Beyond Hogwarts: A Half-Blood's Perspective on Inclusive Magical Education

RailsConf 2015

by Jaime Lyn Schatz

In her talk 'Beyond Hogwarts: A Half-Blood's Perspective on Inclusive Magical Education' at RailsConf 2015, Jaime Lyn Schatz explores the importance of inclusivity in magical education and the need for broader opportunities beyond traditional institutions like Hogwarts. She emphasizes that while Hogwarts has a historical legacy of nurturing magical talents, it often overlooks the potential of those outside its reach, including Muggle-borns and students with unique needs.

Key Points Discussed:
- Historical Context: The magical education system, primarily through Hogwarts, has focused on identifying young magical talents. However, many magical capabilities are found outside this selective process.
- Recognition of Potential: The defeat of Voldemort highlighted the magical abilities of Muggle-borns and those who were not traditionally trained. Notably, figures like Severus Snape and Lily Potter illustrate the contributions of those who came from non-magical backgrounds.
- Individual Experiences: Jaime shares her personal journey as a half-blood raised in the magical world, which brings to light the varied experiences of those who navigate both magical and Muggle realms.
- Challenges in Current Education: Despite the successful education model, there are gaps in skills and knowledge. Hogwarts graduates often lack practical experience, a need showcased by the students who fought in the Battle of Hogwarts, who became more adept through real-life challenges.
- Broader Opportunities for Training: Schatz advocates for increasing access to magical training, particularly for individuals too old for Hogwarts or who require different learning methods. This includes:
- Expanding Beginner Training: There has been a rise in beginner magical training programs, but they need to be more accessible and effective.
- Creating More Magical Schools: Smaller schools that offer Hogwarts-level education are emerging but are constrained by a lack of qualified teachers.
- Reviving Apprenticeships: There is a strong potential in apprenticeship programs which can bridge the gap between aspiring witches and wizards and the available magical training opportunities.
- Call to Action: Schatz invites the magical community to participate in expanding educational opportunities to ensure all magical talent is recognized and nurtured, stating that every magical individual is valuable in facing future challenges.

Conclusions and Takeaways: Ultimately, the talk serves as a rallying cry for the magical community to reconsider and reform its approach to education. By expanding beyond traditional methods and embracing inclusivity, they can better equip the next generation to face evolving challenges in the magical world.

00:00:11.960 I'd like to thank you all for coming today.

00:00:13.599 It's wonderful to see so many professors and distinguished guests, as well as Headmistress.

00:00:16.119 Scholars and other gentlefolk, my name is Lovelin Treasure Boox.

00:00:21.480 It is an honor to be here with you today at Raven Comp.

00:00:24.720 Though I'm not an official alumna, Ravenclaw has drawn me in with welcoming arms.

00:00:28.960 It truly is a very special community, but you already knew that.

00:00:31.960 As you've seen in your scrolls, my talk is called 'Beyond Hogwarts: A Half-Blood's Perspective on Inclusive Magical Education.' For generations, the world's magic has been performed by witches and wizards who were carefully identified at an early age and cloistered away in institutions like Hogwarts, Durmstrang, or Salem Witches Institute.

00:00:50.160 There, they are trained and groomed in their magical abilities before being sent out into the world to carry on our traditions. It has been a good system, proven by time and trial, to cultivate the magical talent we need to thrive.

00:01:04.120 However, several years ago, the magical world faced a threat like no other. Twice, after great losses on both sides, Voldemort was defeated. It's easy to forget that when Voldemort threatened us all, two of the three witches and wizards who led his defeat were not raised in the magical world.

00:01:20.159 Those events lifted a veil and revealed to the world the incredible magical potential of Muggle-borns and, I believe, even of Squibs. But we can discuss that at dinner.

00:01:34.000 As you also read in the scroll, I am a half-blood. My mother is a Muggle, but my father was a wizard, a part of the magical world who even served the Ministry for a few years as an Auror. I, however, was raised in the magical world, complemented with Muggle schooling.

00:01:46.559 I was quite fortunate, and unlike Mr. Potter, I was never actively denied my magical heritage. However, I was never actively brought into it either. For most of my life, I thought my magical side was merely a curiosity.

00:02:02.240 For years, I ignored the quiet owls tapping on my windowpane. You see, only a chosen few are summoned to Hogwarts. With the tenacity of Dumbledore, my first steps into the Wizarding World were a long time coming. Finally, I opened my eyes to the wonderful magical world before me and dove right in.

00:02:18.720 I've even been able to find some of my magical father's commentary, but you'll notice that my robes are hand-sewn, my spell books are only borrowed from Diagon Alley, and my precious wand was a gift from a magical friend and her equally magical network.

00:02:36.440 This wand was given to me at the time of my greatest despair. Like Hermione Granger, I have been very lucky, but how many of our next generation's potential witches and wizards won't be as fortunate?

