As a teacher I have to ask, what do you regard as a 'useless' essay? While most students hate them they do, contrary to what students usually believe, serve an important purpose.

 

The biggest problem with this is that we have very little knowledge (canon) on the wizarding world. While JK Rowling have given us huge amounts of information after ten books (if you count magical beasts, quiddich and the beetle and bards thing). But very little information outside of Hogwarts.

Do we have magical universities? Are apprenticeships common if one wish to become something like an enchanter. We know there are people who are "curebreakers", but not how they are trained after leaving school.

The subject I would like to see, without knowing entirely how the world at large looks like would be:

- Alchemy
One interpretation of the 'instructions' left by the alchemists is that they are symbolic of a spiritual journey, leading the alchemist from ignorance (base metal) to enlightenment (gold). There seems to have been a mystical element to the work the alchemist was engaged upon, which set it apart from chemistry (of which it was undoubtedly both an offshoot and forerunner). From pottermore (so extended canon?)

While the "goal" for many alchemist seems to be to make gold from lesser materials it also is a subject with many other used. The Philosopher's Stone is the only canon example we have. But there gotta be more, right?

I do not personally think its a subject that cross with transfiguration and potions as depicted in many fanfictions. But unless JK comes with more information on the subject...

- Ancient Magic, magical theory:

In the books there is one example of magic that is somewhat explained, but at the same time never explored. When voldemort came to godrics hallows to kill the potters he is stopped with "old magics".

Lily summons a protection for harry with her own sacrifice. And we know the rest of the story. But the mechanics behind it is never truly explored. The importance of blood and difference and consequences of a willing sacrifice and for example blood forcibly taken.

How Dumbledore could "anchor" the protections within private drive (or petunia herself?). How this magic could attack quirrel....

 

In wizarding Britain, at least, I think it's pretty clear that there's no such thing as a magic university or any other type of systematic learning post-Hogwarts. It may be possible that other countries do, but considering that England was among the first countries to establish the modern concept of university (Oxford dates back to at least the 12th century), it seems very unlikely.

 

But its really not. We know some department names in the ministry, we know gringotts hires cursebreakers, we know there are healers at st. mungos and shopkeepers in diagon alley/hogsmead. There are little to non information on post-hogwarts education in the books. Even if there is other schools or not.

 

No character at any point mentions any kind of organized post-Hogwarts schooling (other than specific job training, e.g. Aurors). This includes the most powerful and brightest of the wizards and witches, who naturally would be the most likely to continue their education after Hogwarts. Also, the number of Hogwarts students to graduate each year is so small that it simply would not make sense to have a university system in the vein of Muggles, offering a wide variety of subjects that the students can choose to focus on, because there just won't be enough students to make it a better option than the individual learning/apprenticeship method.

So based on that, I think it's quite safe to say that any post-Hogwarts education that the graduates may choose to pursue are not in any sort of institution analogous to what we consider university/college.

 

Aside from Ministry approved training in your field I imagine the wizarding world employs a sort of apprenticeship system.

After all you don't just go into curse breaking straight out of Hogwarts.

 

Here's a theory:

Hogwarts isn't so much concerned with teaching students specific magic, as much as they are concerned with teaching them how to safely and properly learn and practice magic, so that when the students leave, they can pursue whatever field they like, with an understanding of how to learn and apply new magic from books.

I'm basing this over the modern approach to required education, where schools are supposed to instill you with proper studying habits and methods, rather than simply giving you knowledge. And yes, I know Hogwarts is an ancient school that doesn't exactly follow modern pedagogic trends.

 

As a student of a University of Applied Science in Germany, BA in Taxation and Auditing (Steuern und Wirtschaftsprüfung), I can tell you, essays are less important in Germany. The exeptions are the BAs and MAs in social pedagogy at my university.
Please note, I'm only talking about my own time at school and later at university. There might be a few schools in Germany with a trend to the britisch system.

I would say this is a significant differences between the british and the german education system. We don't have school uniforms as well.

But maybe the essay writing is the reason for so many good englisch fanfiction? Who knows?

 

I've found that the answer to any good writing is just knowing what you want before hand. Having an outline and having a good understanding for your own language. Regardless of what language it's in.

 

The essay is an essential part of studying Philosophy in Germany.

 

I would definitely agree with this. I think, also, that the aim is partly to create a functioning adult wizard, or 'fully qualified' as they might say. Not trying to teach them all the magic, so much as enough to deal with most any circumstances they might end up facing after school.

A lot of the power and individuality in the use of HP magic, as in life, seems to be not in what magic each person knows, but from how each person uses what is known to most wizards. Outside of guys like Albus and Snape, inventing and tweaking what already exists, most wizards seem to draw from a large pool of spells and techniques known to most other wizards, so that it comes, often, down to which spells a wizard tends to favor, in combination with other factors like physical and/or magical dexterity (casting speed, skill with apparition, etc) and how good each wizard is generally, how creative each is with the same basic skill set.

I've just had this idea recently that a lot of how wizards qualify for various positions relies on how clever they are just as people, not so much on knowing magic others don't, but using known magic well.

Typed on my phone, apologies for errors.

EDIT: lol, Wizarding home-ec/culinary classes.

 

Yeah, I'd say that I agree with that as well. A big issue is that the workings of magic is never very well expounded upon, because, well... it's magic. We have very little canonical knowledge of how magic is learned or taught elsewhere, especially outside of Europe, but at the very least we can assume that Latin-based incantations is not going to be the standard in most of the world, and that proper pronounciation of "Wingardium Leviosa" aside, there are way more important factors at play in learning magic. So if intent is the most important aspect in making the spells work correctly, then that's really not something that is conducive to systematic rigorous schooling, but rather something much better suited to individual researching and practice.

 

I think the differences might be subject based rather than differences between education systems.

 

At university this might be correct.
But in school it is the same. The only subject we have to write a few longer texts is the German language class. And this texts are more about how to write different kind of texts than the topic itself. Or do the british teachter call every written work an essay? Like poem, report, satire, fairy tale or an analys about how someone write a text?
Would be interesting to know.
My chimistry teacher used essays as a punishment. But thats all.