Good ol' Tumblr has come in for me again! Yesterday I came across a post about a new Harry Potter website. At first, I thought it was a University-style website for Hogwarts, you know - a syllabus, student-experiences etc. type thing. But oh-my-gosh it is so much more than that!
It's an entirely free site which enable you to become a Hogwarts student - taking classes, doing marked assignments reading coursebooks. It's brilliant, and completely satisfies my academic cravings. So far I have submitted the first week's assignments for A History of Magic and come out with a decent 95%. All assignments are marked by the professor in charge of the subject, which is very refreshing, rather than a computer algorithm, and gives a very authentic educational experience. It's hard not to take it very seriously.
Here's a sample of the graded assignment -
Review Assignment: Importance of History (Essay)
Essay PromptExplain to me in a maximum of three paragraphs why the study of history is important to you. Also explain why people should take history classes, or why you think students are forced to take history. Use evidence from your book or your knowledge of magical history to support your stance. Keep a strong central thought and please be sure to make references to our world. Muggle world history is interesting, but this is History of Magic. Do not spend more than 30 mins. on this assignment.
95%
Grammar and spelling will be accounted for as will syntax. My PA's and I are very persnickety and read over your essays carefully.
Student Response
To me, history - be it magical or muggle - is one of the most fundamentally crucial aspects of wizarding education, and society as a whole. It can show us, step by step, where have come from, how we came to be the people we are today, and - most importantly - precisely where the future will take us.
History is a constant constant tangent and should be used to predict the events of the future, rather than simply being implemented as a dry, theoretical study that serves little purpose other than to bore students to tears. It is easy forget, when looking at figures and events of the past, that they are real things that happened to real wizards, just like us. In fifty years time, the Wizarding War of 1997 will be regarded as 'History'; will students of the future regard that as fictitiously and as unimportantly as the Goblin Rebellion of 1612? Modern wizarding students need to be taught to view history with an eye to the future in order to the ensure that any mistakes made are a result of trial and error, rather than mindless ignorance.
In the introduction to A History of Magic, Mallory H. states that 'Magical history is every bit of foggy and whimsical as every other aspect of magical studies.' Whilst I can understand the basic point that Mallory is trying to make, I must respectfully disagree with her. It is this thinking that provides the modern wizarding community the excuse to dismiss its history as a dusty product of the past and is the reason why magical students - the Ministerial workers and teachers of the future - fail to take the subject as seriously as they ought. History of Magic, as a Hogwarts subject, must be made interesting and accessible if the mistakes resulting in the war of 1997 are not to be repeated. It was pure ignorance that lead us there, and education is the antidote to that ignorance.
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It was quite hard to get into the head-space of a wizarding student - the point is to not write from a muggle perspective - and it was even harder to keep it to three paragraphs, but what a fantastic site! I feel like I've been waiting for something like this for the last decade!
Hope to see you all there!
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