Some help with theory, maybe? on Transfiguration

Professor Skies

March 18, 2013 2:05 PM

Transfiguration Clinic by Professor Skies

The students could not have missed the notices about the upcoming Transfiguration Clinic. Professor Skies had placed one in each of the houses as well as making announcements in all her classes. Sullivan had been struggling for who knew how long in her class without her really noticing. And, whilst it was true that she had now picked him up, that didn't mean there weren't others in his situation who were merely doing a better job at keeping their heads down. Plus it wasn't very fair of her to offer one on one help to only one student. Even though she hoped she had a culture of an open office door, that still put most of the onus on the student. This, hopefully, would take some of it off....

'Transfiguration Clinic,' the posters had read, 'Classroom 2, 2nd Tuesday of term 5-7pm.

Have a query about your wandwork? Feel you're falling behind? Feel too scared to ask something because you're sure you should know it by now? Bring it along to the Transfiguration Clinic. No problem too big or too small.

All years welcome but fifth years will be given priority.'

Professor Skies was now waiting in the classroom hoping she had everything she needed. Mostly, her wits should be enough and she was fairly sure they were intact, or would be once she finished the strong, creamy coffee she was currently nursing. Her desk drawers were, as usual, fuller than appeared possible from outside, and she had taken some time to pull out items she thought might be particularly useful. It was hard to know though what would be wanted until someone walked through her door with a question for her....

Subthreads:

Some help with theory, maybe? by Derry Four with Professor Skies

Dropping in a little earlier. by Alicia Bauer with Professor Skies

13 Professor Skies Transfiguration Clinic 26 Professor Skies 1 5

Derry Four

April 16, 2013 12:32 PM

Some help with theory, maybe? by Derry Four

OOC: This probably takes place late January/early February. Not the first week the clinic opened, but not too long after. BIC:

Derry had debated long and hard on the decision to continue Transfiguration beyond his CATS. He could usually do the spells pretty well, if not always during the first class period they were introduced. If not,he'd practice until he got them right and once he got them right, he generally didn't have any trouble remembering or reproducing the spell.

The trouble was, as it always was with him, in the theory. Transfiguration theory was convoluted and made no sense to him at the CATS level, and he was sure it could only get worse in the advanced class. But he liked the spells, and Three had been really excited when he found out that Derry's teacher was Professor Skies, so he hadn't dropped it despite his reservations and the fact that he had only gotten an A on the CATS. He'd only pulled two Es, so he'd had to pick some subjects to continue with that he was only acceptable at, and Derry gathered that Transfiguration had a lot less memorization and essays than Fawcett required of his advanced students.

Unfortunately, he'd been right about the theory. Skies could have been speaking entirely in Latin and he wouldn't have understood her any less. He caught the incatation and the wand motion, and just repeated them over and over until something clicked and they worked as they were supposed to work. But his essays and homeworks were paraphrased out of the book and he got friends to look over them to made sure they sounded okay, but he had no idea what even his own essays meant.

Hamlet had gone over them with him at midterm, as Hamlet did with all of Derry's schoolwork, and spoke as much Latin as Professor Skies did, and Derry nodded and pretended to understand, but he really just wanted to go see his Boston friends and get the tutoring over with as quickly as possible.

Now back in school, he initially disregarded the notices about the Transfiguration Clinic, but with another essay due the next day, and not quite sure which section of the book he was supposed to copy for it, he decided it wouldn't hurt to swing by.

He arrived with his textbook, his quill, and a pot of ink. His wand, of course, was tucked away in an easy to reach pocket, but he did not anticipate needing it.

"Hi," he greeted Professor Skies and wondered briefly if he was the only RATS student who came to these things, or if the complex theories were challenging even the students who seemed to understand what her lectures went on about.

The clinic flier did specifically mention help in learning things he should already know, but he wasn't quite sure how fully he should admit to not understanding Transfig theory now that he was supposedly one of the school's most advanced students. "Um, I'm having some trouble with this week's essay," he told her, figuring that was at least a good opening, and could open the door for more basic explanations.

He opened the book to show her spot where he was sixty percent sure he was supposed to start his paraphrasing from. "Did you want us to write about how conjuration works, or how it's different from summoning?"

