I was so excited when I got to interview the teachers and their helpful Assistant teachers (stay tuned *wink*) and quickly began the process of writing down the questions I wanted to ask them! Once I had perfected and narrowed it down to ten questions, I sent out my owl with the invitation to participate in the interview to all the teachers at that moment. Once everything was worked out, I got replies from seven of the teachers saying they had the time to participate.
I´m sure all you would rather read the interview by now so here it is. I picked around 3+ answers for all of the questions, because 7 would have made this blog WAY too long!
"What does a teacher do?"
“I like to think that being a teacher encourages creativity in the students and that their homework tasks are filled with inspiration - although sometimes I feel they were inspired by the due date. In a very base sense, we plan out a lesson each week and set an assignment for the students, which is graded. We also handle homework pieces with a varying grade or complaints, although sometimes the Assistant Teachers do this!”
–Septime Corris
“As a teacher I am expected to teach the students of Hogwarts in my subject, flying. I have lessons written for each of the 10 weeks and an exam the 11th week. If the students are in doubt about anything in my lessons, I also help them with that. Some of my other teacher duties is to keep an eye on the homework in my subject and hire AT's to help me keep it at bay, and of course I have to stay updated in the teacher's club.”
– Miles Thane
"What is it like being a teacher?"
“Being a teacher is almost like being a parent; I, personally, take great pride in my subjects and the classes I create for it, and it always warms my heart when I see or hear that someone is doing their Care of Magical Creatures homework. Whenever someone tells me they enjoy my classes, it truly warms my heart.”
- William Arendale
“I like being a teacher. It is wonderful to help the students in the subject, you love, and I just love seeing so many students being active in the subject, I teach in.”
–Amanda Hardy
“Being a teacher is a lot of things. It's mostly fun, but it's also challenging. I am constantly looking for new stuff to put in my curriculum and teach about, and with flying being a rather small subject, it can prove to be a very difficult task!”
–Miles Thane
"What is your favourite part of being a teacher?"
“My favourite thing is that even though I have always loved and enjoyed transfiguration; I learn even more about it myself as I teach it. And to share this amazing field of magic with the students gives me so much, I love learning this wonderful subject together with my students. It is an incredible feeling when I teach something new within the field of Transfiguration and watch the students go from total confusion to understanding it.”
–Emelie Olsen
“Definitely helping the students and write the lessons! It's amazing to seek information, and especially in Study of Ancient Runes, since it's a special subject without much information about runes in the HP-universe.”
–Archer Moore
If you could give one word to describe your job, what would it be?"
“Magitastic (I know it's not an actual word, but I'm torn between magical and fantastic, so I decided to make a cocktail)!”
- William Arendale
“Evolving. You develop as person, and so do your lessons."
–Archer Moore
“One word only? Oh, then would have to say 'interesting', as I learn so much myself. It is really funny to be honest, as I did use a few years after finishing school myself to work a lot to improve my magic and perfect it as much as I could, and I thought I almost knew everything within transfiguration. But now I know that I did not, I learn so much myself everyday by teaching transfiguration.”
–Emelie Olsen
"How is your process of writing a lesson and how do you keep it interesting?"
“I usually never know when I'll be writing a lesson and how it will turn out. I just sit down, look at some of the lessons I've already written and find inspiration in them, and from there it just goes. I try to have topics within the subject that aren't too similar, so the subject will keep being interesting.”
–Miles Thane
“First, I decide what the course is about in general. Afterwards I'm brainstorming about what would fit in, and spacing everything out in the different weeks. I make sure to have space between the broing, theoretical lessons. When everything is spaced out, I start to research and maybe change things here and there. I always try to keep it interesting and not crave too much from the students. To give some extra, I always have a bonus question, they can chose to do if they want. It is also important for my to make sure there is variation. Nothing will be the same.”
–Archer Moore
“The most important thing when writing a lesson is asking yourself if you would want to submit a homework for the given assignment. If not the assignment should probably been done differently.”
-Rebekkah Eilífsdottír
“Well, I just write, what comes to my mind. I have tons of ideas. I try making them interesting by thinking, if it was something I would like participate in myself. Would I like to do this assignment or not.”
–Amanda Hardy
“As soon as I got the job I started to make a basic and simple outline of the curriculum I wanted, because I want my lessons to be related to the one before it, so that the student's knowledge of transfiguration develop in a systematic and logical way. I did not want to be all over the place. So then I added small notes and ideas under the topics for each week. Now I go back to those notes and ideas and look them over, then I read about the topic several times before I start writing. And I just write then, putting everything down on parchment, and after that I read everything over and edit it a lot. And suddenly I have my lesson ready.
