The 'Master-Apprentice'-Type Relationship

[alt_moderator]

Alternity dealt with themes of education - formal, informal, and via one-to-one tutelage. Which makes terrific sense when you're writing a story that encompasses the span of schooling for its young protagonists. But in Alternity, the scholarship relationships outside of the classroom offered opportunities for characters to work side by side - and often, secretly at cross-purposes.

Through the magic of my phenomenal alt-moderator powers, I have the pleasure of being able to introduce to this thread some very special guests. These individuals forged deep, close connections with each other in either actual or virtual master-apprentice relationships.

We invite you to ask any questions you may have - about their training, about their relationship, about their suspicions, about how their training prepared them for the fights they eventually fought, or lessons they learned that they would pass on - whatever you want to know! Time and space are immaterial here; the individuals who are participating are free to answer in whatever way they see fit, depending on what's called for in your questions.

Please welcome:

Antonin Dolohov
Justin Finch-Fletchley (Noble Arts)

Severus Snape
Hermione Granger (Potions)
and
Draco Malfoy (Occlumency)

Aurora Sinistra
Evelyn Longbottom (Astronomy)

Barty Crouch, Jr.
Hydra Lestrange (Death Eaterdom)

Savitha Desai
Ron Weasley (Auror training)

Poppy Pomfrey
Sally-Anne Perks (Healing Arts)

Comments

[stormyhearted]

For Antonin Dolohov: How did mentoring Justin compare to some of your other mentoring relationships, like Regulus and Barty?

[alt_crouch_jr]

Clearly there was no comparison.

[stormyhearted]

And on a related note- what was your proudest moment for you as a mentor, with each of your students? (Assuming you had one.)

[alt_antonin]

Finch-Fletchley was the most bloody frustrating student I've ever had.

Imagine, if you will, that you are a teacher of art, and in one of the introductory classes that you teach, you find a pupil with the raw talent and vision sufficient to someday approach the skill of Michaelangelo or DaVinci or ibn Yushua. When you recommend him for further study, he tells you that he comes from a culture morally opposed to art, and he is only taking your class because it is required of him -- but while he is actually in the process of putting brush to paper or chisel to stone, you can see in his eyes that there is a part of him that loses itself in the joy of the creation.

I suppose I ought not to have pushed. But despite what he would tell you, and despite what he dearly wished to believe of himself, there was a very large part of him that relished the work, and I have never been able to resist nurturing that gift.

Regulus was frustrating too, mostly because he never cared enough to apply himself to his studies. He was never incompetent, but he never quite cared enough. But I never regretted the time I spent with him, because whither Regulus went, Barty was not far behind -- and the moment I laid eyes on Barty, who had sacrificed a Hogsmeade afternoon to eavesdrop on one of the tutoring sessions Orion insisted I provide Regulus even throughout the Hogwarts year, I saw a hunger I knew I could not allow to go unanswered.

It always amused Barty to present himself as nothing more than a keen wand, but in truth, he had one of the finest minds I've ever encountered. He soaked up everything I had to teach him like it was water and he was a man dying of thirst. I'll always regret having left him behind when he-whose-name-I-will-not-ever-again-write sent me outside the wards as ambassador to the world outside; not only do I regret having lost so many years together, I have a feeling things would have turned out quite differently if I'd been there for him more often when he needed me in those intervening years.

[atheilen.livejournal.com]

For Antonin and Justin,

I wrote a long thing about the tragedy of how your relationship ended and why you were so convinced you should destroy each other, but I should probably confine myself to questions.

Antonin Nikolaevich, what was it that made you so adamant that Justin should be trained in the first place when he clearly didn't want to learn the Arts? What made you so convinced he was dangerous even when he said he wanted to put them aside, after the war?

Justin, after you revealed your true allegiance, you were adamant that you were playing Dolohov all along and there was no real respect or affection in your relationship. Was that really true? How do you think your relationship changed your ways of thinking, even when you might not have wanted it to?

Both of you, what was the deal with the book Justin baited Antonin with at the end of the game? Inquiring Ravenclaws want to know!

And, what would you both have done differently if you could change things?

[alt_justin]

Hullo, Aleithen,

I say, I don't think I quite put it as baldly as that. I don't recall saying that I never felt any respect or affection, what. Professor Dolohov makes it his business to be likable. Morover, his grasp of the concepts of his field is incontrovertible, what, though perhaps he put it to misguided use now and again. I admitted, even at the time, I had no choice but to feel some form of gratitude for imparting not only some portion of that knowledge, but a great deal of additional experience and training, without which I should not have been able to discharge my duties as an Auror, nor indeed, to withstand many of the assaults we faced at the Battle for Hogwarts and in many other places in those days.