00:02:44.280 Where would we be now if half-bloods or Muggle-borns like Severus Snape or Lily Evans missed their chance and never made their way through Hogwarts' halls? Severus Snape is famous for many things, but being a half-blood isn't one of them.

00:03:03.040 Opinionated and brilliant, with a sharp tongue, Professor Snape's knowledge and training have saved countless lives. Lily Evans started her life as an ordinary Muggle, and while she showed some signs of magical ability, she had no real idea of her potential until the day she received a visitor from Hogwarts who introduced her to her true calling.

00:03:16.119 Lily Evans is better known as Lily Potter, member of the Order of the Phoenix and Harry Potter's mother. Without Lily Evans, we'd probably all be speaking Parseltongue right now.

00:03:29.240 There are great and terrible things just past the horizon, and we will need every bit of magical talent we can find to face them. We must all look beyond Hogwarts and beyond our old ways of growing magical talent.

00:03:44.520 And it's not just Muggle-borns who have needs beyond Hogwarts. Once our students are in school, a few of our brightest are not finding what they need.

00:03:51.360 Take the Weasley twins, Fred and George—they quite notoriously abandoned their educations to follow their creative sides. I say 'notorious' because if you fly out of school, setting a fiery dragon on your teacher and leaving in a shower of fireworks, it's hard to be known for something else.

00:04:12.320 The Weasley twins put their skills and talents to good use; the products of their entrepreneurial spirits have brought great joy to the magical world, even as they've taken a little of our productivity and a lot of our gold in return.

00:04:26.919 They are not alone in this need. We sometimes forget that even Ollivander, our revered wand maker upon whose tools so much of our magic depends, is not known for an illustrious school career at Hogwarts. I've even heard rumors that he used to race brooms.

00:04:42.480 We need to make room for all of these magical minds to build and create in their ways as well, even if that means extending Hogwarts-level magical training and mentorship beyond Hogwarts' walls.

00:05:03.720 We face a third and final challenge that is sometimes only whispered: the Ministry of Magic is finding that the spells taught at Hogwarts are, in some ways, insufficient. Even our brightest graduates are lacking in the latest techniques and charms.

00:05:21.440 While their theoretical knowledge is superb, learning magical theory alone doesn't help much when faced with a real-life conflict. Passing the OWLs is not enough.

00:05:37.680 This gap between knowledge and experience, and between theory and practice, was laid bare after the Battle of Hogwarts. To be blunt, the students who fought and survived Voldemort and his Death Eaters are simply better witches and wizards today.

00:05:52.280 They had the opportunity to develop their magical skills in the real world. Our most favored trio and their battling allies are better prepared for any magical venture, whether in times of peace or war.

00:06:05.840 We are now faced with great threats and a growing body of students who were either found later in life and are too old for Hogwarts or who have needs beyond the Hogwarts curriculum. We need to look beyond Hogwarts.

00:06:15.839 First, we need to take better advantage of the recent explosion in beginner magical training opportunities. Just a few years ago, a budding witch or wizard's only real opportunity to study magic was within Hogwarts' walls.

00:06:34.640 That time has passed; today, high-quality beginner-level magical training is just a swish and flick away. Yes, there is a great deal of bad magic out there as well, and it is up to us to amplify and increase the reach of the beginner-level training.

00:06:49.440 There have also been tremendous strides in developing Hogwarts-level magical training in smaller venues. What these small schools lack in scale, individually, they can make up for in total reach.

00:07:04.480 But we need more of them, and they need to go deeper. One of these magical schools regularly receives many more times the number of qualified applicants than they have capacity for.

00:07:22.240 When asked why they don't expand to fill the need, one witch involved in selecting their last cohort said they would love to. She said they have the demand and support from magical industries, but what they lacked was enough experienced witches and wizards willing to teach.

00:07:37.760 And that school is only one of many that are starving for witches and wizards who want to teach. They are looking for experienced, passionate teachers and tutors for their students.

00:07:53.480 They're looking for you. Finally, we need a revival of an old practice: apprenticeships. Magical industries, both large and small, have already embarked on this path and are finding success.

00:08:05.680 Apprenticeships are proving to be an excellent way to grow magical talent. However, there is still a terrible imbalance between the number of future witches and wizards seeking these apprenticeships and the much smaller number of those enabling them.

00:08:24.801 We are poised at the brink of a new age in the Wizarding World. By increasing the reach of our owls, supporting magical training beyond Hogwarts' walls, and expanding apprenticeship programs, we will be ready to identify, reach, and train the army of witches and wizards we will need to meet the challenges ahead.

00:08:43.000 I invite all of you to join me in this mission to reach beyond Hogwarts for the future of our magical world. With the threats and challenges looming on the horizon, we will need every single shining star and diamond in the rough working together to defend and guide the magical world.