1 Derry Four Some help with theory, maybe? 189 Derry Four 0 5

Alicia Bauer

April 23, 2013 12:36 PM

Dropping in a little earlier. by Alicia Bauer

OOC: Hope it's all right I skipped the being invited in bit for time's sake. BIC:

The last thing she wanted or needed right now was more to do, but when she saw Professor Skies’ announcement, it had taken Alicia only a few minutes of measured breathing to reconcile herself to the situation and go to get her quill. This was not the kind of opportunity which arose every day, and no matter how well her life seemed to be going at the moment, she knew she could not afford to just ignore it on the assumption that something else just as good would come along in a little while.

Three sheets of cheap paper later, she had some remarks sketched out and rehearsed and an envelope addressed. Fifteen minutes after that, she had changed her clothes, pinned back her bangs, touched up her make-up to ensure she looked both reasonably natural and close to her proper age, and was ready to go catch Professor Skies before her office hours ended.

Happily, no one else was there when she arrived, so she didn’t have to deal with them or the leftover emotions the professor had from interacting with someone else, which were as likely to be negative as they were to be positive and could be a problem either way. If she had been enjoying a visit with a favorite Advanced student, Alicia might seem like poor, young company by comparison. “Hi, Professor Skies,” she said with a warm smile and respectful bob of her head. “May I have a moment of your time?”

Once admitted, she left the envelope in her lap for the moment and folded her hands on top of it. In her drafts, she had decided that she should propose one thing first, deal with that, and then get to the second part. Otherwise, it might seem like she was trying, in a way, to buy the professor off. Which she was, in a way, but not in the way it would seem if she started off with the other thing or mentioned both of the topics she wished to discuss at the same time. “Just two things,” she said. “Both short. First, I saw your announcement about holding Transfiguration tutoring. I know it said you’d focus on the fifth years, so if you’d like someone around to maybe help out with the first and second years, I’d be more than happy to do what I could.”

At this rate, she thought she might well end up being the most helpful student at Sonora. She couldn’t seem to turn around this year without offering to help a staff member; idly, she wondered what she could come up with to offer Fawcett when she repeated the second part of this conversation with him. In the interests of being thorough, she added a mental note to do research on how to go about setting up a fundraiser for the school next year, as well as ideas for what sort of fundraiser it should be. The project would be too late to count toward prefects, but Head Girl was the real prize anyway. She had been planning since last year how she and Thad could manipulate the point system to ensure an Aladren victory and Crotalus second place in their seventh year even if the Quidditch team had fallen apart by then, as it most likely would. She still needed to make background and backup plans for that, but wasn’t too worried about it yet. There was still another year before it was absolutely essential.

For now, she had Transfiguration to deal with, and then she had to ask for a favor, so she put the thoughts about the next three years aside for the moment. She had picked two tasks to complete in this meeting, so she would complete them and then, and only then, pick something else to move on to.

16 Alicia Bauer Dropping in a little earlier. 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5

Professor Skies

April 25, 2013 2:42 PM

Or a lot of help with theory, maybe? by Professor Skies

“Hello, Derry,” Professor Skies smiled at her advanced student. She was glad that he went by the same abbreviation as his predecessor as she wasn't sure she could have broken the habit of using the nickname. They looked so alike. Right down to the last buckle.

“No problem,” she smiled, when he confessed that he wanted some advice on the essay. “I probably could have guessed it was that – after all, you always acquit yourself very well during practical work,” she smiled at him. She knew some students might feel self-conscious about asking for extra help, or that their one little (or large..) blind spot might make them project that they were rubbish at everything. No one was rubbish at everything, and she tried to make sure she gave all her students praise and encouragement. Derry was well above the barrel-scraping level for this, which consisted of things like being punctual, having neat writing or never yet having actually caused a major accident.

“The first,” she confirmed. “In your exams, a theory question on conjuring will basically be asking one of two things; one is where is the stuff coming from, the other is what makes it a Transfiguration instead of a charm. “The bit about summoning comes more into answering the other kind of question – the 'is it a charm or a Transfiguration' type. Using other things that are commonly accepted as Charms, and talking about how similar or different they are to conjuring is one way of making that argument.” She cut herself off before she got too drawn into that side of things, reminding herself that that wasn't why Derry was here. The point of these sessions was to break things down and make them clearer, not to overload him with all the information at once.