However, as undeniable as Antonin's skills, depth of knowledge, generosity and personable qualities are, there are three important factors to bear in mind (and here he will undoubtedly object but nonetheless):

1. He is the sort of sociopath who likes expansively, but whose generosity is calculated to keep his new acquaintances returning for more and more, until they are ensnared, indebted, or otherwise blinded to his darker purposes; for

2. He is only willing or perhaps able to truly care about those he believes will be of use, what. Thus, his offers to 'help' students reach their goals are, in fact, ways of reaching his own;

3. However pleasant our interactions may have been at times, they were still predicated on false assumptions, which I, for my part, dared do nothing to dispel, and which he was equally adept at introducing in the interest of leading me down the path he desired me to follow. (I say, I shall be interested to hear his answer to your question about why he overruled my decision to withdraw from taking the N.E.W.T.!) You may also be forgetting that his 'field training', especially in my final year at Hogwarts, consisted of bringing me along to assist him in assassination, which may seem like a fun night out to some but, believe me, is jolly well not.

In short, for every act of kindness and every positive bit of encouragement he offered, I tried never to lose sight of the fact that hiding behind it was an expectation that one day, I would do something for him. Even if that something was simply to come into my own as someone he could claim to have trained.

Ask yourself whether you would find that an altogether satisfactory arrangement.

I shall allow him to explain the intricacies of De Rei Magiae--though I am also given to understand that the fine people here at Alternity have got several details about it in...oh, I say, something called a wookie? That can't be right, what.

Finally, what would I change? Well, I suppose I jolly well might have simply let him escape through Penzance, what! It happened in any case and if it had, we could perhaps have found him at a later time to answer for his acts. It was those acts I had in mind, though, when I went to Rachel. The idea that he might slip away and never be brought to account left far too sour a taste in my mouth. Or if I'd been a hair faster at the last moment, I might have at least finished him before Bellatrix ambushed me. I might say I would have tried harder to bring someone else along, what, only the delay might have cost us Rachel's life, instead or in addition to my own.

So, it's difficult to guess what actions might have led to a better outcome.

Cheers,

-F-F

[alt_antonin]

I answered some of your questions above, to some extent, but do allow me to elabourate. At perhaps more length than you might desire, but brevity has never been one of my virtues.

When Finch-Fletchley first appeared in my classes I saw an overly-mannered swot who was attempting to keep his head down and avoid notice. Several weeks into the term, however, we had worked through our discussion of "what are the 'Dark' Arts", and I was giving the children a chance to cast some of the magic they would be learning if they opted into the practical track of the class.

(For many reasons: I love my subject a great deal, but I will be the first to agree that it is not for everyone. I wanted the children to have the chance to see if they would be able to do the spellwork, and I wanted to be able to evaluate whether there were any I ought to discourage from the practical track until they were slightly less unformed and labile. The Arts originally ceased to be taught at Hogwarts at least in part because teenagers, with their stew of hormones and a thousand other things distracting them, are often susceptable to the imbalances the Arts can prompt if one is not exceedingly careful. (There is a reason I introduced meditation and self-examination within that first month; there is a reason the Conclave does not accept students under the age of twenty-two.) I knew that our practical classes would need to cover a great deal of material very quickly; I did not want to waste time on those who were not suited for the subject.)

At that point I was still being exceptionally careful with the little darlings -- Alecto Carrow had been a disastrously poor choice as teacher, and I knew I had to ease them into the true study of the subject slowly -- and so instead of asking them to curse each other, I asked them to curse me. (Also, of course, because who better to evaluate the casting of the curse than the one having the curse cast upon him?) (In retrospect, mind you, I ought to have remembered that I was no more than two months out from an injury that had nearly killed me, and would go on to almost do me in again later that year; that week was bloody exhausting. And I'm glad I've always made it a point to restrict the spells used in that exercise to things the target can undo himself rather than having to wait for it to be lifted, as several of the children panicked as soon as they realised they had just cursed a teacher and proceeded to flail about rather than lifting the curse.)