00:09:00.360 Hang on! Voldemort's gone. Let's talk about those other threats. Let's talk about power. What are the ABCs of a conference? Always be charging.

00:09:13.360 We don't have to just accept that we want devices that use less power. We want to be able to let our needs dictate which apps we run and which apps we turn off. How many times today or yesterday did you put your phone into airplane mode just to save some power so you'd make it through the day?

00:09:31.360 We shouldn't have to do that. A solution to this will require the skills of electrical engineers, as well as of software engineers who think about energy consumption as they code.

00:09:45.360 Our work as developers feeds on energy just as much as the work of a farmer feeds on water. Our future selves will depend on software that respects energy use and enables a stable and secure electrical grid.

00:09:58.760 The grid from which we get our power is run by software—software that someone or a lot of someones have to write. Second on that list is privacy.

00:10:11.640 There are three big buckets of people attacking our privacy today. First, we've got the nosy neighbor— or that creepy ex or your aunt who's lurking in your Facebook feed.

00:10:22.240 Then we've got the authorities, including the NSA recording everything. Wave hello to the camera; the NSA will see you. We've got police departments wanting to require you to use your fingerprint to unlock your phone.

00:10:36.240 And we have HR departments making you swear to spy on your colleagues on social media. It's not a myth.

00:10:50.680 Finally, we have the free services that we actively give our information to. By now, it's an old saw that if whatever you're using is free, you're actually the product.

00:11:03.360 Companies from Google to Facebook to Twitter have built empires around selling information about us, and play-for-pay companies are starting to follow suit. Uber and PayPal are doing their best to learn everything they can about you. Just check out some of their job listings.

00:11:18.360 Our security threats come from multiple places, too. First, there are hackers and scammers, lovely helpful folks who send you emails covered with your bank's trademarks and try to phish your login information.

00:11:34.760 To fight them, we create complicated passwords and train ourselves to be wary and internet-savvy. But when we discover that the layers of security we create become so difficult to penetrate, people simply won’t use them.

00:11:49.600 We might set our passwords to autofill in our browsers or use easy passwords just to get to a long article, or we become dependent upon services like LastPass or link our accounts to each other.

00:12:01.080 It’s easier than remembering long strings of gibberish, but it's not the safe way to go. By bringing in new programmers who started out in other fields and fostering entrepreneurship in our dropouts, we not only gain more soldiers in this fight,

00:12:15.920 but we gain from their experience and insights. We can also gain in smaller ways. Artists and teachers can make great UX programmers. We won't know what we don't know until someone new comes along with a different perspective.

00:12:29.720 So where does that leave us? We've got threats both big and mundane, and we've got a tremendous potential pool of talent just itching to code. Each of you has a skill, resource, or battle scar to share.

00:12:48.760 If you don't know where to start, look up your local 'Learn to Code' group; maybe one is right down the block. Or look up a girl development chapter or a study group, or start an intro night at your local coding group.

00:13:01.640 You can spend some time on the Code Newbies chat on Twitter or any of the million other 'Learn to Code' chats happening. You're bound to find lots of folks who can benefit from just some bits of your experience.

00:13:15.320 If you have a little bit of time, or a lot, consider starting your own group. Ada was started about two years ago by a handful of developers a lot like you, and looking out, I know exactly like some of you.

00:13:30.000 Madison Software Academy, Project Ascend, Mother Coders— all of these were homegrown, grassroots schools working to give people their start.

00:13:50.440 Or you can reach out to newbies at your own company. Bri Thomas, before me, and Pamela Victors after me are both talking about specific ways you can help—ways that have worked in their companies that you can model into yours.

00:14:02.560 If you don't have time for a big commitment, all you need to do is take one or two newbies under your wing and mentor them. You could offer to pair on something and let them drive, or you could host a brown bag to discuss something you're passionate about and encourage colleagues to join.

00:14:19.960 You might be surprised at both the turnout and what you can learn when people come up for their turns. If you're in a position of influence, whether by title or otherwise, consider starting an official apprenticeship program at your company.

00:14:36.080 Spend just 10 minutes a day on it. We're missing a huge part in the middle between what these beginner coding schools can do and what companies are looking for.

00:14:52.640 If you don't have lots of time to devote to helping raise and grow our next generation of programmers, just a little bit of time on organizations and sites like this can help pass on the knowledge you have.

00:15:05.360 If you have more money than time, that's what crowd sourcing is for. There are countless people looking to bootstrap their own educations, and spending a little time on these sites or just paying attention to your Twitter feed will lead you to many people and organizations that you can impact.

00:15:22.719 And I included a cat picture, so I think that means the talk is done. Thank you.

00:15:49.679 You.