I am interested in what people think of when they hear Harry Potter and Social Justice. I would like to further know why and how you think this has impacted the series, and possibly the readers.

Well I looked up social justice and it appears to be defined as "the distribution of advantages and disadvantages within a society".

I believe that children are our future...... whoops! Wrong question

Well, overly politicising education leads to strange curriculum choices (Umbridge teaching DADA) and often wrongheaded decisions regarding who is worth educating (purebloods wanting to kick out mudbloods). Hermione was a brilliant student and yet the Malfoys and company thought she should be excluded from educational opportunity. Any society that doesn't value and cultivate talent will pay a price for such a policy in the form of lack of competitiveness in the larger market.

I suppose a good deal depends upon what we mean by "social justice." Certainly if we look at the Orestia as a Greek version of the evolution of justice from private justice--religious laws requiring killing the killer of one's father but frobidding the killing of one's mother--to justice by trial before a jury of the society itself, the HP isn't really about social justice.

Other ideas associated with the term are things like equality of property or equality of opportunity or equality of access to due process, etc. I think there are issues of social justice that are raised, particularly if we look at the actions of the ministry of justice or if we look at whether Harry should go after Voldemort to avenge his parents or whether he should go after him to save the lives of other people.

Well, I think we can say with some confidence that JK Rowling sits on the Left side of the political spectrum.

And in the HP books, we see a struggle for free thought in the attempt to control The Prophet and the suppression of The Quibbler. We see freedom of conscience as characters make choices and are suspected of being Imperiused when they behave other than expected. We see rule of law as administered by the Wizenmagot when operating freely. We see a struggle to emancipate slaves and to ensure the rights of other human-like magical creatures.

The fight for equality as seen in travesty of the Muggle-born Registration Commission is key to the final book. And the Unforgiveable Curses can represent the right not to be subject to cruel or unusual punishment, the death penalty, and a guarantee to the integrity of the person.

We also see a society that has free education and universal health-care. And, it would seem, a world free of distinctions based on race, creed, colour or sex. The Pureblood snobbery is, until Voldemort takes over the Ministry, quite unofficial. We see no bias against women, race or colour is not factor, and religion is not mentioned.

I'm not sure how far to the left though. It is still a capitalist system. I'm not sure whether Arthur ever got a bill for his care in St. Mungo's or not. Folks still pay for public transportation on the Knight Bus. It is true that the laws against unforgivables speaks of some kind of concern for humanity, but a lifetime sentence with dementors hardly seems humane to me. Of course, the whole ambiguity about the Ministry of Magic doing both good and bad is a good reflection of the real world. So, yes there is a potrayal of struggle for justice and humanity going beyond the central conflict of Harry and Voldemort, but I don't see JKR as picking up a banner for liberalism and using HP as political propaganda.

Actually, I thought JKR dealt extensively and well with social justice issues.

The visual of that fatuous statue in the MoM was carefully written in to demonstrate the wizarding point of view of their own supremacy. Centaurs, house elves and goblins were shown smiling up adoringly at a witch and a wizard (spew! -and not Hermione's either). And then JKR goes on the demonstrate the social injustices these same groups endured under wizarding rule.

A fair amount has been written about house elves in various threads already, so I'll just say that only Dobby has a good resolution to the ending of his indentured servitude. Winky and Kreacher are less happy stories; their prolonged servitude has left them unable to cope with freedom. The ending of their social contract with wizards left them bereft of tools, of purpose, and of ability to embrace a new reality.

Similarly, goblins come into their own backstory in DH. Their resentments towards wand-carriers are numerous and profound. As Bill points out, much of what they feel has merit (although blame can be equally spread across the board). JKR points out just how marginalized these gifted people are, especially regarding the wizarding laws prohibiting the use of wands by goblins. Clearly wizarding society is not a meritocracy. Griphook's encounters with wizarding prejudice were a rude shock as well.

Finally, although the centaurs got less ink devoted to them, clearly they were treated as a subclass. Umbridge's epithet of "filthy half-breeds" in reference to centaurs was likely representative of a certain segment of wizarding society (certainly the Death Eaters and their pure-blood mania). The werewolf subtheme of the prejudice Remus encountered and the prejudice Hagrid as a half-giant lived were also fairly well explored.

By the time the final Battle of Hogwarts occured, it was interesting to see that certain segments of the "subclasses" decided to fight alongside of wizards to defeat Voldemort. Others clearly thought that the social structure under wizarding rule would never be turned to their advantage (think werewolves and giants). My take was that JKR hinted broadly that after Voldemort's defeat, a new social contract was going to be in order, because the old order lacked social justice - and a social conscience.

It is set in Britain, not America, where most people don't get billed for medical services in the Muggle world. It's called the NHS. And the Yanks ought to try it. We Canucks also have universal healthcare. And there's never any mention of not seeking medical services due to cost.

Well, I'm not sure what you know about communist or socialist countries. But they still use money there and pay for their transportation. Money, trade and employment are not the sole signifiers of a Capitalist system. And I would say that the Wizarding World doesn't look like a Capitalist system at all.

Actually, JKR gave an interview to the WSJ where she explained all about the Wizarding economy, but I don't think the interview was ever printed as I can't find it in QQQ or Accio-Quotes. I'd say from what we see is that the Wizarding System is a little to the left of Britain today and perhaps resembles the mixed democratic socialism of Sweden.

