Abstract
We have all felt the energy and excitement that Seamus, Dean, and Ron exhibit after their great Defense Against the Dark Arts (DADA) class: the feeling that we gained a new skill, learned something important that we did not know before, grew our self-confidence, and had a great time. In short, we have all experienced at least one great, successful teacher and/or teaching moment. These are events that make a significant difference in how we perceive ourselves as learners. In Teaching Harry Potter, these teaching events also frame how we view the value of talented teachers and everyday, extraordinary teaching. Unfortunately, as alluded to in Linda Darling- Hammond’s quote above, highly skilled teachers, the primary catalysts for effective teaching moments, work in larger numbers in America’s suburbs than in its urban and/or high-poverty neighborhoods.
Defense Against the Dark Arts: “That job’s jinxed. No one’s lasted more than a year…”3
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Notes
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban (New York: Scholastic, 1999), 139–140.
Linda Darling-Hammond, The Flat World and Education: How America’s Commitment to Equity Will Determine our Future (New York: Teachers College Press, 2010), 40.
J. K Rowling, Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince (New York: Scholastic, 2005), 167. (This remark was made by Harry to Ron and Hermione.)
Diane Ravitch, The Death and Life of the Great American School System: How Testing and Choice Are Undermining Education (New York: Basic Books, 2010), 218–219.
Marilyn Cochran-Smith and Susan L. Lytle, Inquiry as Stance: Practitioner Research for the Next Generation (New York: Teacher’s College Press, 2009), 9–10.
Jonathan Kozol, Shame of the Nation: The Restoration of Apartheid Schooling in America (New York: Crown, 2005).
Lana A. Whited with M. Katherine Grimes, “What Would Harry Do? J.K. Rowling and Lawrence Kohlberg’s Theories of Moral Development,” in The Ivory Tower and Harry Potter: Perspectives on a Literary Phenomenon, edited by Lana A. Whited (Missouri: University of Missouri Press, 2004), 203.
J. K. Rowling, Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix (New York: Scholastic, 2003), 339.
Robert J. Helfenbein, “Conjuring Curriculum, Conjuring Conrol: A Reading of Resistance in Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix,” Curriculum Inquiry 38, no. 4 (2008), 509.
Jim Garrison, Dewey and Eros: Wisdom and Desire in the Art of Teaching (New York: Teachers College Press, 1997), 122.
Gloria Ladson-Billings, The Dreamkeepers: Successful Teachers of African American Children, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2009), 14.
Ken Futernick, Incompetent Teachers or Dysfunctional Systems? Re-framing the Debate on Teacher Quality and Accountability (California: West Ed, January 2010), 10.
Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed (New York: Continuum, 1970), 66.
Luis C. Moll, “Bilingual Classroom Studies and Community Analysis: Some Recent Trends,” Educational Researcher 21 (1992): 20–24.
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© 2011 Catherine L. Belcher and Becky Herr Stephenson
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Belcher, C.L., Stephenson, B.H. (2011). Defending the (Not Really) Dark Arts: Teaching to Break the DADA Curse. In: Teaching Harry Potter. Secondary Education in a Changing World. Palgrave Macmillan, New York. https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119918_2
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9780230119918_2
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, New York
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