Rowling, J. K. (2003). Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix: Year Five at Hogwarts. New York: Scholastic Inc.
870 pp.
$29.99 ISBN 0-439-35806-X
Reviewed by Eric Margolis
Arizona State University
January 19, 2004
Hogwarts Identified As Underperforming
School!
Ministry Takes Over, Headmaster
Replaced
Back To Basics Curriculum Imposed
Harry Potter and The Order of the Phoenix: Year Five at Hogwarts is a big book with many themes including death, loyalty and adolescent sexuality. In my reading, J. K. Rowling has written a scathing critique of the current politics of schooling. She rips the veil of illusion from Hogwarts, showing it to be the pawn of political agendas. Educators, especially those imbued with notions of teacher and student agency may be especially discomforted by Rowling’s deconstruction of a number of cherished beliefs: that schools have autonomy, that teachers have authority in their classrooms, that truth and rationality win over brute force, and that one who is brave should “speak truth to power.”
As everyone knows by now, Harry Potter is a magical child raised by cruel foster parents who are the non-magical folk called Muggles. At age 10 he was rescued from his little hovel under the stairs at the Dursley’s and transported to the Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry where he makes friends and finds people who share his abilities and interests. School was a magic place that opened his eyes to the world, gave him a sense of his own power, and offered community and belonging. Of course there were nasty partisan teachers like Snape, and student bullies like Draco Malfoy and his gang Crabb and Goyle who tried to make Harry’s life miserable – there were even evil monsters masquerading as teachers who did their best to destroy young Harry. But all in all school was a wondrous place and he hated his enforced summer vacations back at the Dursley’s house on Privet Drive.
That is, until his fifth year. School is no longer a refuge from the world. As with Muggle children leaving the elementary grades, the magic is gone. At the end of the previous book the villain, Voldemort, returned; Harry fought for his life and saw one of his schoolmates killed by “He-who-must-not-be-named.” But over the summer the Daily Prophet, a sort of official newspaper that reports the Ministry of Magic line, has conducted a campaign to discredit Harry and deny the return of Voldemort. As the fall term begins, the Ministry reaches out to exert control over Hogwarts. A new teacher, Dolores Umbridge, is sent by the Ministry to teach “Defense against the Dark Arts.” In the past dark arts teachers have been motley crew: one was under the control of the Dark Lord who popped out of the back of his head shortly before Harry dispatched him, one was a werewolf, one lost his mind, and one was a complete imposter. On the other hand, the curriculum was practical and students, empowered by practice, learned important spells to resist evil influence. In fact with one exception, a history of magic teacher who drones everyone to sleep, all the teachers at Hogwarts use constructivist techniques: Snape, teaches “Potents” (chemistry) by handing out recipes and supervising lab work; Hagrid teaches “Care of Magical Creatures” (biology) as animal husbandry; and Trelawney, the “Divination” (psychology) teacher encourages crystal gazing and the interpretation of dreams. Classes were student-centered and project-based.
Umbridge is from the old school and a political appointee on an ideological mission. She pushes back-to-basics and uses fear, punishment and humiliation as motivators. Her “ministry approved curriculum” is “Defense Against the Dark Arts: A Return to Basic Principles” and on the first day of class, she lists course aims on the blackboard:
- Understanding the principles underlying defensive
magic.
- Learning to recognize situations in which defensive magic
can legally be used.
- Placing the use of defensive magic in a context for practical use.
Students are told to put their wands away and begin reading Defensive Magical Theory, “There will be no need to talk.” When Harry’s friend Hermione objects that there is nothing about “using defensive spells” she is told “Well I can’t imagine a situation arising in my classroom that would require you to use a defensive spell.” And “Wizards much older than you have devised our new program of study.” She discourages questions of any kind, and when, without raising his hand, Harry jumps in to ask what use theory will be if they are attacked, she retorts “Hand, Mr. Potter!” and then ignored him. Other students pick up the issue, pointing out that there is “a practical bit” on the high stakes test, called the O.W.L. exam, that all fifth year students must take. Umbridge silences them: “It is the view of the Ministry that a theoretical knowledge will be more than sufficient to get you through your examination, which, after all, is what school is all about.” As with us Muggles, school has become “about” getting you through the high stakes test and students are warned endlessly that scores on the O.W.L. exam will determine the career choices open to them.
The Hogwarts community learns for the first time from a headline on the front page of the Daily Prophet that reads: “Ministry seeks educational reform: Dolores Umbridge appointed first-ever ‘High Inquisitor’.” She is to come to grips with the “falling standards at Hogwarts” (sound familiar yet?), and is given power to “inspect her fellow educators and make sure they are coming up to scratch.” In a series of “educational decrees” Umbridge centralizes authority. She disbands “unapproved” student organizations, curtails student and faculty rights of free speech and assembly, gains power to hire and fire teachers and punish students. When Harry argues with her in class that Voldemort has indeed returned, she assigns him weeks of detention where he is forced to use a magical device that bloodily scratches “I won’t tell lies” deeper and deeper into the back of his hand. Later she banned him for life from playing Quidditch, a sort of wizard soccer and one of Harry’s great pleasures.