“So, if we look at these pages,” she explained, flipping back two from the part on summoning charms, “We can see people talking about where things come from. We have the Quatum Theory,” she pointed at the heading, “which thinks we're moving things that already exist from the time and place they're currently in. And we have the Matter Shaping Theory,” she pointed to a heading that began just before the bottom of the second page. “That thinks we're using our energy and the particles around us to form solid shapes. The following pages detail experiments people have done to try to support those theories. For each experiment, it might help to break it down a bit. Try this,” she pulled out a sheet of paper, jotting a few headings on it with her quill. “Now, the name and date of the experiment aren't essential, but if you're good at rote learning facts you may as well. After that, you want to try to pick out the aim of each experiment, the method, the hypothesis and the outcome,” she pointed to each heading.

“Do you think it would work to try filling this in for the first one, with my help if you need it?” she asked, “Or have I not got to the real heart of the problem? One of the rules of the clinic is that you tell me if I'm getting it wrong. There's no point helping you in something you don't need help with, or the help too easy or too hard. It's not a very good use of my time or yours, so make sure you keep me on the right track,” she smiled. She hoped she was un-dragonesque enough that her students would be comfortable in speaking up. She thought she was friendly. Thorough, yes. Expecting of high-standards, most certainly. But those were not mutually exclusive with being approachable. Hopefully the fact that Derry was here in the first place was an indication that he thought he could talk to her, although it was another step on from there to correct a teacher.

13 Professor Skies Or a lot of help with theory, maybe? 26 Professor Skies 0 5

Professor Skies

April 25, 2013 2:56 PM

With a surprise by Professor Skies

OOC – absolutely fine. Especially during office hours/clinic, people can assume they're invited in and to sit down.

IC
Alicia Bauer was a very bright, capable girl. That didn't mean that Professor Skies was totally surprised by her arrival. Diligent students often showed up to these sorts of things just to make sure there wasn't secretly an extra bonus point that they had been missing. She was very happy to help those with a lot of potential to stretch themselves – it was just as much a part of her job as supporting the students who were struggling – but she hoped that her entire clinic caseload wasn't eager Aladrens. There were people in her class who struggled and she wanted them to have the opportunity to access some support.

“Of course you may,” she smiled nonetheless when Alicia asked for a moment of her time. She gestured the girl into a seat. “What can I do for you?” she asked. She was somewhat surprised when Alicia turned out not to want Professor Skies to do something for her but rather wanted to offer to do her a favour.

“Well, thank you, Alicia,” she smiled, blinking away her surprise, “That's very kind of you.” There were two types of students who offered to do nice things for others; those who were nice and those who were sucking up. Alicia had always struck her as a nicely mannered girl. Although Professor Skies tried not to care too terribly much or keep track, she got the impression that Alicia was from one of Those Families, and that her life's ambitions were therefore likely to be handed to her on a platter. It was therefore quite unlikely that Alicia felt the need to butter up staff members. Even if that was her intention, Professor Skies supposed it didn't really matter. She still trusted Alicia's intelligence and her ability to tutor younger students. Even if the girl was doing it to get on her good side, she would still do it well. The only flaw with the arrangement was the current lack of younger students to offer her. Her main office hours attendee was Sullivan and, as his main problem was self-confidence, she did not think that putting a girl a year younger than him in charge of his studies would do him a world of good.

“So far none of the younger students have stopped by. I shall bear it in mind if they do though. Do you have any other extra curricular activities that they'd need to fit around?” she asked.

“You mentioned two things,” she smiled, once she and Alicia had finished discussing the finer details of timetabling. “What was the other?”

13 Professor Skies With a surprise 26 Professor Skies 0 5

Alicia Bauer

April 26, 2013 1:51 PM

I'm full of them. by Alicia Bauer

Alicia was a little surprised, honestly, that the offer had been accepted – she had been prepared for a refusal – but she smiled at the praise and ducked her head modestly. Kindness wasn’t one of her outstanding attributes, but as long as the professor at least pretended to believe it, that was what mattered, she guessed. Was a good thing still good if she mostly did it for what she considered a morally neutral reason?