What manufacturing we see resembles the cottage industry of William Morris. (See News from Nowhere.)The Ministry seems to be the largest employer. And the old wizarding families seem very Feudal in nature.

So, no, I'd have to say it doesn't look Capitalist at all.

It was mentioned that Harry was influential in revamping the MoM. Change is generally a word associated with more liberal attitudes, while a seeking to preserve "tried and true" (or so they are implied) methods a conservative quality.

The use of Dementors would be a very strong deterrent, as opposed to the death penalty, which costs the justice system much more in time and money and filing and fighting appeals. If a person is condemned to die, there is nothing left to lose, which can open the door for more violent behavior on "the inside". You can only die once, so it isn't like there is even an incentive to "mend" or try to make ammends. You just end up with angry people, and more angry people who feel (sometimes rightly so) that the justice system isn't blind, and examples are made of the most desperate of cases.

I don't think that she did that deliberately, WaM, but she did work for Amnesty International, in which she would have seen miscarriages of justice happen every day. I think it certainly could have been influential in laying bare and bringing to light some of the most common violations of human rights and using them as examples within the Potterverse. Even a very liberal policy does not ignore and "excuse" the most egregious offenders and those who show no remorse for the actions which they committed and participated in, as Jo shows in casting Voldemort as the ultimate evil, but she still left the door open a crack for the very slim possibility that he could be "all right" if he was in the least bit sorry for what he did. In his case, he slammed that door in his own face.

This is a story about children in school, so they aren't going to be dealing with issues of international trade (which are of great importance regardless of what you tell the voters at home ). Probably the closest thing to that will be noting the disparity between the economic conditions of the Malfoys and the Weasleys as well as the Weasley twins who quit school to make a go of it. I will strenuously object if you suggest that Jo Rowling is pushing one political agenda over another because throughout this series she has shown the merit of using your brain instead of going along to get along. I don't think she is partisan in the least.

It's important to question your representatives if they are not doing their jobs, I don't care how many times they have won Witch Weekly's best smile award This is shown time and again by some of the sillier decisions made by the Ministry. If you are lucky enough to have some civil liberties, this can be as painless as reading up on the issues, checking voting records, and going to the polls on election day. If you are less fortunent, well we have the example of Neville Longbottom stepping into the no-mans land between Voldemort and the Castle defenders.

You can also subscribe to satellite radio which has a much wider range of information outlets available than the "mainstream" (but "free" to anyone who has a receiver) channels - but unfortunately that can get pretty expensive on a limited budget. "Potterwatch" is a good example of a "free satellite" service in the books, with its changing password for encription and how its popularity was created basically through word of mouth.

I don't know, Smully, my kids are very concerned about the political and social climates within which they are growing up, and seeing different viewpoints in the book can really open the eyes to what is really going on in the world today. Bringing up St Mungo's made me think of when we took the middle schoolers to see Michael Moore's "Sicko" and they became very disturbed about the health care industry in this country. There is no mention in the Potter Books of the Weasleys losing their home because of medical bills that couldn't be paid, or the cost of the lengthy stay that the Longbottoms have endured there. Seeing that other countries treat things a bit differently than our "own" opens the doors to discussions on how to make it better "here". They (my kids) aren't afraid to speak to their teachers and bring up in class their perspectives of how they see the mishandling of their future (although they don't put it in terms such as that). They don't always get their facts "correct", but if they are unsure about what they are being taught in school and what they said that day, they ask us (my husband and myself) and if we don't have an answer, we help them find those answers for themselves.

My point is that in order for the kids to get interested in things such as International Trade, they have to be introduced to the topics in a non-partisan way - by stripping away all the "fluff" that surrounds these issues, and seeing it for what it truly is, and for whose benefit the "fluff" is being added. JKR does that rather well in the Potter books. In "real life" there are programs such as the Model United Nations (link) which teens from all over the world participate in and become exposed to international issues in a "hands on" environment. If our kids are not prepared, it is only our own faults for getting all caught up in the "fluff" without getting to the substance.

Funny you should say that. But doesn't GoF have Percy working on matters of international trade? Cauldron bottoms and flying carpets? And certainly the whole business of Hogwarts being open to all magical families, rather than just Purebloods, sure smacks of an attack on the Class System. Perhaps, JKR's friend Gordon Brown had a talk with her before she made the Muggle PM look so pathetic.

An excellent post, momwitch. I'd also point out that Dumbledore opposed the use of those Guantanamo-like Dementors and JKR said during the Bloomsbury chat that Kingsley Shacklebolt had abolished their use at Azkaban upon taking office.

Thanks, David. Yeah, I realized that my comment on the Dementors in my post before last sounded a bit callous - but I think that was during the time that the edit buttons weren't working properly. I'm personally not in favor of using cruel and unusual punishment in any shape or form, but realized that if the issue was truly about putting in place a deterrent, that the dementors would be more "effective" than a death penalty - especially in a Wizarding Society, where the variables on how a person could escape would be many. Though, how much was too much in this precaution - that every wizard - no matter what sent them there - had to live in fear of a Dementor's Kiss?

It was sad that Dumbledore's father felt that it was better for him to go to Azkaban and face those dementors, than put his daughter at risk of being an outcast in the Wizarding Community due to her becoming unstable from her attack by the muggle boys. It looks like the changes in attitudes were needed for a long time before they were actually realized.

