How would you fix children's education in the Potterverse?

Because I think there are serious problems with it. Starting with only teaching kids about magic when they are eleven. Making a complete pigs-ear of Muggle Studies.

I know Methods of Rationality is covering ground that is similar but not identical. I am looking for help in coming up with a threat credible enough to make the Ministry of Magic start the teaching of magic when kids are just out of nappies.

It really depends. The Potterverse is never really clearly defined—what jobs are there? Why do they need a ministry of magic? What's the muggle world like (Does it have all of the flaws that ours has, or has magic discretely taken care of cancer and whatnot)? How much do muggles and wizards intermix (Enough to produce children from both worlds, not enough for Arthur Weasley, who's probably a genius when it comes to muggle knowledge in comparison to his contemporaries, to understand the purpose of a rubber duck, or blend in to the muggle world at all for that matter)? What exactly are the needs of a society with magic?

I presume the best thing to do would be to treat magic as an advanced science, and have a small group of highly trained, highly trustworthy wizards and witches slowly experiment with it in order to figure out how to improve the muggle world. Rather than teaching any moron eleven year old the precise methods through which they can terrorize the unaware muggles. Face it, the mere existence of a D At DA class means that a good portion of wizards end up being evil, and have the methods through which to express themselves in such a manner. With muggles, guns are highly regulated. With wizards, the Avada Kedrava curse is taught to young children and can be used by any wand-bearing idiot. Which is, you know. Practically the entire wizarding population.

War.

Not just the hit and run, blood supremacy terrorism but a raging, non-stop total war of extermination with a policy of targetting "Women and Children First".

An enemy that will not accept a surrender, has no demands but their death, and will not stop until every last one of them is dead or they themselves are erradicated.

edited 15th Apr '12 7:10:10 PM by Natasel

Natasel is extreme but makes a decent point; the Ministry and indeed the wizarding world itself seem to be highly insular and resistant to change. The primary means to force it upon them would seem to be to introduce an exterior threat that requires them to extend the education so that children can protect themselves.

We already know an interior threat won't work from what happened in the books. Even with Dementors running about loose, or during the first go-round with Voldemort, it wasn't done.

Good point Night, something less....drastic....

How about a change in the Nature of Magic?

Say, magic has inexplicably become linked to how long on practices it.

So a toddler, even a very gifted on, can barely make sparks appear, but someone who has been practicing studiously for 100 years can level mountains with a twitch of a wand.

Given the incentive to train early, long and hard, it would be inevitable that parents would start teaching their children as young as possible, Laws Against Underage Magic can go hang.

I think the best way for Hogwarts is to end up like Discworld's Unseen University: teaching students not to use magic.

edited 15th Apr '12 7:54:31 PM by Nightwire

You would think that with so many half-blooded wizards there would be a drive by at least the muggle parent for some of the more practical muggle education for at least their own children.

I had visions during the books of Harry or somebody walking into astronomy and casually dropping the fact that Muggles have been to the Moon, and nobody from the wizarding world believing it.

(And no, I've never read Methods of Rationality. It's on my list.)

edited 15th Apr '12 8:57:54 PM by Night

Night, Methods of Rationality is a Doorstopper, you might want to allocate a few days to appreciate it.

Anyway, as I strongly suspect Magic Makes You Stupid, there just might be a case of Immigration and Discrimination that affecs the Magical World of Harry Potter.

There seems to be almost no Magicals who want to relocate to the Muggle world, they keep accepting an influx of Mud Bloods, and yet there is virtually no Muggle Influence via the Mud Blood Children.

((Theory: Hogwarts is a brainwashing camp that stamps out Muggle Thought so by the time the kids graduate, Magical Rules and Laws take the place of common sense.))

In order to force change (as nothing short of a kick in the proverbial nads seems to work) there will likely be a need from the Muggle World that the Magicals don't have.

