Professor Skies
November 21, 2014 11:00 PM
Beginners - What's the point? by Professor Skies
I don't get.Why are we doing this?
If I wanted a teacup, wouldn't I just... y'know go get a teacup.
These kind of muttered comments, made when her students thought she couldn't hear them, were all too frequent in her class. It wasn't just the Muggleborns either, many of whom were actually amazed by all the possibilities their magic opened up to them. Some were baffled by how it would be useful but the comments came from students of all different backgrounds, the only difference being whether they said that they would get a teacup themselves or send their house elf to do it. She had therefore introduced this class in an attempt to combat these kinds of attitudes.
Transfiguration in Daily Life was written in large, looping letters across the board. She had thought of calling the class 'What's the Point of Transfiguration?' just to be provocative, or to indicate she knew about some of their whisperings but had decided to go with a more positive title in hopes of inspiring positive attitudes.
“Good morning class,” she greeted, “As you know, one of the main focusses or your education is to teach you magical control. To that end, all spellwork is useful,” there were bound to be spells that, even after this project, seemed useless to them, and so this was always a good fact to remind them of. “However, we also hope that we are setting you up with skills to help you in your daily lives,” Charms, she was sure, didn't suffer this problem. Who couldn't see the appeal of being able to whisk dirt away in a few seconds by magic, especially if they'd suffered having to clean like a Muggle? “Today, you will be splitting into pairs or threes to work on a poster. It needs to highlight five Transfigurations that you feel would be useful in daily life. Four of them must be things that would be within the scope of study of a Sonora student. Three of those must be things you could achieve by taking the subject only as far as CATS level,” Transfiguration definitely had some impressive advanced uses but she didn't want them all writing how great it would be to be animagi and to vanish all your enemies, as those really weren't daily life examples and thus rather defeated the point of the task.
“As usual, I have provided further resources on the bookshelf,” the shelf by the window was always well stocked with relevant material, whether it was nature books for those attempting animate transfiguration or, as it was now, several volumes with titles such as 'Household hints and handy spells.' “And there is a wide range of art materials up here at the front,” she said, indicating the bench where the objects to be transfigured were usually placed. Unlike the intermediate group, she was not going to allow the first and second years to break off into different rooms and study unsupervised, and so had aimed to provide all the things they might want.
“I would like these posters to be visually appealing, though the content is the most important thing. The best ones will be displayed on the wall. I am not going to set any further specifications on the groups, but I would say that you are likely to learn more and get more out of this project if you mix with students of different backgrounds, as they are likely to have a different perspective to you, and we can all learn a lot from listening to each other's experiences and opinions.” She was sure it was preaching to the converted... Those who were willing to listen to students with other blood types were probably already doing so, mingling with them without her encouragement. Those who weren't were probably so set in their attitudes that a poster project wasn't going to change that. But maybe there were one or two... Those in the middle. They would never choose to consort with Muggleborns but if given license, or even encouragement to... Those who were as keen to please teacher as they were to please daddy, and to meet all of her directions and suggestions for the project... Even if one person stepped outside their usual clique, then it was worth it.
“You may begin.”
OOC – feel free to get creative and make up spells! Just bear in mind the stipulations Professor Skies has given, and what types of spell are likely to be learnt by fifth and/or seventh year at Sonora. You can always refer back to previous classes to get an idea.
Posts must be 200 words minimum, and will be marked on length, creativity, realism and relevance. No stabbing each other with craft knives (without giving me a chance to intervene and stop you) – tag Professor Skies in the subject line if you need her, and state your house in the author line.
Subthreads: That's what I'm wondering. by John Umland, Aladren
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Professor Skies
Beginners - What's the point?