This brings up another question. What did those Muggle boys do to Ariana to make Dumbledore's father attack them like that? That he felt the need to go to Azkaban rather than make his daughter an outcast in the Wizarding world?

There's not really much difference in terms of trade between the wizarding world and our own. We see a black market for Dark objects and stolen cauldrons. We see international trade between countries. We see a health care system of sorts. And we see a fully functional government--inept, but functional.

But we also see, to a certain degree, a segregation between the wizards and other magical creatures. There is distrust between wizards and goblins, wizards and centaurs, and the outright enslavement of the house elves. If any group needs social justice, it's the HE's.

I'm a big supporter of S.P.E.W.

That might be a reference to real world customs to preserve honor that still happen in certain cultures, Arduinna. Ariana might have been "defiled" - through no fault of her own - but the "law", in fear of this exposure which could "harm" the rest of the wizarding world, would favor exile for the victim. Unfair? Yes. Does it happen in "the real world"? Yes. In some cultures when a woman is raped - to protect the family honor, it is customary for the father or other males in the family to kill the victim.

I could see where Dumbledore's father didn't want his daughter to be further shamed in any other way, by bringing the case before the authorities and subject her to invasive examinations and a possible "permanent vacation" to St. Mungo's. He wanted "justice" but didn't want his child to suffer to see it carried through. He made a big mistake in taking matters into his own hands against the boys, and by doing so, he not only punished himself, but he punished the whole family in their own self-imposed exile. My guess is that a message here could be that vigilante justice, no matter how it seems justified is not the remedy for social ills...they need to be worked on within the society itself.

I liked SPEW, too, David...but I wonder if the patterns and supplies for making the clothes were set out, it could be a form of freeing oneself from bondage, and without being high-handed in "granting" freedom? The "bind" might still be broken, but it would take a further initiative, like in Plato's Allegory of the Cave to step into the light of freedom...hmmm

Wait a minute. Are you saying Ariana was raped by those boys?

I'm not saying that for sure, but I do think she was defiled in some way. How many boys do you know that have taken things apart to see "how they work"? This is not being said to be sexist as it applies to girls as well, but usually girls will stop at the point that it becomes "gross" or want to avoid being looked down upon by other girls in saying that they're "weird". This doesn't only apply to old appliances, but can extend to living things also. If Ariana was spied doing something completely out of the ordinary, it could have(this isn't definite) prompted them to "know" how she did it. If they couldn't get her to do it again "on demand", they might have employed other, more forceful means to try to make her do it.

Really? And here I thought you just had a crush on Hermione.


Okay, momwitch, that makes sense. Just thought I'd ask before I jumped to conclusions.

I don't see how it was justice that Dumbledore's father went to prison for protecting his child. You're right, though, vigilante justice should be discouraged and we shouldn't take the law into our own hands. I think that whatever happened, he was so enraged that he wasn't thinking clearly; he probably would have reacted the same had it been wizard boys who attacked her.

Which leads to another question. Aren't there ways other than memory modification for wizards and muggles to deal with injustices against the other? If the Ministry and the PM are in contact, surely there are codes and laws for just these things?

Can I ask a question? Why do people talk of Ariana's father revenging himself to go to prison to prevent Ariana from going to St Mungo's. Which of the variants of the story does this come from.

My take was always that an enraged father avenged his daughter and so was sent to prison. And that the family closed ranks to protect Ariana from being "institutionalized".

I'm sure the incident would have left a very young Dumbledore wondering what was to be done to protect wizards from muggles. Afterall, the Secrecy Act is not perfect.

Of course, democracy is not perfect either. But, we saw what happened when Hitler swept it aside. Dumbledore learned a similar lesson. The world isn't perfect and force doesn't make it more perfect, it makes it less perfect.

Hmmm... I thought that St Mungo's was the institution she would have gone to. I'll have to look it up, but I think it was in the Rita Skeeter story or the conversation at the wedding, but I'll have to verify this.

Is it the idea that he used what I perceived as vigilante justice causing some confusion? I'm not speaking of a "substitionary sacrifice" here, David, and I can certainly understand why he would have done something like this. But he must have known that in what he did, he would be "caught" and punished for his actions. By doing so, he deflected the reason why he did it, and prevented Ariana from being sent away - as many fathers who love their children would do. It was confusing to me that the authorities would seek to institutionalize (effectively punish) a victim here, in an effort to keep the secrecy act in force: just make the problem "go away" - this is what I see as needing change in the Wizarding World.

I thought he merely refused to explain why he attacked the muggles. Which made him look like a muggle-baiter. And I suspect we're looking at the world of 1890s Britain. I believe mad people were locked up. Women in particular. It's the subject of many Victorian novels. (Madwoman in the attic/husband who gaslights his wife).

I found it. It was actually in Chapter 28, The Missing Mirror, and it is Aberforth who gives the story:

Deathly Hallows, Scholastic, P.564 (refer there for the whole quote, just citing the pieces from where I got that idea stuck in my head)



So it seems from the way that Aberforth tells the story that his father went after those kids after Ariana was "ruined", which makes his actions, although understandable, pre-meditated. He didn't say why he did it, because by doing so he would have condemned his own daughter to a lifelong sentence of her own, and it certainly appears that he loved her too much to let her be separated from those who loved her unconditionally.

I believe when you say that is how people, especially women, were treated in Victorian England. I recently found out that my grandfather's sister was sent to one of those places at Turn of the (20th) Century Ireland. I never knew he even had a sister - she wasn't someone that was "talked" about in polite conversation. It was actually a cousin who unearthed that information...being shut up and stored away, a very sad (and scary) thing, indeed.