Most telling is the way Umbridge uses classroom observations to remove faculty who are perceived as supporters of the headmaster. Important long scenes depict her classroom “inspections,” demonstrating how easy it is to spin assessment when one is wielding a political ax under the guise of raising standards. Her notes on Hagrid twist every word and mannerism to the worst possible effect: when he searches for a word, “appears to have poor short term memory” and when he waves his arms “has to resort to crude sign language.” She similarly uses selective student comments to accomplish her pre-determined ends. The firing of the divination teacher, Professor Trelawney is a classic degradation ritual. In front of a crowd of students and faculty, Umbridge announces: “Incapable though you are of predicting even tomorrow’s weather, you must surely have realized that your pitiful performance during my inspections, and lack of any improvement, would make it inevitable that you would be sacked.” Umbridge humiliates people, especially colleagues in public. How are teachers supposed to maintain pedagogical authority when they are subjected to public disrespect? Scenes like this happen metaphorically all to often in Muggle schools, where centralized political regimes hold teachers publically accountable for the performance of students on high stakes tests.
Rowling gave us an object lesson and commentary on the current politicization of education. A number of lessons are embedded in the novel. One is that “speaking truth power” is most likely to lead to humiliation, degradation, and solitary punishment as in Harry’s painful detentions. The book argues that a far better strategy is to organize behind the scenes, use subterfuge and strike decisively when ready. Harry organizes a secret student group, Dumbledore’s Army, and teaches them practical spells to use in defense against the dark arts. When the group is discovered by the Ministry of Magic, Hogwarts headmaster Albus Dumbledore first pieces together a patchwork of lies to protect Harry, and then uses magic to render the Ministers senseless while he escapes.
There are several instances of the kind of student “resistance” many teachers would find familiar. Students mock professor Umbridge behind her back, circulate forbidden literature, and play pranks. When the Weasley twins turn a corridor into a swamp that cannot be drained they are found out, but rather than become the first students to experience the reinstated whipping policy, they jump on their brooms and drop out of school. This is analogous to Paul Willis’ study of an English Muggle school. In his study “The Lads” a group of working class boys, reject the disciplines and regimes of school and become early leavers. It is significant that in the Harry Potter series the Weasley family, though full blood wizards, are presented as distinctly working class. The children must be content with hand-me-down clothes and the father has a hum-drum low-status job at the Ministry of Magic. The twins drop out in their sixth year, just before the final level of high stakes testing, the N.E.W.T exams. They abandon school for entrepreneurship, opening a joke shop.
Eventually, Umbridge is lured away from the school by Hermione who makes up a story about there being a secret weapon (of mass destruction?) designed by Dumbledore and built by the students in the dark forest. Harry and Hermione entice her deeper and deeper into the woods until they are set upon by a group of centaurs angry at wizards and humans in general. In an amusing take on the way schoolish ways play in the real world, the centaurs proclaim themselves a free race, not subject to undersecretaries of magic or headmistresses, and claim the forest as their own. Umbridge makes a nearly fatal error calling them “filthy half-breeds” and creatures with “near-human intelligence” and is last seen by Harry and Hermione being “borne away through the trees.” As in the problem with speaking truth to power the message is unmistakable. School issues cannot be solved internally but must be dragged into the real world political arena dark though it may be. Only there can power be brought to bear sufficient to break down the surveillance, class-based discipline, and racism in the school.
Rowling’s books themselves exemplify the best argument for whole language instruction – millions of children around the globe are caught up in the story and learning to read complex texts; there are no trivial phonics rhymes or sanitized story lines here. She also has constructed an adult argument to the current right-wing political attacks on schools and progressive education. She writes of schools as communities where teachers and students work together, play, and struggle with difficult issues. No one has control of the “right” answers. While not attacking high stakes testing directly, she clearly notes that tests do not measure what is most important and will not do a good job predicting real world success. No fan of back-to-basics, the classes she describes are project-based and student-centered (there is no place for competition except on the Quidditch field). She lauds cooperation between students (Hermione always lets Ron and Harry copy her notes) and personal relationships between students and teachers which have become horribly suspect in these days of sexual abuse scandal. In the novel, identification of “underperforming” is a political judgment made by outsiders. Students may suspect that Trelawney is an old fraud and that Hagrid sometimes puts them in danger, but the ministry’s remedy is recognized as a thinly disguised attempt to protect the old guard with outmoded techniques of surveillance and discipline. In the end Rowling offers practical advice; if you would protect and strengthen schools, organize in the political arena and force the minister of magic to recognize the truth.
About the Reviewer
Eric Margolis
The author is a sociologist and teaches the social and
philosophical foundations of education at Arizona State
University. Email: eric.margolis@asu.edu
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