Finch-Fletchley was one of the last to cast, and the moment he did, his entire demeanour changed. The diffident, polite, retiring swot disappeared, and I was looking at someone who knew what power was, knew that he was able to use it, and would not hesitate to strike. Some champion duellists lose themselves in the heat of battle, and find strength in that berserker rage; some step sideways into a state where the conscious mind can be set aside, leaving only unconscious calculation and instinct. Finch-Fletchley was the latter, and his skill and his lack of hesitation intrigued me. The conversation we had later that day -- that was the week in which I was counselling the children as to whether they ought opt into the theoretical or practical track -- only cemented my belief that there was a natural practitioner hiding beneath that diffidence.

And I was both right and wrong. He took to it beautifully -- and again, no matter what he says, there was a part of him that found both the magic itself and the uses to which we put it immensely satisfying -- but what I did not realise, and what led to that conviction that he needed to be stopped, was that he did not adopt the accompanying habits of self-introspection.

I am fully aware many listeners will point at my actions in the summer after the Unmaker's death and call this the pot calling the kettle black, but I have never denied the Arts can be dangerous. Aside from the practical considerations of the potential for injury or long-term physical damage, there is a mindset it is all too easy to slip into: that because the practitioner can use the Arts, he should; that because a particular square peg is at hand, it ought to be forced into the round hole one is confronted with. Much of the meditation and introspection I teach alongside teaching the Arts is there to provide a grounding in the sort of skill that will allow you to examine the impulse that prompts you to choose that tool for the particular problem you are facing and question whether you are choosing the right tool for the job.

As it happens, I now have a collection of cautionary tales -- my own and others' -- with which to reinforce this lesson in my students.

The Noble Arts are many things -- beautiful, powerful, elegant, graceful -- but the one thing they must be, above all else, is mindful. I came to realise Finch-Fletchley had absorbed all my lessons save that one. And I had seen him in action far too many times by that point to believe he would be capable of ever setting those tools aside. He was a true believer in his cause, but he would not -- coud not -- allow himself to see that it is when you are most convinced that your behaviour is above reproach that you must hold yourself even more firmly to a ruthless self-honesty. Say what you will about me, and I am well aware what is said about me, I have always chosen my hypocrisies deliberately and consciously, knowing in advance that I am compromising my principles or bending one of those principles in service to another. I came to realise that he had not been doing the same -- and given the company he was keeping, that he lacked the tutelage of a more experienced practitioner who could stop him from overreaching himself. (I have often wondered how that summer would have been different had Severus Snape lived through the Battle of Hogwarts: the man was a fool, but he had been, once upon a time, a gifted enough practitioner that I can't help but wonder if he would have noticed the chasm Justin was walking across and been able to stop his teetering.)

De Rei Magie (the full title, of course, is a paragraph full of nested sub-clauses, but no-one ever bothers calling it anything but) is a collection of spells, rites, and rituals concerning itself with harnessing power, particularly during the points at which you are most in extremis, with a subset of spells revolving around controlling the mind and the will of your target. A quarter of the spells in there are nonsense; half of them are exceedingly difficult to control once you have begun them, cannot be stopped or deflected once you have started, and have a tendency to end very badly for the caster if his attention should waver in the slightest. If the caster is lucky, he will only kill himself; if the caster -- or rather, those around him -- is unlucky, the detonation can be more destructive than you can possibly imagine. (You may be familiar with an explosion that happened in Siberia, near the Tunguska river, in the early 20th century. You Muggles, I believe, thought it to be a meteor strike.)

I owned, and consulted, the book for the historical value and for the remaining quarter -- mostly added by the original author's son after he died partway through his research; the spell that was his demise is on page two hundred ninety one -- which was neither nonsense nor folly, but Justin did not stop to think that when one finds a book in the innermost library of a Master of the Noble Arts with which said Master has taken such precautions, it is likely not to prevent a random bystander from happening upon the book by chance: it is to protect himself and those around him from the book itself. Once you have read it, the chance you will want to use the damn thing when you are in a bad moment is great; when you are convinced that your cause is just and noble, and worth achieving by any possible means, it is greater. If I could not dissuade Justin from his fanaticism, and it was becoming clear to me by that point that I could not dissuade him from his fanaticism, I thought it best to remove myself from the potential blast radius, even if it meant leaving certain things undone. (I will always regret that I was not the one to kill Bellatrix; she had been last on my list, as I knew I was not likely to survive the attempt.)