And Percy was treated as being hopelessly boring and trivial and sent a sample of fertilizer He didn't deal with trade imbalances or a lack of skilled workers due to strange educational policies. Umbridge, on the other hand, was well on her way to creating a lack of skilled workers in the wizarding community, in fact the wizarding community already had such a problem as many workers in the MOM couldn't even cast a decent shield charm (creating an economic opportunity for Fred and George). Which goes back to my original post

You are quite correct though davidenglish, and I was wrong. She does attack the Class System and that is certainly favoring one political agenda over another. (I guess that position is so ingrained in me I doen't even see it as a position, just a fact. Which is not very sensible, really. )

I just really don't see that much of an emphasis on universal health care by virtue of the fact that no crisis has occured regarding this issue to force the kids to think about it, get angry, and want to do something about it. Education on the other hand is a domestic policy spoken to in these books and I appreciate her take on it, it's kind of like happening upon water in the desert.

I like what you say about stripping away the "fluff" and seeing the "fluff" for what it is, and for whose benefit it is being added. She does to that in the relationship between Malfoy and Fudge, it becomes very obvious that Fudge favors the wishes of a big doner over the needs of the voters and is belatedly punished for his lack of judgement.

Regarding the issues children are concerned about, a lot of that seems to stem from a certain amount of indoctrination in school. As I mom, for example, I did not take kindly to my little girl coming home one day and crying for the next two weeks over the plight of an endangered animal. I have retaliated, we subscribe to the Economist and we listen to the audio edition in the car (although I'm having problems finding it this week).

We were stateside for the most part at that point. Things were better over here, one great-grandmother distinguished herself by being arrested for indecent exposure for refusing to wear a full-length wool suit to the beach. Another was the talk of the neighborhood for being the first to run around in (shudder) slacks, she was also very political. Another female cousin made it into the papers for taking control of the situation when a ferry sank, directing rescue efforts and jumping into the river to save people herself. (I guess that's probably WHY we were stateside! )

Ack! The Economist?

What really got our goat happened last year at one of our kids' schools. One of the teachers claimed that most of the current problems with the issue of Global Warming was due to misinformation because global warming is cyclical. This is, of course, true over the long haul (very long haul), but a long haul in environmental terms is not a mere 30 years; I was being told in school (around 1976/77) that we were quickly approaching the next Ice Age!!! In a fiscal cycle , 30 years is ancient history, but on the grand scheme of things is not even a flicker on the timeline.

This kind of stuff being shoved down our kids' throats is very similar to Dolores Umbridge's denying that what Harry was saying was true, and punishing him for his lies (misinformation). It will be only when an utter collapse is immanent that anything gets done - and by that time it may be too late. I was watching Star Trek IV: The Journey Home a few days ago, when the extinction of whales causes a global crisis in the 23rd century (less than 300 years from now) which nearly causes the destruction of Future Earth. The crew has to return to 1986 to bring a pair of whales back to the future so that the proper "code" (whalesong) is sung to deactivate the destructor probe. No whales to sing the song, and the existance of the Earth sways in the balance. ETA: Could whalesong be one of those ancient magics of which we know not - and have no idea to the impact it has in our daily lives because we are ignorant of its contributions?!? Maybe!

How much longer can we turn a blind eye to these issues that will affect our own childrens' futures - not to mention our survival as a species much later on down the line...all so that we can relish in the joy of getting the latest cheap plastic "collector" items in our takeout meals? Of course, Star Trek, like Harry Potter, is fiction, but through fiction the social consciousness is given a voice in a way that speaks to the heart and goes straight through to the soul - in an abstract but very profound way.

I'm not sure what you meant about "we" being stateside, Smully. I'm only second generation American on my father's side, most of my father's extended family still lives "over there"...and yes, the females are very outspoken! lol

Yes, the Economist, nice balanced publication which tends to report fact, not emotional fluff!

Well Star Trek is fiction, science fiction (which tends to be forward looking) to be sure, but fiction nonetheless. I want my daughter to have a balanced view of how things work. I do not want her to be reduced to tears and herded about by unscrupulous politicians who use a few knee-jerk issues to their own benefit (talking a lot but acting very little). So while I see the need to explore alternative forms of energy, both for environmental as well as political reasons, I'm not going to be herded into voting some schmuck into office simply because he/she regurgitates the correct platitudes.

I do see Umbridge in education today, she's the one using issues like the environment like Church officials from the dark ages used religion, to instill fear in a vulnerable population and using that fear to gain power. The Church officials wouldn't teach people to read and tended to conduct religious services in a foreign language. Today we see people graduating without necessary skills in math and hard science (which should be the ideal foil for issues like erosion, global warming, and acid rain, to say nothing about being necessary skills to innovate our way out of such problems!) instead we are bringing people over from other countries because our educational system is not keeping pace with the demands of the economy. The thing is, Umbridge never was one for practical learning, she just wanted to turn out obedient little drones with no practical skills.

What is the deal with "the new math"? Why are things like "powers" being renamed? Does that actually benefit anyone other than the publishers of textbooks?

"We" as in my family, a few of us could have joined the headless hunt, and a fair few fled to America!