She boxed that issue up and put it out of her mind to focus on the purpose of her visit. “Some,” she conceded when asked about her other extracurricular activities. She wished more than ever that she had founded a club of her own already. That would, she was sure, have ensured that her having a full, interesting, visible life was already known to everyone, though she held out some hope that the question was a formality. “I like to stay busy, but I can usually work around things….”

In a way, she enjoyed talking about her schedule, but in another, it made her nervous, as she had to keep track of what to say and not to say. Was it bad to admit she had set homework times? Even if what she mentioned were the early ones and she expressed a willingness to shift them at need? Those concerns, though, were also put aside when the matter of her other reason for a visit was brought up. That wave of nervousness was more like how she’d felt…pretty much every time she opened her mouth in first and most of second year, actually. She was sure, now, that she had done things in the wrong order, that it would have gone better if she’d done it the other way, but there was nothing to do but keep going forward with the schedule she had settled on earlier and hoping for the best.

“Yes, the other thing,” she said, smiling now almost awkwardly. She didn’t like asking people for things, preferring to just do them herself. Asking was something she had never even gotten completely comfortable with among friends, never mind teachers. She was used to managing teachers as she did most adults, playing whatever part was best-suited to that teacher’s desires, not asking them for things honestly. “I’m applying for an internship this summer, and I was wondering if you would be willing to write me a letter of recommendation.”

During the year, she got involved enough in her own life to almost forget about it sometimes, but at the end of the day – and all of it, during the summers – she was fifteen. When adults looked at her accomplishments, even the most impressed still thought of them as belonging to someone who was, well, fifteen. They knew they could do pretty much the same things, because accomplishment was a relative term, and plenty of adults didn’t value individual achievement anyway, so she still had to depend on the adults around her to open doors for her and just try to manage things so the right ones represented her at the right times.

She had thought long and hard before deciding who to ask to represent her this time. Selina Skies was just a Transfiguration teacher now, but according to Jeremy, she hadn’t always been that way. The fact she had fallen in status might go against the value of her word, but at least she knew what status was, and might still know people – school was a very political business. She was also efficient, well-spoken, and this year, it seemed, willing to take advice, and that was enough for Alicia to think well of her, for an adult.

“It’s all right if you wouldn’t,” she felt compelled to add, even though this was going off-script, away from the remarks she had carefully considered before coming. “I’ll still help out with the beginners if you need me to, or anything.”

That had either made it better or made it worse. She hated it when she made mistakes. It threw her off for everything even after the mistake, and while she usually managed to recover, she wouldn’t know for sure until after the whole situation was over.

16 Alicia Bauer I'm full of them. 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5

Professor Skies

May 13, 2013 12:29 PM

Aren't you just by Professor Skies

A letter of recommendation was not, in itself, a very odd thing for a student to want. It definitely fell into the remit of things that, as a teacher, she was expected to do. But why this particular student was asking her particular help, she wasn't sure.

“I can...” she said, a little hesitantly. “Although I imagine that most people would expect such a letter to come from your Head of House. After all, they're the one who knows you best – in theory, anyway. If it was something to do with Transfiguration specifically it might make sense for me to write it. For any others, however...” she paused, wondering the best way to say this. She didn't want to sound like she was insinuating anything, even if a part of her did wonder about Alicia's reasons for asking her, “When people expect you to do things a certain way, if you haven't done so, unfair as it may be, they may question why you've made that decision. They might.... think that you have something to hide. I'm not saying anything of that sort – you're a lovely girl and I'm sure Professor Fawcett finds you a credit to his house. And I'm also happy to write your letters if it's what you would prefer. I just thought you should have that advice.”

She could not imagine that Alicia had anything but a good relationship with her Head of House – she was just that sort of girl. Which made Selina wonder why she had come to her. Perhaps it was that she just seemed more approachable, was someone Alicia felt better able to relate to. She usually tried to caution herself against such vanity but there really didn't seem a much more likely explanation in this case.

She was a little taken aback by Alicia's remark about the beginners. She wouldn't really have assumed a connection unless she had said that... But then, students who were eager to please tended to be people who worried over little details, or what was thought of them, so perhaps it was just that.