As it happened, though, Юстинка and I got to fight our last duel anyway, and I found that despite realising how much of his danger I had created -- and realising that it was my obligation to correct my mistakes -- in the moment I could not bring myself to end it. To this day I am not sure why. Or rather, I have my theories, but I am not likely to share them. If Bella hadn't happened upon us ... well. I don't know what would have happened; we shall leave the matter there.

What would I do differently? So many things. But what-if never gets you anything but heartache.

[kiya]

I find myself now reminded of something that I had wondered about for some time, now:

Antonin, did you upon reflection and possibly rereading things in the past ever come upon the message where Justin said something to the effect of, "If I were a member of a subversive organisation the first thing I would do would be try to get one of them in as your clerk. Would you like me to be your clerk?"

[alt_sinistra]

For the others in the conversation, I admit I'm very curious about your comments about apprenticeships that went in unexpected directions. Tosha, Savitha, Barty: do you feel a sense of betrayal, or something else?

I've thought a lot, over time, about Raz and Harry, and the importance of an apprentice (or whatever we're calling it) being their own person, and making their own choices, even when that's sometimes awfully complicated.

(And then I think about the fact that it's my work that took down on of my own Master's biggest projects, for all I think she was rather hoping someone would.)

Or even the milder forms: part of me wishes that Evelyn had stayed much more on the magical side of our field, even while the rest of me is delighted to get letters from her explaining the Muggle science that she's learned in far more depth than I have, and also understands what attracts her there.

[alt_savitha]

Of course I feel betrayed, my dear. I was betrayed.

[alt_evelyn]

I'll always be appreciative of the firm foundation I was given, though. How to think, and question, and test those questions, and tie it in to the bigger picture. The first year of college was so very difficult from anything I'd ever experienced on so many levels, but some part of it was just like speaking a different language, and, well, I've some experience with that, so mostly it was just translating and finding out how to reconcile the bits that were too different. And I wouldn't have been able to be that mentally flexible without the work we'd done together before, I think.

[alt_antonin]

It's a pity the English language contains no word for "betrayal, but pride in the betrayal". But you and I have spoken before about the shortcomings of language, have we not?

[alt_molly]

For Antonin Dolohov: I have so many questions for you, as you can imagine, but given the topic parameters, I'll confine myself to just this one for now: exactly how many of your students ended up dead because of what you taught them? (Or because you killed them yourself; why don't we include those too, just to be thorough).

[alt_antonin]

Why, Molly Prewett Weasley, certainly you're capable of adding them up yourself.

But do stop to also count those who lived because of what I'd taught them. Or those who would have -- have you ever stopped to wonder, if I'd had the teaching of your middle child from the beginning, if he would have been so clumsy as to publicly betray his patron in exchange for temporary gain?

[(Anonymous)]

I have a question for Auror Crouch:

At the end, when you were dueling Hydra, were you hoping your student would surpass you and win? (I'm told most teachers hope their students surpass them, though I know a couple who don't fit that mold, sadly.) Hydra reported that she thought you were still treating it like a training duel, in some ways.

-- Keshwyn (at work, can't log in)

[alt_crouch_jr]

Yes, all right. As you say, it was both things.

A deliberate end of my own design. A definitive finale for her training.

[alt_arthur]

I am delighted, simply delighted, that Severus did such a tremendous job of finding and awakening the potential I'd sensed in Hermione (I remember so vividly the day I found her in the camps: an engaging little urchin with out-of-control hair and a preternaturally advanced vocabulary). I do feel a great deal of proprietary pride, especially since your collaboration is what allowed the Sleepers to awaken. Severus, this may seem like a peculiar question, but here goes: what do you think your and Hermione's unorthodox paths to your meeting brought to your Master/apprentice relationship? In other words, you both had gone through dreadful ordeals before you ever met--you in Azkaban, and Hermione due to her Muggleborn status. Was that an entirely a disadvantage, or did it unexpectedly mean advantages, too, in any way?


Professor Desai: had I been alive when you began as Ron's mentor, I am sure my heart would have been permanently affixed itself to my throat, given my worries for him, considering both your true loyalties. (And how relieved I would have been--I am!--that he has turned out such a fine Auror, and such a fine young man.) I hadn't thought he would pick a career like that, although it seems obvious in hindsight. Tell me, What made you choose him? What did you discover about his unique traits and potential? What did you want to develop in him the most? What did you spot in him that you thought would be his greatest strength as an Auror, and did you turn out to be correct? What did you think would be his chief weaknesses, and did he overcome them as you hoped?