To keep everything interesting I try to give different assignments even if the topics are pretty similar. For example when we went through the different branches within transfiguration, the branches were different, but a lot of the basics were the same. And then I had my students write a essay one week, and the next I wanted them to write a short story about someone trying out the branch. So even if topics is sort of similar I try to alter the assignments still, because I do know that my students do prefer different things, some likes to write essays and others prefer stories for example.”
–Emelie Olsen
"What is the one thing you do, that others might not realize?"
“I'm inferring this to be one of my lesser-known traits, and I have to say watching chick flicks. The cheesier the better. There was one film based on Beauty and the Beast that I was watching with my mum and sister; they cringed so much that they turned it off - I recorded it. It was absolutely terrible but I loved it.”
–Septime Corris
“I know that people have noticed that I am almost always late to everything. Most of the time it's because I have forgotten my wand in my office or elsewhere and I have to go back and get it. You will never know if there is going to be an emergency!”
-Miles Thane
“If anyone ever thinks they do a lot of research to the homework given out by me or any of my colleagues, I do more, I practically live in our library at times. I am a perfectionist and I spend ages reading up on everything regarding the different topics within transfiguration before I prepare my classes. And I read all of it over and over again, every week.”
–Emelie Olsen
"Did you have another job before becoming a teacher?"
“Nope. I started on WoP as a teacher, and so far I've enjoyed it every step of the way.”
- William Arendale
“I started off as a humble underling of the library, and worked as an auror for several years, before being made Head of Hufflepuff. The Ministers of Magic quickly realised I had no idea what I was doing and lacked ability as a Head of House, so I got given a teaching role, and I regret nothing!”
–Septime Corris
“I was a part of the Plotteam, before becoming a teacher.”
–Amanda Hardy
"How much time does it take being a teacher?"
“This is rather dependent on you! I'd say that I put about twenty minutes into writing and researching a lesson, and perhaps ten minutes a day working through the homework complaints and varying grades. It actually isn't that huge a time commitment, but you have to work to deadlines! If your lesson isn't up by the end of the week, the students won't have any work to do the following week. If you don't respond to an owl asking about a homework, then the student either won't do it or will work from their own assumptions, which may not be what they wanted to do, because we act as role models to the students! I'm not sure how much sense this makes and I'm rambling, so I'll stop there.”
–Septime Corris
“If you really care for the job, it takes quite a lot of time, but if you don't put that much into it, then it doesn't take that much of time. I personally spend a lot of time on the job.”
–Amanda Hardy
“It takes some. Just as when you apply for a job in real life. In stead of applying with out having any experience choose another job as a start! Assistant Teacher or Prefect deals with some of the same assignments as a teacher, meaning you'll get to know a bit more about a teacher's tasks as well.”
- Rebekkah Eilífsdottír
“Are you a cat or dog person or do you prefer a different animal?”
“I love all animals; big or small, furry or leathery, harmless or extremely dangerous. Asking me to choose between cats and dogs and any other animal is equivalent to asking a niffler if it prefers rubies or emeralds. It's an impossible choice to make ;)”
- William Arendale
“After thinking about it for a while, I think I am a dog person. At least I won't be labelled as a cat "woman" now!”
–Miles Thane
“Definitely dog-person! They are so lovely, friendly and loyal!”
–Archer Moore
“I´m absolutely a Toad person”
–Amanda Hardy
“Oh. I come from a family of cats and I was actually afraid of dogs through out my childhood, but know I want a home with both a gigantic dog and lovely cats!”
- Rebekkah Eilífsdottír
“What is one thing you want to achieve in your life (could be in the muggle or wisarding world)?”
“The only thing I want to achieve in life is happiness, and I dare say it is not as difficult to find as you might think.”
- William Arendale
“I'd love to be the owner of a magical plant nursery!”
- Rebekkah Eilífsdottír
“I loved being a curse-breaker, and I love where I am at right now. So the desired achievement for me is not a job or something like that, there is one dream I have not been able to fulfill yet, and that is to become an animagus. I constantly work on improving my magical skills, so that one day I might manage the whole process of becoming an animagus. I often wonder what animal I would turn into, but I expect it to be the same as my patronus; an arctic fox.”
–Emelie Olsen
I had so much fun interviewing these lovely teachers and they answers both made me smile, and laugh! The teachers here change quite often so some might not longer be a teacher, but their hard work has still made a huge impact on students and for us, they`ll always be our mentors.
A BIG thank you to; William Arendale, Septime Corris, Emelie Olsen, Amanda Hardy, Rebekkah Eilífsdottír, Archer Moore and Miles Thane! You guys are amazing, thank you so much! *heart*
Stay tuned for more blogs about the wonderful teams we have here on World of Potter!
Hugs and kisses,
The SoMe-Team<3