Harry Potter Goes to School: Learning In and Out of Hogwarts Carrie Birmingham

I’ve looked back over all 28 episodes and found eight topics or themes that
seemed important in Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone—things that the
text has to say to the field of education, and things that education has to
say back to Hogwarts. This episode takes a look at the first four topics.
Here are all eight:
1. Hogwarts is a parody of school
2. All the people at Hogwarts are full humans
3. Learning theory
4. Joanne's literary tricks
5. Moral concerns
6. Things about teaching methods
7. Hogwarts as a miniature society
8. Themes I think Joanne intended

For every time you use your power to bring joy, inspiration, humor,
healing, and humanizing to your students, thank you. Thank you from me and
from all the people who will be living in the world with the children your
students are now and the grownups that your students will become.

After at least six months of believing that Severus Snape is trying to
steal the Sorcerer’s Stone for himself and then adjusting that to believe
that he’s trying to steal it for the Dark Lord, the puzzle pieces of
Harry’s belief system are dramatically rearranged. We are a lot like Harry.
In real life, when we’re confronted by evidence that we have been really
wrong about something, it’s really hard.

It looks like the only school subject that is useful in the
through-the-trap-door adventure is Herbology. If the purpose of the
Hogwarts series was to promote the value of academics as taught in schools,
we may expect to see a little more of what the kids learn in their classes
coming into play in this adventure.

Did you notice that for helping Hagrid in the middle of the night, Harry
and Hermione’s punishment is helping Hagrid in the middle of the night? Did
you notice that Hagrid didn’t even acknowledge that Harry and Hermione are
there in detention for helping him when he got himself into a big mess? He
just carries on, as if Harry and Hermione are just random students to him.
What’s with that?

Why did Minerva deduct only 20 house points for Draco’s nighttime
wanderings but 50 house points each for the three Gryffindors’ nighttime
wanderings? Maybe because Gryffindor is her house, and she is the kind of
person to be harder on students of her own house than students of another
house. Maybe she took off so many points because Harry is extra-valuable?
Of all the kids in the whole school, let’s not lose Harry Potter, so let’s
punish him extra to keep him safe!