Well, I guess you can consider it under the "fair and balanced" umbrella! lol
From the wiki - with references


"Unworthy timid ignorance" is generally a term reserved to describe more liberally minded policy and policy makers. Intelligence is one thing, but in order to employ intelligence in an intelligent manner - you first need wisdom, which requires a humbling recognition of our own ignorance to develop.

I do agree with you, however, in not electing politicians who give the magic response for the knee jerk issues. I especially like Arduinna's signature quote which comes from Douglas Adams, who wrote the famous Hitchhiker's Guide "Trilogy"





I'm in agreement with you there, too, Smully. The problem with this is that we have become a Service Nation, rather than a manufacturing nation - employing machines to do the things that were done by real human beings before. We have "graduated" ourselves to be identified by what we do, and not what we really are - and most people want to be the "guy on top who manages the whole thing" - without the slightest idea of what it takes to get the real jobs done. I found this disturbing at the end of HP, that so many people wanted to know what everyone "did" with their lives - how they further distinguished themselves after the fall of Voldemort. Isn't it enough that they seemed to become good spouses and parents...why is what you do to support a family so much more important than the family itself?

It isn't that the educational system isn't "keeping up", here - it is that so much is expected to be absorbed by a certain time, that things such as "hard science" cannot be observed over an extended period. Most things in a business environment are done according to deadlines - and Science doesn't operate according to a business plan! Some experiments take months (much like Hermione's Polyjuice Potion) and lots of patience to see the reactions take place - when you are only given a limited amount of time to "master" an ability or "skill", you don't have long term observations in place which give insight into how the whole process evolves. Take a look at a lot of the controversies that many pharmaceuticals experience - especially when over time they are discovered to have unforeseen side affects and complications. The money that is spent in Research and Development must be made up somewhere - and pushing "approval" is a way to reap a profit on the initial investment - and often to the detriment of the society and to the economy - in higher costs of prescriptions to consumers to feed the vicious cycle that is created in the form of lawsuits and restitution when a "wonder drug" is found to be a "pretty poison" in disguise.

Well, America is not the place I look to for social justice. Not today, at least.

And I'm confused by this mention of Global Warming. Even the those most ardent deniers of GW in Australia and the USA are conceding it's a fact. And, no, it's not cyclical. (Cyclical in natural terms would be marked in thousands of years, not decades.)

I'm not sure about dismissing Star Trek or fiction for that matter. The most avid watchers of Star Trek tend to be learned people. And the series introduces complex concepts of modern psychology, physics and philosophy through easy to understand images.

And I'd disagree about Umbridge. Her meddling is precisely this pseudo-practical education that is destroying learning. We push for measurable results in narrow bands of literacy and math, while failing to teach anyone to think critically.

What children in their teens are learning and what the old guard want them to learn are worlds apart. And it represents a generational divide that will see a major ideological shift in the next decade. The Neo-conservative revolution of Social Injustice is coming to an end.

In a study conducted in 2000 click (I'll keep looking for something more recent) We ranked: 15th in reading, 19th in math and 14th in science (in a study that only ranked 31 nations.)

Everyone deals with the demands of the regulatory insanity peculiar to the sciences in the business world. That's not what I'm talking about, I'm talking about the development of a skilled workforce.

Crack open an issue, you might be pleasantly surprised. The current top story is Religion and Ecology, Faith Upon the Earth Religious groups and environmental scientists are teaming up—albeit sometimes reluctantly That is picked at random but certainly thought provoking don't you think?

I noted with some enjoyment Arduinna's signature line too. I've been a fan of Adams for years, did you check out the movie? Alan Rickman is the voice of the robot!

I understand that - but the problem isn't in "keeping up" - it is precisely the misuse of what "keeping up" means in an educational perspective.

Things such as math, reading and science are being taught at accellerated rates where certain "benchmarks" need to be met by a certain time. It doesn't give time for the material to sink in before another concept is introduced and expected to be "mastered". In higher ranking countries, less than half of the material is covered in the same amount of time that we give our kids to reach these "benchmarks" - giving a greater comprehension of the concepts for the kids who master them at a slower pace. Education isn't an exercise in efficiency, which is directly in contrast to a business mindset, which values high output at the lowest possible price.
ETA:


It is thought provoking, but it almost sounds like another effort to promote Intelligent Design. I recently sawFlock of Dodos (link) which was very good and discussed the current controversies experienced within school districts regarding this issue.

Yes, I don't know what they are thinking. I definently feel for the average teacher who has to try to get through the schitzophrenic curriculum as presented. I really think something is terribly wrong, education is being over politicised and we are losing a number of fine teachers as a result (and driving a number of other fine teachers to distraction).

I don't take kindly to that sort of thing, either. In fact, it irritates me to no end that children are still taught that Columbus discovered America.



Well, I'm glad someone noticed my signature! It came in handy for something!



Well, if the teachers were allowed to teach, it might be a different story. It's not their job to teach morality or anything else. We are too concerned over numbers, not whether our children can actually think for themselves and come up with different solutions to problems.



Not this American. (Sorry, davidenglish.) At the Climatic Optimum, the climate warmed by as much as 30 F in less than thirty years. And we can't blame SUV's for that. Prior to 1197, Greenland was perfectly habitable. By 1300, it was not. In 1492 the Pope complained that no one had visited Greenland in 80 years because of all the ice. So dramatic climate change can and does happen, without our help. The early Bollial stadial and the Younger Dryas also occurred very rapidly--on the order of ten years. There are so many factors that influence the planet's climate, not the least of which is the angle of obliquity (which is decreasing from 23.5 to 22 degrees) and the strength of the magnetic field (which is decaying exponentially; we can expect a reversal sometime around 2012). Let's add to that the fact that the entire solar system has warmed--surely we don't expect Earth to be exempt from that? But what do the global warming people say--even while acknowledging that the solar system is warming? They say it's impossible and "laughable" that that's what's causing the Earth to warm. They call Pluto's warming "delayed seasonal warming." Give me a break.