[alt_ron]

Dad!


You know, it wasn't Professor Desai or any of the others that taught me the bits that really matter. That was all down to you.

[alt_savitha]

Ron came to my attention through CCF, during some of the exercises I came to assist with. There are students who are natural leaders, able through the power of their natural charisma to persuade other students to follow their instructions. Those students rarely lack for would-be mentors, and are seldom terribly impressed with the adults who choose them.

What I looked for, and found in Ron, was a student who was able to persuade others to follow his lead because of his ideas, because of his strategy and nerve, because of his ability to think a few steps ahead of anyone else.

'Ambition' is a trait strongly identified with Slytherin House, but of course it's found everywhere, and Ron exemplified the sort of ambition we often see in Gryffindors, where they wish to excel in certain skills for their own sake. That is a type of ambition I'd long since come to value.

Ron was also a youngest son whose brothers had been, hmm, let's call them 'shining stars within the walls of Hogwarts,' does that describe it? Two Head Boys, some impressive number of star Quidditch players, and of course the Twins got endless attention with their various shenanigans. When one takes a flower that has only ever grown in a crowded bed, places it in a pot and moves it to a sunny windowsill, it will reward that sort of cultivation with blooms you'll rarely see from a flower that has spent its whole life in a hothouse pot.

[alt_savitha]

I believed his greatest strength as an Auror would be exactly what I saw in him in the first place -- the ability to think a few steps ahead of everyone around him. I thought his greatest weakness would be impulsivity, his willingness to leap out into the void without think through those steps -- again, a Gryffindor trait, and certainly one I saw in Ron, although sometimes that's its own sort of strength.

Of course, his greatest weakness, in the end, was the hidden loyalties I never saw -- the disease at the root of the plant, and his willingness to turn on Our Lord and bring about his doom.

[alt_severus]

Advantages — perhaps. Miss Granger's diffidence and lack of confidence was a barrier to our work, in that I could not openly share with her, for those first few years, my plans for her education. (And indeed, I had those plans from the moment I realised her talent, and they only became more urgent once McGivern was killed: I knew that if Alice found a place to spend my death for advantage before we finished the Sleeper antidote, someone would need to take up my laboratory rôle, and quickly.) It took a great deal of time to ease her into matters, for all that she was eager to learn when she did not realise the extent of the hopes I was pinning upon her shoulders.

But at the same time, her background lent her a fierceness of cause — one matched by certain of her fellows, but never surpassed — and I was fortunate in that she chose to bend her intellect in the direction of my subject in no small part because it was a discipline she could practice with minimal wand-work. (Not only was the danger of someone discovering that she had a wand perpetually hanging over our heads, but neither she nor I had been fortunate enough to find a wand that was a true fit for us. I very nearly came to regret that fact when Draco and I went to burn out the Ministry's archives after Draco's 'death'; we are all, I suppose, fortunate that control of Fiendfyre depends more on the caster's will and less on his relationship with his wand.) Had she grown to adulthood in a Hogwarts where she had been able to study the full range of disciplines, I do wonder if she would have taken to Potions so fiercely; I have been most pleased to watch her expand her range of talents and expertise over the last decade and a half. (I often wonder what Filius would have made of her, or Minerva if she had not been forced to keep herself so apart, or Albus if he had been able to narrow his grand vision so far.)

Azkaban — it is odd, really, to think that had the Dark Lord not chosen to imprision me for so long, I might have continued at Hogwarts, spending every last bit of my forbearance upon the need to drill into the heads of idiotic and slothful firsties why one always reads the full receipt before beginning brewing, with none of you lot the least bit wiser as to where my true loyalties rested until such time as it became necessary to share. Azkaban taught me many things: patience, and fortitude, and the depths of what truly does and does not matter. I doubt I would have had the patience to see Miss Granger through to her Mastery without breaking her spirit without having had those lessons drilled into me. I came out of Azkaban having been melted down in its crucible, with the dross of all but the vital pieces burned away. It was a small enough price to pay for the advantage it afforded us all, I suppose.

[(Anonymous)]

Professor Snape,

Did you teach either Hermione or Draco to bake? (I'm guessing you didn't teach Draco, given his issues with toast.) I find kneading bread to be moderately meditative, and wonder if you actively considered it as an avenue for allowing the idle mind to chew over difficult problems. I know you had some inspiration for the Sleeper problems while you were working on the brioche.

