Almost every time a read an AU where Harry goes to a different school of Magic, Hogwarts is painted as this decrepit old castle that only tweachs out-dated basics.
Am I the only one to think this is strange when it's said in the books that Hogwarts is the best magical school ? Why don't we see fics where the school doesn't have branches that are taught at hogwarts ?

 

Let's face it, all the things great wizards do (Voldemort & Dumbledore) are nowhere mentioned at Hogwarts. Prime example being Occlumency - seems like hell of a useful thing, but it's not even mentioned in curriculum...

And then you have useless shit like Divination, care of magical creatures and herbology as main subjects - not like anyone need it on daily bases except proffesionals.

Also, note that many subjects have extremely bad teachers - Potions, Divination, COMC, DADA, History... Half of the teachers at Hogwarts are incompetent gits.

Now, why would everyone think that Hogwarts is the best? Two words - Albus Dumbledore. With most people in potterverse thinking that his shit smells like flowers, it's no wonder everyone beleives that his school is perfect (even with anual murder attempts, shit-for-brains teachers and houses at each others throats).

So, yes, I'm all for the other magical schools being much better than Hogwarts.

 

To be fair, Occlumency is a very advanced subject. To make a parallel, you don't see engineering physics and other such topiucs being taught at a secondary school, which is what Hogwarts virtually amounts to. To few students would even be able to do it to justify having a staff member teach it. Then again though, Draco managed to Occlude himself apparently and he's pretty much a useless shitbag.

 

Point.

But it doesn't change the fact that it's neccesary. Wizards without Occlumency shields are like sheep ripe for picking.

Kids need to be at least AWARE that things like Occlumency and Legilimency exists and that it can be prevented by averting eyes etc. Seems like a manipulation of Legilimenses to keep their upper hand (I'll be using something like this in my storie(s)).

 

Not only that but education is not completely universal in that not all cultures value the same subjects. A prime example is art. Generally in the US art is undervalued and some people go through life without ever attending an art class unless they go to college, but if you go to a Latin American country and art is greatly valued and any child there who is properly educated will have at least one class about art.

For the magical world I could see Ancient Runes not being taught outside of Europe because runes are predominately European, it would at least be called something else with differant subject matter. In asia since they have antecessor worship I could see some shamanism being taught. If there is a Native American school I would guess Animagi and Care for Magical Creatures would be popular subjects. We know Durmstrang is differant in its approach to the Dark Arts, so I would say that it is more about differant emphasises rather than one school being better than the other.

 

I get your points, but what I'm trying to say is that you have schools that teach so many subjects you'll need at least five time-turners just to attend the mandatory classes. I'm starting to think about Mary Sue Schools
*shudders* the horror!!

 

Actually it's Hogwarts that's teaching too few subjects. Harry has Charms, Trans, DADA, Divination, Potions, COMC, Herbology & History in book 5. That's 8 subjects when he's 15 years old. When I was 15, I've had at least 12-13, if not more. And that was only 6-7 hours of school per day, not the whole day of classes as in boarding school.

 

I'm using more of the excuse that it's the arrogance of the British wizards, a attitude that mimics much how Britian thought it was king shit back in the days where it felt the need to invade and try to colonize any spec of land large enough to grow crops and screw on.

But yeah I can see it's be mostly b/c of Dumbles.

 

The only people who've ever said that Hogwarts was the greatest school in there world were Hogwarts alumni. In fact, I think the only people who've said it were Hagrid and the Weasleys -- and anything that they say is dubious.

The Beauxbatons students didn't seem to think much of Hogwarts in GoF -- and it wasn't just the decorations that they didn't like; at the World Cup a French girl sneers at the trio when she finds out that they're from Hogwarts, and she's never seen the décor. The girl must not have recognized them (although she could have recognized Harry, but then not realized from where she knew him), so she probably wouldn't have assumed that they were Beauxbatons students. Which means that she didn't dismiss them because they weren't French -- she dismissed them because they were English.

The Malfoys think that Durmstrang is a better school (but not enough better to make up for Narcissa throwing a pissy fit that lasts seven years). Durmstrang must be a pretty damn good school, too, considering that the school's name sounds German, but Karkaroff is Russian and Krum is Bulgarian. If it wasn't such a good place, people wouldn't go that far from home and make the effort of learning German just to study there. Nobody makes that same effort just to get into Hogwarts -- all Hogwarts students have English as their first language.


So everything, except a few remarks from Hagrid, says that Hogwarts isn't a particularly well-respected school.

Ip is right, the Hogwarts staff is a joke, and the corriculum is just plain stupid. The children learn very little -- and, meanwhile, they get into fights and grow prejudices.

I don't blame Lucius for wanting to get rid of Dumbledore....

 

Well, you could argue that all of the English, Scottish,Irish, and Welsh go to Hogwarts and that possibly more people from other schools would come if Beauxbaton and Durmstrang are not closer. That Durmstrang may be the only school in Eastern Europe and that just as Hagrid and the Weasleys are biased towards their school the Beauxbatons are biased towards their school and the Malfoys are biased against Dumbledore, but still good evidence gathering and I agree with you.

 

Pretty much what everyone said. I mean, it comes down to being realistic, if Hogwarts best then everyone else is bad...can you imagine any kind of fic being any good if the stuff it teaches end up SUCKING more than Hogwarts....nah.