Films like The Day After Tomorrow only add to the hysteria. People believed that film without bothering to discover that the effects portrayed in the film are grossly overstated and outright physically impossible. Even the pro-warming climatologists at NASA wouldn't consult for the film.

Any any attempt at explaining the recent global warming trend must answer the question: How does an ice sheet that was stable for over 100,000 years suddenly go into meltdown? Ice sheets a mile thick melted in less than two thousand years. How does something like that happen? None of the global warming people on either side of the argument have satisfactorily answered that question, and they must if we are to understand just what's going on.

It's the media that has created this feeding frenzy. They can't even predict tomorrow's weather, for heaven's sake. Rapid climate shifts are not news; the planet has dealt with them before and will continue to do so.

But surely we can debate this somewhere else?




I agree. Star Trek gave us our beloved cell phones.




Amen to that!


A workforce that is skilled in what? We don't do skilled labor anymore--at least, that is not the focus of our activities. So what do we do? We make money. Why? Because that's what we're good at. We don't make anything anymore. When was the last time you saw a clothing label that said, "Made in America"?


The movie was okay--gotta love Alan Rickman. Marvin is so depressing he's funny.

So if it's an idealogical shift in the works, than it would appear that some sort of indoctrination is in the mix. I've got no patience for the neocons and I've got no patience for any group seeking to supplant them. I guess though, it's business as usual, but I am afraid there is a price to be paid if we spend too much time on indoctrination and not enough on math.

And davidenglish, does that mean that "a new day will dawn" and that "there will be a bright new beginning" not to mention "the promise of a new world order"?! Or perhaps instead "do you want fries with that?" or rather 您想要油炸物与那吗?

Well, Arduinna, my ancestors settled Greenland at the time of the first Millennium and it was barely habitable then. It had been enjoying a brief warm spell. But that just made the coastline able to grow grass. The records left weren't encouraging. One can read about it in The Greenland Saga.

Smully, what indoctrination? Neo-conservativism has been the indoctrination. They openly admit they're promoting "Noble Lies" and "Necessary Illusions". That's what's driven American schools into the ground.

BTW, I note in the link you provided that Canada scored way better than the USA. And so did the UK. Of course, it might help if one actually put money into schools and stopped forcing fairytales like Creationism onto students.

Perhaps that is because much of NASA has been privatized. Say something bad about the "sponsors" and you have the potential to lose the critical funding and your job. I'm not saying that movie was an accurate portrayal of what will happen, but at least it is a warning. When I was a teenager, lots of movies and plenty of discussions were about the devastations of what would happen in a global nuclear war. I wonder if that fiction was what got a lot of attitudes to change - and helped in bringing the Berlin Wall down in 1989. If people start changing their energy consumption now and actively seek alternative energy sources to make real changes within the current generation, perhaps air quality will have a chance to recover - and many less people will be afflicted by air quality related illnesses such as asthma, in addition to reducing our dependence on external fuel sources, taking a bug chunk of the burning fuel factor out of the global warming equation.



I got the BBC version of Hitchhiker's Guide...and although the graphics weren't as good as the more recent version, I enjoyed that.

Well, The Day After Tomorrow was bad science. We have an excellent public science radio show up here called Quirks & Quarks that went over the science in a number of movies that have come out and TDAT got a failing grade.

But I find this whole denial thing interesting. It's a bit like the MoM denying that Voldemort was back. Arctic ice at its lowest levels ever. And the great fear is what will happen when the permafrost melts.

I'm not enjoying this freakish weather. We had one of the driest summers on record and last year we had one of the wettest. This past January was so mild that one of the regions oldest ski resorts shut down laying off 1300 people. And then February turned out to be one of the coldest Februaries ever. Sheesh. It's like a bad horror movie.

Of course, the media plays up the conflict between the naysayers and the yeasayers. But the only real debate is from the scientists discussing how quickly it's happening and what, if anything, can be done to stop it. So the media is playing the role of The Daily Prophet and The Quibbler.

Well who are "the old guard"? If it's a generational thing than that would seem to be a statement about the parents. So if you are suggesting that a great disconnect exists between what parents want children to learn and what the children are learning, then I'd ask why that is? And on whose authority? I don't think the Neocon movement has ever extended beyond a group of political zealots. They are gone after this next election in any case. I mean, if the previous group was indoctrinated in the Neocon way of thinking, why was it such a short-lived movement? No, if children are supposed to be so radically different from their parents there must be some sort of indoctrination to make it so. Do you think a first grader can challange what they are taught as fact by a teacher? No? So politics shoved down the throat of such an individual might be considered indoctrination?! Good thing kids ask so many questions then!

You said more money needs to go into U.S. schools, I'll bet though if you compare dollars to dollars, the U.S. schools are more expensive than the UK or Canadian schools. The UK colleges are well below half the cost, haven't found primary and secondary school figures but it's not an unusual thing at all for the private schools to charge a fraction of what the public schools get per pupil.