Also, did you leave your recipe books to anyone? I expect Hermione is probably too busy to bake these days.

-- Keshwyn (still at work)

[alt_severus]

Yes, that is precisely what my work in the kitchen was good for — when Miss Granger, Mr Malfoy, and I were first forced to flee Hogwarts, I attempted to lose myself in brewing, but my distraction proved too great. (Black grew particularly pointed after I disintegrated the last of the size four pewter cauldrons; Mr Malfoy and I were banished from the stillroom in no short order.) Applying myself to baking edibles rather than brewing potions was, at first, a simple attempt to avoid wasting the Order's resources further; that it allowed me to contribute in some small part to the household's well-being — a well-being I am entirely aware my presence disrupted — was a side benefit I had not expected, but grew to appreciate. (That it also allowed me to bicker with that miserable elf over which of us was going to be cooking supper on any given night was another bonus; the chance to vent my irritation on a fight that did not matter in the least helped me in keeping my temper when butting heads with Black and Lupin.)

Miss Granger was in the habit of sitting with me, though rarely assisting beyond fetching an ingredient I had forgot when my hands were dirty, as I baked — a great deal of the more theoretical tutelage I provided her was during those discussions, and we did have more than one moment of breakthrough for what to try next whilst I was kneading the dough or experimenting with the gluten-forming charms for the cookies. (And yes, kneading bread is an excellent form of working meditation; it is the one step I would never do with wand instead.) Mr Malfoy joined us occasionally, but less frequently; I often used the afternoons for cooking and baking, and he was more likely to be elsewhere occupied.

I rarely used written recipes. When in Azkaban, living inside my mind and behind my Occlumency barriers to evade the Dementors' attention, I occupied that mind by creating a thought-form Potions laboratory with every ingredient or piece of equipment I needed to conduct my 'experiments' and review the collection of preparations I had committed to memory. When I grew too frustrated by my inability to advance my art — as it is impossible to truly create a potion in one's mind with no experimental phase; no plan survives first contact with the enemy and no potion survives in the first form its creator dreams it — I would torment myself by imagining baking and cooking all the foods I did not at the time think I would ever get a chance to eat again. That this practise allowed me to retain most of the recipes I would otherwise undoubtedly have lost to time, near-madness, and Dementor's hunger was an unexpected bonus.

I do believe the recipe for the chocolate chip cookies is in my bench-journals, however. Chocolate was a dear enough ingredient that I did not wish to waste any of it, or lose it to a half-remembered recipe. There may be others — you would need to ask Miss Granger; she is undoubtedly ten times more familiar with those journals' contents than I am. By the end of my borrowed time I was writing down every passing scrap of thought that crossed my mind, in the hopes she would survive me and someday find them useful. I am so very pleased that she did.

[annia]

Antonin has already answered this but to the other masters/mentors, what was your proudest moment as a mentor? Also, least proud moment? (For the Death Eaters, least proud moment other than the fact your protégé was a member of the Order, please. )


For the apprentices, what was the most useful/important thing you learnt from your mentor?

[alt_sinistra]

I have so many moments to be proud of with Evelyn, but I always come back to the two nights with the wards. Both were incredibly complicated. In the first, I did something I never thought I'd do - killed someone - and that in the middle of a patched together ritual that I'll admit now, we had no idea if it would work. And then when we shifted the wards from the 83 wards to the Octoboros, I'd more or less wrestled them into submission by sheer force of will, and was not really myself for a bit.

(I should give credit to Tosha there: I don't think I'd ever have dared - I'm a badger, and I had neither native bravery or native ambition to carry me through, just stubborness - but for some of the conversations he and I had. Informal mentoring, it is a thing with a lot of ripple effects.)

Anyway, through both, I absolutely knew Evelyn would be right there, giving her all, whatever I asked or needed - calculations, measurements, monitoring a dozen different effects, flasks of tea, cleaning charms, a dozen other things. I couldn't have made either of those nights work without knowing I could utterly rely on her for anything she could offer. She's done a lot of other wonderful things before and since, but those two nights shine much brighter than the rest.

When you ask about least proud, I think about the things I'm least proud of, not least proud of her for. We had more than a couple of rough spots, once we started school again - trying to find a new rhythm, figure out how to make sure she got the training and education she needed to back up the Mastery, dealing with some of the more difficult members of our Guild. And it was a rough year in a lot of ways, personally. Rough set of years. But that was much more my doing than hers, and we sorted it out in the end.