Unfortunately, the Magical desire nothing from the Muggles. All their wants and needs can be catered to by Magic.

The Mud Bloods that DON'T succumb to Magical World Only thinking probably face discrimination, patronage politics and a disadvantage of trying to work in an environment that's largely been in stasis since the dark ages.

There might be no solution for this situation. At least not a peacful solution.

Quite frankly, the fact that they've remained so isolated in itself is strange. Communities typically don't thrive in such isolation. Even if it's just visiting the village over that hill over there, most people interact with other people outside their home at some point in their lives.

Plus, the fact that they have things like that magic bus and that one building in the city where they could hide out has shown that at least some of them have interacted with the muggle world, and on a more competent level than Mr. Weasley. (Also evidenced by the flying motorcycle that Sirius Black had.) My theory is this; only the pure bloods are really interested in isolation. It's the muggle born that are pushing forth the real innovations and advancements in wizard society in the Harry Potter universe, because they're the ones that end up being familiar with technology and what it can do.

Incidentally, the books mentioned Muggle Studies at one point, but it never seemed to be a popular class. My theory is the muggle parents try their damnedest to homeschool their children when they're home. Also, this isolation might only occur to the degree it does in Britain and Europe; The US and other American countries might well have different policies, being very modern societies themselves.

Include classes on maths and science, and English.

Good input folks, thanks.

I am going to post something I wrote on the Methods thread, if folks will bear with me:

"And someone has to grasp the nettle and write a fic where the whole system of Magical education (in Magical Britain) gets a kick in the backside and dragged screaming into at least the twentieth century. They need a Hogwarts-type Nursery School/Kindergarten system, a Hogwarts-type Primary School/Elementary School system and for Abigor's sake a godsthricedamned Hogwarts-type University system! (I wish there was a way to write that last sentence in Firefox 11 with thirty foot high letters of fire, I really do.) With Muggle studies taught properly right from the first fricking day. I don't care what Potterverse it gets done in, either in canon or in Mister Yudkowsky's - but someone has to do Rowling's dirty work for her."

I would make teaching Magic the main purpose of the education system, and teach it for a longer period, for those who can do magic anyways, but I would emphasize that those who cannot do so and are of Magical parentage are worthy of looking after as well - hell, they are children too. Something Rowling forgot when she gave that epithet to describe them that I will not use. I don't even like using "Muggles" to refer to us and whae's like us.

It has been a while since I read the books, and to be honest, I am not looking to deal with anyone mentioned in a big way in either the canon!Potterverse or Mister Yudkowsky's.

Night, Harry does precisely what you mentioned to Draco Malfoy, during their eventful conversation before their first train ride to Hogwarts - which is in itself totally different to the one that Rowling did see fit to giveth us. And it is equal parts funny, frank and terrifying.

Oh, oh, thought of a threat. How does this sound?

"Either you teach your children properly or your magic will go away, your wands will break in your hands. And I will do it without even batting an eyelash. Your choice."

edited 16th Apr '12 12:12:09 AM by TamH70

What needs fixing is the fact that a six letter word with a double 'g' in the middle is a highly abusive term, something which is no longer acceptable in the Normal Western world. Given wizards don't know what a gun is ("a kind of wand used by M*****s"), and in their arrogance they don't realise how vulnerable they are, things could go south pretty quickly for them - the most evil group of wizards ever appear to use spells like childood pranks: they won't last long against the SAS.

More practically that woman needs to stop writing in a sub-Blytonian style, and give us three dimensional characters.