Regarding Creationism, I believe that occurred briefly in one school district in Pennsylvania (Very briefly, there was college to consider). So hardly the rule, I'd say!

I think the spirit of Dolores Umbridge is alive and well and somewhere high up in the Department of Education, her prospects will in no way be harmed by the outcome of the upcoming election, in fact she'll thrive! Probably get a raise and use it to buy more kitten inspired knicknacks!

The scary thing is that the Neocon movement has had strong support on the college campuses - from the students themselves. With nothing to feel "their own": the conservatism of their parents parodied in the excesses of the 80s, and the "liberalism" of the generation before surviving in the remaining Loser (or shiftless, jobless, homeless) "hippies" of the peace and love movement, it gave them a perfect opportunity to make an "early mark" on the world. This can be evidenced somewhat in the books through the Dumbledore/Grindelwald association, when they had all the answers to make the world a better place For The Greater Good.



That might be true to an extent, but remember that the public schools have a wider range of requirements to fulfill than a private school. A private school can be selective for the most part in how they choose their students, while a public school has to accept all and make accomodations to facilitate the use of the school for all of its students. That can cost a lot of money. For example, my daughter's private kindergarten didn't have the resources available to help her dyslexia, but the public school she went to for first grade had the ability to try different reading strategies to help her grasp the fundamentals of reading. Since the public schools are more inclusive, the price per child is going to be higher to offset the strengths and weaknesses of the entire student body on the whole. Another problem is that many school districts are being forced to offer voucher programs to private schools, for people who are dissatisfied with the education offered at the public schools available to them. This takes funding away from the entire school budget, reducing the ability of the public schools to perform, and makes the private school "performance records" look superior...further undermining and misrepresenting the statistical evidence.

Unfortunately, I think you are right, here - especially if the farce of standardized testing is allowed to continue.

Well, I don't buy this notion that America spends more on education per student. The USA spends almost 30% more per capita on healthcare than Canadians and doesn't have universal healthcare and those who are insured have patchy service at the low end and lavish service at the high.

A poster from the state of Georgia once described a high school in a wealthy neighbourhood in Atlanta. It sounded like Harvard! And it was a public high school. So there's a funding problem in America that rewards the rich and punishes the poor. And, no, it isn't cheaper to send kids to private school. A private school tuition costs 10 to 20 times the school tax rate paid by a family sending a child to school.

The only thing anyone needs to pay for when going to Hogwarts is books, clothes and school supplies. There's never talk of any tuition. And we see the very poor family of the Weasleys exceeding on merit alone at school. This creates a truly upwardly mobile society. And there's universal healthcare, otherwise Arthur's trip to St Mungo's would have bankrupted the family.

(BTW, I'd note that we who have universal healthcare find the American system inhumane. Indeed, a retired philosophy professor I know up here, who is an American, would like to see our system privatized, but I noticed that he did stay here to have free prostate surgery rather than go state-side and have it done there. His libertarian rants seem rather hollow now. Mind you, I suspect it's really the tax rate on the salary of a senior professor that really irks him. LOL.)

Again, many social justice issues are brought up in the Potterverse and JK Rowling can highlight them because she dismisses many of the issues that are most common in our world. Women are equal in the Potterverse. Among humans, race, colour and creed have not bearing on their standing in the Potterverse. Instead, prejudice is symbolized in a debate on magical purity, which is a satire of eugenics and aristocracy and class. Bigotry is satirized in the attitude to other human-like magical creatures: house elfs, goblins, centaurs and merpeople. (One might easily subsitute the words Mexicans, Chinese, Ojibway and Maori to see how these prejudices might translate to our world.)

That is scary, I'll be honest, I haven't seen that so much as libertarianism which is at odds with the Neocon philosophy (If in fact there is a philosophy, seems more to me like a paternalistic pack of lies!)

Didn't know there was a voucher program in place, I know that in some of the underperforming schools they are required by law to pay outside independant contractors for students in need of remedial education.

Well my daughter attends a private school (now) and the taxes (allocated for the schools) taken from myself and her father pretty much break even with her tuition, so your statement that private school tuition costs 10 to 20 times the school tax rate is false. The public school system BTW gets about twice what the private school does per pupil in this school district.

Smully, where you live, are private schools still served by the district public education transportation system? When I was in school in the Northeast, my Catholic school was serviced by the same transportation funding allocated for the public schools. Also, the reusable textbooks were technically owned by the County, reducing the cost of materials to the private school itself. Another thing, if you were a member of the parish which the particular school "belonged" to, you qualified for an in-parish rate tuition, which was lower than the "out of parish" rate. The reasoning was that if you were a member of the parish, you were expected to contribute to the weekly offering at church, as well as put in volunteer work at the school (Bingo workers), and contribute to other various fundraisers (bake sales, chinese auctions etc), as well as contribute to special "emergency" collections to benefit the school fund - which could actually be a tax write off.

Where I live now, the private schools are not serviced by the county school bus transportation system (morning school traffic is terrible!). From what I know from the private schools here, textbooks have been replaced by far more "dittos", or use curriculum specifically geared towards the special interest of the individual schools. We also pay a lot less in school taxes here, but the money is distributed district-wide rather than be earmarked for a specific section or township from where the money is collected. In the Northeast, school taxes are high because many towns take pride in their individual school performances. The desireability of living in a certain town is many times largely determined by the quality of the school system. It has a big impact on keeping real estate values "up" in many areas.

