Camp No Friends

Guest Editorial: No Muggle Left Behind

Parsley, 09/03/03

Editor’s Note: From time to time, Camp No Friends allows noted guest writers to share their views on a variety of topics. This week we are proud to welcome the famed entertainer and social philosopher Harry Blackstone, Jr., who shares his views on the coming crisis in education.

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As the presidential election season approaches, the prospective candidates are sure to once again make education one of the race’s key issues. True, this perennial topic is one that politicians often embrace to try and sway the desirable “soccer mom” demographic, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t vitally important as well. The time for empty rhetoric has passed. We as a nation must make a commitment to leave no muggle behind.

Our schools of witchcraft and wizardry are in a sorry state indeed. Some of this can be attributed to the same funding problems faced by so many educational and cultural institutions in the current down economy. But the embattled muggle schools at least have a clear revenue stream. There is currently no federal, state, or local tax to support schools for wizards, and as far as I can tell, even at the prestigious Hogwart’s, no tuition is collected even from very wealthy students. The wizardly schools are to be commended for admitting so many more orphans than the national average, but without a solid cash flow, true educational reform will be impossible. Is it really acceptable for our magic schools to go unfunded when some students reportedly hold secret underground vaults containing millions in wizard gold?

Unfortunately, not all of the problems in wizardly education can be solved by throwing money at them. While American sorcerers were once among the best educated in the world, the current magical curriculum lags behind much of what is being taught elsewhere.

While commitment remains strong to a few core subjects like Potions, Charms, and Defense Against the Dark Arts, fundamentals like Arithmetic, Writing, and Geography have been deemphasized. Indeed, in many well-regarded schools of witchcraft and wizardry, these subjects seem to no longer be taught at all. The results are only now becoming apparent. In a Duke University study released last week, over 60% of Hufflepuffs tested were unable to locate Narnia on a globe. Sure, our wizard children may be able to brew the potent Polyjuice Potion, but will it do them any good if they can’t even find their way to Rivendell and back?

Part of the problem may be the relatively short school year enjoyed by Western witches and wizards in training. Young spellcasters in Japan, for instance, attend school year-round and on Saturdays, and must pass extremely rigorous tests to advance to higher levels of education. Is it any wonder that they consistently score higher in math and science than their American and British counterparts? With the additional days in their school year, Japanese students of magic have plenty of time to study advanced mathematics while still learning how to turn things into other things. While these dedicated children are studying through the summer, their Western counterparts are not only falling behind in their studies, they are not allowed to use magic at all during the long summer vacation! Without practice, it is impossible for young mages to maintain their skills, and the beginning of each new school year must be spent relearning material taught the previous year. Unless something is done, Asian magic-users will continue to increase their dominance in the sciences and our children will be unable to compete in the emerging high-tech economy.

And if things weren’t bad enough, many institutions assign far too much importance to extravagances like celebrity teachers, athletic facilities, and lavish holiday banquets, leaving little money for basic educational supplies. If one dollar was spent on after-school mentoring programs for every two spent on Quidditch gear, perhaps some real progress could be made in wizardly education. Promising Quidditch players are recruited as early as the first year, wooed with promises of expensive new enchanted broomsticks. Do schools really need an extra Bludger or Snitch when there isn’t even a full time English teacher?

Finally, discipline in the wizard schools is, to put it bluntly, a joke. A point system is supposed to encourage good behavior by establishing competition bewteen students, but in reality this method leaves much to be desired. Teachers play favorites without shame – Lord help the Gryffindor student who has class with a Slytherin instructor. But the worst abuse of all is that the yearly competition, the basis of the entire disciplinary philosophy, is made into a corrupt joke by the intervention of crooked headmasters, who award hundreds of points at the end of each year to favored students, often for actions that show a complete disregard for the institution’s published code of behavior. Why should one follow the rules and study hard when all of his or her work will be rendered meaningless by the glut of discretionary points handed out at year’s end?

I do not believe that magical education is doomed in this country. However, if reforms are not made, and soon, we may be raising a generation of wizards that is incapable of keeping up with the rest of the world. Potions and pixies are not enough. Young sorcerers need a solid grounding in the Three R’s and a knowledge of the world around them to succeed. They must not be left behind.