Things Public Schools Could Learn From Hogwarts

This post was partially inspired by Hank Green's fantastic Harry Potter song "This Isn't Hogwarts'.
In the video where he posts the song, he notes that the public school system could learn a thing or two from Hogwarts. Well, since I'm currently sitting by myself in a public school classroom (don't worry, we're on break), I thought I'd take a moment and write some things I think that my school could use from our wizard friends.


1. Cafeteria food. Do I even need to say so much. I get hungry every time I read or watch a Potter book or movie, just because the stupid house elves cook up all the good stuff. I'm not saying that we need to have Halloween feasts and stuff, but the stuff that gets served here is not exactly edible.

2. Experience learning. What do Hogwarts kids do when they're learning about potions? Make them. What happens when they're learning about plants? They go outside to actually work with the plants. What do you do when you learn about chemicals in high school? Write down some formulas and forget about it the next day. What do we do when we learn about businesses and how to dress for success? (I should mention that I have to take a business tech class. It's required.) Arguably, experience learning is the best way to learn. We should do more of it.

3. Houses. While the Hogwarts houses determine mostly where you live, I think that adding a house-like system with names and colors based on student interests might make for an interesting social experiment.  I know for me at least that it's really hard to make friends, because  the cliques from middle school are still effective because they all got classes together (I don't know if I ever published that thought but my mom once said that all the cliques are going to break up 'cause they'll all have different classes. They outsmarted us on that one). If we were sorted into something like houses, we'd have an immediate something to talk about with a lot of people and similar interests. I hate to put people in a box, but this might work, seeing as most high schoolers are pretty socially awkward.

What do you think? I'm probably just insane.

-Randi

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