Lots of the school costs in this country have to do not with education, but in keeping up with the building of more schools to fit the needs. Reducing the student to teacher ratio has been big talk, with the "optimum" number of kids in a classroom not to exceed 20. So we might be paying a lot "per capita" but that rate is not necessarily related to the cost of actually educating a student - but to building new schools to meet the new standards.

Oh, how I wish there was a real Hogwarts! lol

Well, I am really enjoying our weather. It hasn't hit 100 in several years (and it only hit 90 a few days this year), and most of the time the summer is cool and comfortable. In fact, last week we had a record low night temperature of 38 degrees. Not many people complained about that. Winter is still winter--just as brutal as ever.


It wasn't creationism, it was intelligent design, which is just a fancy name for creationism when you get right down to it. And it was Dover, PA. At the time we had one of the most ultra-conservative senators around who backed it, but we had the very great pleasure of sending him packing last November.



The scary thing is that they cheer those idiots from the news channels who spew nothing but hatred, division, and intolerance. They have swallowed this neocon agenda hook, line, and sinker. The majority have no idea what they are talking about.



Those are called charter schools here. Actually, it's not mandatory. Some parents choose to send their kids to these schools in the belief that private companies can achieve greater learning than public schools. I haven't seen any data on this; I don't know if it is effective or not.

Momwitch says:

This is called Title I, and if your child attends public school, the district is mandated by law to provide any and all interventions necessary for your child. This includes any textbooks, specialized equipment, and therapy.

Private schools here are very, very expensive. Some of them cost in the thousands of dollars a year for tuition, and obviously only the wealthier parents can afford it. And these kids usually go on to Harvard or Yale whether they deserve to or not. Sometimes transportation is provided, sometimes not. It depends on the school district.




This is true. Where I live, there are a lot of advocates for a city-county merger to rein in costs from duplication of services. We have over 50 separate municipalities in our county alone. One of the stumbling blocks to any merger is: What do we do with the 40 school districts? The wealthier suburban districts refuse to allow their tax dollars to go to a large urban district that is underperforming. In this climate of reduced federal funding for education (in spite of increased mandates from the useless NCLB), it's every man for himself.

Yes, Arduinna, the private schools like to play with their figures to promote themselves. As I said quite clearly in my post, the cost to the family sending children to public school is only a fraction of what a private school would cost.

Private schools cost from $5000 to $30000 a year. Whereas a family sending children to a public school would pay based on their property value and income. It wouldn't matter if the family had one child or seven, as in the case of the Weasleys; the cost would be the same per year.

The For-Profit system is inadequate for either healthcare or education in that it places nebulous concerns of money over equality. I mean, a hospital claims it must charge $X for a procedure, but why must it pay $XXX to its CEO? And what is a reasonable return on investment? X%, 2X%, 3X%? If there is one thing the fiasco of Enron has taught us it's that clever accountants can make the numbers say anything; you want profit, you got profit; you want loss, you got loss. Apparently the only time the numbers need to be real is when the forensic accounts show up on the scene. (Maybe there should be a TV show called CSA: Crime Scene Accountant.)

There was a chain of private charter schools that went bankrupt in California. What's a child to do then? The family out five to ten thousand dollars and the child out a year's worth of school. And the evidence, which the White House has been reluctant to admit, is that private schools do not outperform public schools. A friend of mine taught at a private school in Alberta a few years ago. The school filed for bankruptcy without warning near the end of October: a day before paychecks were due, but a week after the full tuition was due. The public school system was great about absorbing the affected students.

Would you believe that some communities are even exempt from paying a school tax portion of their property taxes? These are usually in "retirement villages" which have age minimums and no local school district to support, due to the fact that there are no children in the area! A big mentality is: "I paid my dues with my own kids, I don't need to pay taxes to support other people's kids."

Kinda blows the mind on what the obligations are for educating Society on the whole. All the talk of how "kids are these days", when there are very few things to keep them interested and occupied - in addition to greater separation between the generations and less compassion between them. How are kids supposed to develop that compassion if they are not being respected as vital components of what makes up a community? There was always the neighborhood "crank", but when all you hear are the cranks complaining about their strife in life - it creates an overall cranky society.

Yes, Arduinna, I'm happy that my daughter got the help she needed in the public schools, but I was also glad that we didn't have to "single" her out for a specific public program to fit her needs. She is far from not intelligent, but she does see things in a very different way than most "academically" gifted kids. She has a phenominal grasp of logic as she sees things in a very concrete way: she is our "literalist", but to open her mind we sent her to a public school that has an expanded arts program, where music, dance, and drama are part of her daily curriculum, as well as instruction in creative tactile arts such as paint, clay and mixed media. She loves it there, and the beauty of it is that it isn't a "special" school, but open to any child in the county. It is part of what is called the "Magnet" program, here. "Magnets" are usually schools that are in urban areas, where a focused curriculum is offered to draw students in from all over the county - "revitalizing" the neighborhoods and creating a more diversified student body. It isn't perfect, but to me is a step forward in evening the "playing field" so that the school funding is more equally distributed to all school districts within the county.

My family health insurance plan costs me nearly $8500 a year in premiums alone. I get very little for that as it is considered "catastrophic care" and is subject to a very high deductible and severe restrictions on what it will and will not cover - including diagnostic tests such as X-rays and blood tests. I would much rather pay that money in increased taxes, if I knew that my family woul