him from the class with a scathing letter to the parents.

Imagine if Draco had pulled a similar stunt in Snape's class, or even McGonagall's.

"Due to your spawn's inability to follow elementary instructions, he has been removed from my class. Draco's incompetence and utter inability to follow orders renders him extremely likely to kill himself and/or his fellow students. This behavior is unacceptable, and must be corrected if he is to remain at Hogwarts. He has been removed from this class and placed with the first-years. He may apply to attempt this course again in one year's time, assuming he has learned to act at least half his age."

A goodly portion of teaching children is crowd control and discipline. When a student steps out of line in that drastic a fashion, even if you've done all you can do to prevent it, you have to follow up and make sure that the student, the student's parents, the administration, and all other concerned parties know that the student disobeyed clear instructions, and the student's willful disobedience of instructions is why the student was injured. You don't plead the case of the poor misunderstood animal, you acknowledge that the animal is dangerous and the student was given clear instructions to remain safe, and the student is at fault for knowingly aggravating a dangerous animal.

Comments

[ataniell93.livejournal.com]

hey, don't be blaming my list for anything pro-Hagrid? ;p

Snape or McGonagall or Lupin are competent teachers and wouldn't BE so easily disregarded :D

[azurelunatic]

Yep. Since Hagrid can't do the crowd control thing, he's not a competent teacher for adolescents as things stand now. End of story.

There's a chance he could be trained to be competent, however, though his personality makes that extremely unlikely.

As I recall, this was in the discussion of how Lucius Malfoy was the only one complaining about Hagrid quite so loudly because he was the only parent with an injured kid from Hagrid's class.

[elysianmusings.livejournal.com]

*sigh* I see that so much in life.

In HP, I have to agree. Hagrid isn't really a good teacher. He reminds me of a Band director of mine. Maybe I'll go into detail on that later. I've been asked by a friend to elaborate on why Snape doesn't intimidate me... even if I were to see him face to face straight out of JKR's books.

[azurelunatic]

...having read your digression...

Yes. He makes a great adult friend, but he loses the authority in doing so.

I hope I'm managing to be both friend and appropriate authority figure to the LF. My mother managed to do something of the like up through the teenage years.

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

Your analysis is okay as far as it goes. But it presupposes that Hagrid's safety precautions would have been adequate if they were followed. In fact, they weren't.

Harry wasn't hurt, near as I can tell, solely because He's The Hero. If, OTOH, Neville had been the first to approach Buckbeak, he probably would have been hurt just as badly as Draco--though admittedly for different reasons. Hagrid had NO backup plan in place to handle Situations--and in an inherently dangerous class, those backup plans are essential regardless of *why* a Situation might come to pass.

I note that Neville is a legendary screwup in both Potions and Transfigurations classes, and yet he seems to have avoided seriously injuring himself or anyone else. I have to conclude that McGonagall and Snape have figured out how to keep Situations from injuring students. (Much as it pains me to make a positive assessment of Snape's teaching style, I have no choice in this instance--the man does keep his students safe and healthy in the presence of poisonous/explosive mistakes.)

[azurelunatic]

What precautions would you think that Snape does have in place?

[tygerr.livejournal.com]

Not a clue. I'm not an obsessive trufan of HP--most of the later books I've only read (gasp) once.

I suspect that some are procedural (he provides much better instructions than Hagrid), some take the spell of preplaced magical wards (an explosion-damping field on the classroom frex, something which Hagrid isn't capable of doing), and some rely on Snape himself paying attention and stopping potentially hazardous situations *before* they get out of control. (ISTR more than one occasion when Snape stops someone from doing something lethal (drinking an incorrectly-mixed potion, adding an explosive ingredient, etc.) just before Something Bad would happen--even when the mistake was made twenty minutes earlier (but the student is just that moment doing something immediately dangerous). The man *pays attention*, and when necessary he acts. Hagrid doesn't pay adequate attention, really isn't aware of the hazards that his critters present to ordinary humans, and doesn't know what to do when things go pear-shaped.

I'm sure others are better prepared to talk about the details than I. I merely note that nobody gets seriously hurt in Snape's class--and it's not because Potions is an inherently nonhazardous class.

[azurelunatic]

I seem to recall him having certain other responsible students get ickiness-coated or otherwise dinged-up students up to the medical wing while he remains to keep an eye on class. I suspect he's got a list of the preferred students to perform this duty, a nice little mental list that has them listed in order of responsibility and ability to cope with boil-covered classmates freaking out (and still get their potions done when they return).

I'd also suspect him of having the magical equivalent of a fume hood in place, ready to turn on with a relatively short sequence. I bet he also breaks up any Actively Bad potions pairings if they happen -- I don't recall him ever pairing Crabbe or Goyle with Neville Longbottom, for example. Goyle and Crabbe are probably bad enough when they don't have someone hanging over their shoulder giving crystal-clear instructions anyway, not to mention how dreadful they'd surely be if they were trying to be malicious.