 

As for the sneering Beauxbatons girl, I would remind everybody that antipathy between the British and the French is nothing new. Wizards seem to be a naturally ignorant and racist lot to begin with, given that their collective society is practically stuck in the medieval period. I would imagine that English and French wizards and witches just dislike one another on principle, and the girl's sneering at the Trio has everything to do with ethnicity and nothing to do with Hogwarts as a school.

Also, were the school that substandard, Dumbledore wouldn't be allowed to stay on as headmaster. Now, I've seen the argument about people worshipping the old man, but I don't think it holds. Look at the fifth book. Dumbledore and Harry Potter are supposedly the two greatest heroes in wizarding Britain, yet the public almost universally turns against them on a word from the Ministry. This indicates to me that loyalty is not a particularly cherished virtue in the magical world, and so that alone wouldn't keep Albus around the school were he unable to perform his job effectively. Besides, Lucius Malfoy had enough influence to get his way on almost anything, and yet he failed to permanently dislodge Dumbledore. I should think that the man is doing something right.

 

I agree with all that, except for this

That argument holds up until you look at the school's history in Dumble's time there.

-werewolves running rampant (MWPP era, PoA)

-Sirius breaking in

-Snape's general attitude

-Allows rampant race/blood/etc -ism +abuse

-Harry's almost been killed multiple times

-Students have been attacked constantly via petrification/house rivalryies.

Buncha more stuff, but in any close to sane world the Headmaster would be in some major trouble for being that neglect. It makes no sense that the magical world can turn on them both with a word from a screwed ministry, yet they constantly let the guy get away with murder.

 

My thinking was centered more around the school's academic reputation rather than unrelated incidents. I would say that racism and arsehole teachers and House-related strife have probably been around the school under anybody's stewardship. The rest I have to concede to, but it drives my point even further. The man is obviously doing something properly on the academic side, since the Governers, the Ministry and everybody else lets him stay on as headmaster despite the scandals and incidents that have colored his tenure there. Either that or wizards really are just that stupid.

 

I can't agree any less with that assessment. For these reasons

1. What allowed the Ministry to sack Dumbledore was all of those education decrees which they passed by claiming that education has been downslumping because of his decisions. If as you say there something significant that Dumbledore has been doing right then surely someone would have spoken up about it. But we hear nothing of the sort.

2. We know that education is just a ploy by the Ministry so the public will go along with their power grabs, the Ministry doesn't really care about education, but their constituents do.

So lets just say there is no slump. Well, Dumbledore still got sacked so then there must be another reason. And that is politics, all it takes is outmaneuvering Dumbledore to get him sacked. Dumbledore was Supreme Mugwump and was well versed in how to play politics if Fudge used to depend on him for help when he first became a career politician. He was removed from his post when he proclaimed that Voldemort returned without any other political backing. Education had nothing to do with that.

His support of Harry who is very unpopular because of Rita has also caused him to lose political standing.

So a Dumbledore in bad political standing is vulnerable to accusations of mishandling education whether true or not. Therefore a Dumbledore in good political standing is invulnerable to accusations of mishandling education whether true or not.

Thus, Dumbledore continuing to be Headmaster before this point is NOT evidence of good academic performance.

3. We do have evidence of less than stellar professors. Binns is so dull everyone but Hermione falls asleep, so not much learned there. Every Defense teacher has harmed the academic performance in some way. Quirrel on purpose, Lockhart because he didn't actually know anything, Lupin although really when he teaches, is sick too often and so limits amount of stuff he is capable of covering, and Crouch/Madeye's approach seems to be, toss curses at them and see if they learn anything. Which works fine for students like Harry, but how about students like Neville? That method is horrendous in that case. Then there is Diviniation which is either poorly taught or just a useless class to begin with, and CoMC with Hagrid. Hagrid seems to teach how to care for creatures that you generally should just runaway from and ignores the creatures that you would take care of,and actually appear on the tests.

That's how I see it.

 

Perfectly said. 8 out of 10. Good work.

 

To begin with you have the minister who with the way he acts during the books seems to be a power hungry guy with little magical power. now as most guys know when i guy believes hes "weak" he does something to make everyone else think hes better than he is or he tries to level the playing field, so laws are created to hold people back, and stop them reaching there full potential.

Then you have the fact that everyone believes hogwarts is a great school, the reason for this would probably be it was the first magical school of its time and while the founders taught there was no ministry or no connection to the ministry so it would have been a great school.

Know what i would like to know is when people learn to make magical gizmos if not in school, becasue nothing like muggle uni is suggested, come on how are you going to make a broom or magical trunk with a bunch of kiddy charms.

Then of course theres no dueling class even during a time of war, no teaching occlumency or teaching off it and legilimency which leaves the students open. wards aren't taught, wandless magic isn't taught (and dont say it aint possible, if they can do it accidentally they must be able to be taught how to harrness and use that). divination is a joke, and if it really would be taught then people should be tested before hand to see if they have any aptitude for the class.

basically hogwarts teaches barely anything and then leaves the student high and dry with no other institutes of learning in the UK. now becasue JK didn't describe and other school in any detail we can make up anything we want. (cause goining over the top and haveing things like not needing a wand at all necromancy and other forms of magic form D&D stye worlds or Final fantasy games is just stupid)