“That's ok,” she reassured her, “I didn't think one was contingent on the other. And, for the record, I'd also help you even if you weren't going above and beyond for me,” she smiled, hoping that kind reassurance was the way forward, and that Alicia wasn't playing her. However little it would impact her in reality, she disliked the idea of students who thought they were pulling a fast one on her, or who sniggered about her behind her back having done so. She hoped Alicia was not that sort and that she had not just given her cause to do so.

13 Professor Skies Aren't you just 26 Professor Skies 0 5

Alicia Bauer

May 13, 2013 6:02 PM

I try. by Alicia Bauer

Alicia’s feelings about signs of hesitation in others were ambivalent at best. On one hand, such signs meant a person was persuadable, which meant she just had to find the right levers and manipulate them to get what she wanted; when someone was uncertain, the game wasn’t quite as much hers to lose as it was when they seemed more confident in her to begin with, but it was still usually pretty easily winnable. On the other hand, however, such signs meant a person was persuadable, which meant she had to persuade them, a process which made her anxious and left her feeling exhausted even with people whose levers she was much more familiar with than she was her Transfiguration teacher’s.

Then, though, the subject – or at least first part – of Professor Skies’ hesitation was revealed, and Alicia smiled, initially just out of relief. This one was easy, this wasn’t a problem. Of course she had things to hide - if she hadn't pretty much trained herself to take professional pride in her ability to lie, she would have gone crazy a long time ago - but not like that, so it was good.

“Thank you," she said. Now there was a slight awkwardness in explaining and presenting herself well at the same time, but she could do that. Reasonably, anyway. "I was already planning to talk with Professor Fawcett, too – the Council internship application prefers two recommendations,” she said. “It’s really just six weeks as a glorified errand girl, I think, but you’re at least near important people and things and it looks good on a lot of college applications, so I guess they want to be a little more sure that I don’t, I don’t know, practice hexes on first years for fun or anything.” Why anyone would do that for fun, Alicia had no idea – there might be situations where it would be useful, she didn't know, but it wasn't something she thought of as fun, Aladren’s first years seemed okay to her, and they had all been first years once – but it was the kind of thing adults seemed to expect unpleasant teenagers to do.

She decided not to mention the other reason she thought the requirement might exist, since it was more cynical than she thought her audience wanted to think she was: that the Heads of Houses were more likely to be biased toward their own students than others were. Impressing another teacher, after all, was a matter of pure skill and charisma, since they had to deal with the whole student body and standing out wasn’t easy even when one wasn’t surrounded by the talented, accomplished year that she was. The Head of House was easier to win over because she found it hard to imagine a world in which the exceptional achievements of House members didn’t give the Head of the House extra staff-room bragging rights. She really didn’t understand why Fawcett didn’t actively encourage the best of them in going above and beyond what they had to, since that would be a win-win-win situation: any doubt that Aladren had the most accomplished students at Sonora would be erased, Fawcett himself would have a network of people grateful to him, which was always good, and they would all get both the intrinsic and extrinsic rewards of extra success. It was what she would do, if she were a Head of House.

“I actually did look at some content-specific programs, but I finally decided to concentrate on general magical theory for my extra class this summer and then to get more specific after my CATS,” she said. “So my, um, communication skills are really the thing this year, and you and Professor Fawcett are the two teachers I’ve probably done the most intensive writing for, so that’s why I thought of approaching you.” Last year’s Transfiguration term paper had involved the most work she thought she had ever put into a single assignment, just because of the draft hand-in opportunity at midterm. When she had gotten it back, she had found a misspelled word in the first foot and cried. “Other than just having a lot of respect for you in general, of course.”

She was relieved again at hearing her incorrect presentation order…was at least something Professor Skies was willing to pretend was all right. She still should have gotten it right, especially given that she had spent time preparing beforehand. She could not make that kind of mistake. Everyone made mistakes when they were caught off-guard, so if she started making them when she knew what was coming, then….

Her mind went blank as she tried to picture ‘then.’ She decided that was probably a mercy.

“That’s noted for the record,” she smiled back, hoping this would work to dispel any tension brought up by her many missteps in this conversation. She hated having to ask people for things. "We're very helpful people. Thank you, Professor."

16 Alicia Bauer I try. 210 Alicia Bauer 0 5