The thing about magic is that it's not feasible to regulate the nastier usages of it. It's noted upthread that eleven-year-olds are handed deadly weapons (their wands) without any attempt at regulation (except, depending on how you read that as working, the Ministry's trace on underage magic outside a magic home). You can avoid teaching offensive spells, but that quickly becomes ridiculous, along the same lines as risk-averse morons trying to design kitchen knives that can't be used to stab people in real life; avada kedavra is obvious, but reducto, diffindo, accio, evanesco, all shown as basic utility spells, can be easily used to the same end (remember, Ron as a first year manages to take down a troll with wingardium leviosa of all things). If you're going to teach magic at all, then you have to resign yourself to these things being possible. Therefore, the focus has to be on making magical children sufficiently mature to handle the carriage of deadly weapons, which is a thing best instilled by example. (And yes, starting schooling at eleven is idiotic. Anyone who's old enough to cause potentially-dangerous effects accidentally should be being trained, if nothing else to avoid doing so. Rowling seems to have universally portrayed accidental magic in the books as a mostly amusing thing shaped by the desires of the children, but if it is so shaped then the Dursleys shouldn't have had only their reputation to worry about; you'd expect something a lot worse to have happened to them. Any of the effects that accidental magic manifestly can achieve could be timed to cause them all to die.)

Really, the underlying problem is that the HP-verse is one of those in which the most powerful individuals defeat the most powerful armies (or so we must presume lest everything make even more no sense than it already does), which are always unstable. (Which makes them interesting, which is why I love reading and writing about them; but unless you're sure you'd be the powerful one, you wouldn't necessarily want to live there.) But these don't always lead to inconsistent universes; the underlying underlying problem is, as always, that Rowling sucks at world-building.

edited 16th Apr '12 2:28:59 PM by alethiophile

I doubt the problem is as bad as that, but it could still be solved better.

Let's take a trip to some of the other universes with similar problems. We have comic books, where...well, basically there's no controls at all. We have (surprisingly) Lyrical Nanoha as the opposite end, where classroom instruction appears to begin about as soon as you can walk and many are employed (conscripted?) by the military before they reach their teens, presumably to provide a structured environment and better supervision.

That is exactly the main reason why I find Harry Potter unbearable (aside from its rabid and obsessive fanbase), even though I like the concept and the characters. Rowling's world-building is sloppy and inconsistant, and the concept of Hogwarts is just poorly thought-out in general.

While I appreciate that HP gets many kids to read books, it is just way too overrated.

I agree with almost all your points. The thing is, any librarian or English teacher will tell you, if you hold a knife at their throats in some cases, that Rowling has done more for the cause of getting children, particularly boys, who are notoriously bibliophobic, to read books than any other writer since ever.

She is seen as facilitating and her books as gateway drugs for kids, who end up on harder stuff like /spit Pratchett, Meyer, King, et cetera.

That is why she annoys me so much when she drops the ball.

edited 19th Apr '12 12:22:36 AM by TamH70

Could you please be more clear on which Meyer you were mentioning? Because the first thing that popped into my mind when I read your post is that freaking Stephenie Meyer's on the same league with Terry Pratchett and Stephen King; and that's just mentally damaging to even comtemplate. :P

edited 19th Apr '12 4:30:41 AM by Nightwire

Who says I meant Stephen King, 8-) Besides, I have never read any Stephanie Meyer and don't like Pratchett.

Well, I love Terry Pratchett.

,,

I don't suppose making the above authors available would help?

Pratchett is astounding and wonderful, and while I haven't read much King that I have read has been quite good. Mentioning Stephanie Meyer in the same breath as either is akin to sacrilege.

Pratchett has been making fun of the fantasy genre even before it is fashionable to make fun of the fantasy genre.

Eh, I think Harry Potter was primarily about the character growth. World building ended up being secondary to the character growth. And both were consistent enough that I didn't really feel like it disrupted the reading experience.

Of course, there's always the fact that after reading the books or watching the movie, you quite often start dissecting the shit out of a thing. And Harry Potter is leagues ahead of a lot of the stuff available to children; I felt like this didn't insult kid's intelligence or ability to understand hard ideas like death.

HP is wonderful as a kids' series, and as a kid I enjoyed it immensely. It's looking back on it now that all the Fridge Logic starts rearing its head.