On the topic of informal mentoring, I do want to say I'm also very proud of Cedric and Linus, for different reasons, and still rather in awe that they trusted me enough for a couple of very difficult conversations each that I think made a great difference to them both in the end. My least proud there was not being able to do more to help Cedric in the battle for Hogwarts (for all analysis after the fact made it clear to me I just didn't have the skills to do more), and for having a day where I didn't help Linus as much as he deserved.

General question

[atheilen.livejournal.com]

This is mostly for Professors Dolohov and Sinistra, but I would also love to hear the thoughts of anyone else, student, teacher, or parent.

Professors, one of the things I enjoyed most about your conversations was seeing your thoughts on the Hogwarts curriculum and how it could be improved. Obviously the fact that you lived in a time of war was a factor, but that so many of you formed these close one-on-one bonds suggests the students needed more than Hogwarts could give them (those that attended Hogwarts, that is.)

What are your thoughts on the state of wizarding education? Have things changed much since the founding of Albion, with the re-establishment of the universities? (For that matter, I always got the impression that education was a factor in what led to the Protectorate, too...pureblood wizards felt they couldn't teach Noble Arts/pass on wizarding culture.) What do you think is done well and what should still be changed?

Re: General question

[alt_sinistra]

I could go on for days about education, you realise. The challenge, really, is two-fold. One is that teaching magical skills really does take a lot of time, and it doesn't necessarily leave a lot of time for other formal subjects, without neglecting something.

The other is the - oh, someone I know put this as 'native conservatism' of the wizarding world. And to some extent, there are good reasons for that. We are often teaching skills, training abilities, doing things that can be very dangerous if not supervised, and not just to the person trying them, and while there are always new challenges, there's no denying that we have found some things that work well, and others that clearly are problems.

And, on the other end, people who are hiring our students in the future want to understand what their OWL or NEWT results mean, how that compares to people who are ten or twenty or fifty years older. (And now, people who don't go to Hogwarts need to understand what our students do and don't know.)

I've had the chance to travel fairly extensively, since the war, over the summers, and often in places and circumstances that mean I can talk to people intimately involved in education in those places. I try to bring back the parts that make sense (and the ones that don't, so we can make sure there's nothing we can use.)

One thing I learned is that there are boarding schools and day schools, for that matter, in the United States and elsewhere, that are just as idiosyncratic in their own way as Hogwarts is. They have their own marking systems, their own ideas of what subjects are most important, and they've worked out ways to explain that to unversities, supplemental educational programmes, and employers, so other people understand the skills and experience their students do and don't have.

Related, when we began looking at what other schools did, we learned that in the former United Kingdom, Muggle students for many years took an exam at 11 - when our student begin Hogwarts - that would define their educational future. They then took exams really quite similar to our OWLs and NEWTs, narrowing down their areas of focus to a smaller number and often specialising even more than Hogwarts students do.

We've added some additonal steps for guidance - not just a single meeting with a few professors - to help with that, at a point when the students have more idea what they want to do when they're older, and we have more idea where their skills and interests lie. We've also done a lot to improve internships, summer educational offerings, and so on, to introduce students to topics common in other schools, and to make sure students with a particular strong interest can explore it before committing to an apprenticeship, higher education, employment training, or other choices that require a particular commitment and investment.

Another thing we've done is try to improve the overall level of writing skill (and reading skill, particularly different kinds of analysis of a text) throughout all the Hogwarts classes. It used to be that Astronomy was one of the few core subjects that had regular written assignments or feedback on writing as much than content. (I'm sure more than a few people here remember getting notes demanding better support for a conclusion or a more logical expression of their idea.) Outside of classes, I think we're doing much better finding tutors and summer programmes for students who need additional help with these skills, as early as possible.

Finally, I think we have got much better, as a school, at hiring staff who not only know their subject, but actively enjoy teaching and wish to become the best teachers they can be. Hogwarts has always had a number of gifted teachers, but we've also (again, not unlike schools other places), had a share of those who do it for other reasons. As we do better about talking with prospective staff about expecations and the reality of school life, we're learning how to find the people who really want to be at Hogwarts, and really want to teach, more than anything else. I particularly appreciate the support of the Board in helping us make that transition, and in making sure we had the financial resources to attract and support the people we want to be teaching our future.

(And oh, dear, now I sound like an educational pamphlet, don't I? Side effect of getting asked this question a lot, really.)