W2 Was Here

Showing posts tagged harry potter

Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Poet

“Nam Sibyllam quidem Hogwarti ego ipse oculis meis
vidi in turrem pendere, et cum illi pueri dicerent:
Σιβυλλα τι θελεις; respondebat illa: Θελω ενα ποτο.”

For Albus Dumbledore
il miglior mago

Sometimes I forget I did this.

Okay, Severus Snape is a shitty, shitty teacher. He’s physically and verbally abusive, he belittles his students, he undermines his colleagues’ authority, and to top it all off, his students have to learn things in spite of, not because of, him. If you are both a teacher and a relatively normal thirteen-year-old’s worst fear in the entire world, probably the best thing I can say about you is that your pedagogy is reprehensible. In fact, the only thing that makes me like him as a teacher is this bit from the third movie. He’s furious at those children, he’s been humiliated, he’s nursing old wounds — and yet the first thing he does when faced with danger is toss himself between them and it. He doesn’t even think about it; he just moves. Because when you are a teacher, no matter how shitty, that is what you do.

Okay, Severus Snape is a shitty, shitty teacher. He’s physically and verbally abusive, he belittles his students, he undermines his colleagues’ authority, and to top it all off, his students have to learn things in spite of, not because of, him. If you are both a teacher and a relatively normal thirteen-year-old’s worst fear in the entire world, probably the best thing I can say about you is that your pedagogy is reprehensible.

In fact, the only thing that makes me like him as a teacher is this bit from the third movie. He’s furious at those children, he’s been humiliated, he’s nursing old wounds — and yet the first thing he does when faced with danger is toss himself between them and it. He doesn’t even think about it; he just moves.

Because when you are a teacher, no matter how shitty, that is what you do.