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Professor Skies
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John Umland, Aladren
December 04, 2014 11:54 PM
That's what I'm wondering. by John Umland, Aladren
A point just behind each of John’s eyes pounded faintly but steadily as he walked into the Transfiguration classroom, and there was an unpleasant tightness around his temples and down the back of his neck. It had, despite a nutritious breakfast of toast, caffeine, and Ibuprofen he’d wheedled out of Julian, felt the same way all through his first two classes of the day and showed no signs of getting better. If he had not successfully communicated with his sister at the table, he thought he might have worried that he’d accidentally grabbed a pot of decaf or rooibos or some other abomination one of the world’s sickest minds had come up with to inflict on the occasional unsuspecting breakfast table, but intelligible speech only happened before ten when he drank proper tea and concentration never happened at all without it. No other source of caffeine, heat, or hydration would do. Spiking his tea with coffee could, he had discovered in the days before his midterm exams, increase his productivity and ability to concentrate on the spell he was casting at a given moment, but all coffee by itself did was make him jittery. It did not make him smart. He needed proper black, caffeinated, too-strong-to-drink-on-an-empty-stomach tea in the morning if he was going to complete any task more demanding than watching paint dry. Since he could remember what he meant to say at the end of his sentences when he began them today despite his headache, he must have had tea earlier. Just not enough of it. Lunchtime could not arrive quickly enough.For now, he raised an eyebrow at the lesson title on the board and spent the last few minutes before class started looking over the bookshelf. Sometimes, when he was lucky, there was something interesting back there, but today, it all looked pretty dull. He guessed they were going to learn what he thought of as ‘arithmetic spells’ today – building block spells, useful everyday spells, boring, simple spells which were nevertheless important to know. He sat down just ahead of the bell, fidgeting with his notes and willing Professor Skies to start talking so he could start his problems and then get back to his work. He found his textbooks boring even when they weren't frustrating since he'd read pretty much the same material out of his brother Steve's old ones two years ago, but since he was stuck with them for another year, he had decided to make the best of it by using the assigned chapters as guides to topics to find library books on, and he was in the middle of his latest selections.
When Professor Skies did start talking, though, he forgot all about his work, instead staring at his Transfiguration teacher, who was usually one of his favorites, as though she had just personally betrayed him and told him to sit still while she got the flint knives. Posters. In groups. He could do the work, of course – he figured he could find her some spells and write them up in ten minutes, tops, and he could even draw well enough when he had to thanks to his birding, plus there was just the fact that posters were pretty much incapable of sounding hard now that he was pretty regularly achieving transmutation of the elements with a draconic visceral motor neuron encased in a stick – but he didn’t see the point. It just seemed like a waste of time. If she really wanted a list, why couldn’t he just write her one for homework and they actually use the class time for something useful - something that would make his ongoing attempts to turn things into pieces for a microscope, or even a whole microscope, more successful than they were being right now, which was not at all? Why were other people necessary to write a list? He'd tried talking to his classmates even when it wasn't necessary to see if he might make friends here last term, but it hadn't worked, which, in his present mood, made continuing to talk to them when he could just do the job faster on his own an even bigger waste of time than making a poster was in the first place. And as for that other thing….
Gold and lead, he thought. He and his friend Joanie had talked for a bit about alchemy when he was home for Easter; she had seen an article in a scientific magazine about how it was possible, given a particle accelerator and a lot of energy, to actually turn lead into gold and had wondered if that meant particle accelerators could also somehow lead to immortality. His first reaction had been to think that she’d been watching too many comic book films, but he had remembered the fact that things could not be Transfigured normally into gold and had gotten an interesting, if unfulfilling, tangent out of it. Joanie’s article had also said, though, that it was easier to turn gold into lead than the other way ‘round, which also made complete sense when he put it up against gold’s special status in magic. It was always easier to become lead, to be bad – even some people’s refusal to correct bad research almost (though never quite) seemed to make a tiny, microscopic amount of sense when he got his head close enough to around the idea that there really were people who didn’t find research fun. Being good was hard, but Mom said they had to try their best anyway. Professor Skies probably was not actually trying to start trouble no matter how much it sounded like she was, she was usually pretty okay for a teacher, but if trouble happened, he had to be...well, at least better than they were. If he didn't insult any of their mothers in response to them insulting his, did that mean he didn't have to wait for one of them to actually try to jinx him instead of just looking like they might before he decided that talking had, as usual, not worked?
Morality, John thought irritably, was hard. He was definitely having one of those moments when he almost understood why people didn't want to know what was Right from what was Wrong. He needed more tea. He pinched the bridge of his nose as the chatter began, then attempted to force a smile. He did not think he did a very good job.
“Well, I’m from Canada, if that’s an interesting enough background for you,” he said to another student. He knew what Professor Skies meant, but while he thought it would be funny, he also thought Mom and Dad and Julian would be upset with him if he climbed up on top of his desk with a quickly-written sign explaining what he knew about his that-definition-of-background. "Plus, I can come up with five spells in about as many minutes," he added, assuming competency would make him a more desirable partner as he began brainstorming ideas. He almost wanted to see if he could come up with ten spells just from their level, just to prove it could be done, but he also wanted show off that he knew a lot more spells and theory than he could perform yet, so...Vanishing was useful, he wasn't sure about the level of multiplying objects he needed more of, he had read about changing the accidents of bland-but-healthy foods but wasn't sure what level that was at, either, just that it was well above his....
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John Umland, Aladren
That's what I'm wondering.
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John Umland, Aladren
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