Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne
May 29, 2020 3:29 AM
Advanced DADA - Being scared is part of the job. by Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne
To say that Tabitha had been through a lot over the last few weeks might’ve been considered an understatement. At the end of the last school year, she had just been an exhausted teacher with a struggling marriage who needed a break. By the middle of the summer, she felt more like her old self, trekking through Lebanon and tracking Occamies. By the end of the summer and the beginning of the new school year, she was a new parent who had unexpectedly adopted a half-veela boy as a result of the death of her wife’s ex-girlfriend and her husband. It had been a lot to experience, a lot to work through. Days felt harder and longer, the nights longer still. It was getting better but Tabitha was still struggling with the fact that she wasn’t just Professor Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne anymore. To a little four year old boy, she was also now ‘daddy’ which was still very confusing (and not just because she was a woman daddy) and scary.As a result of all of that, when it was possible, Tabitha threw herself into her work. Her lessons became her escape. When she was teaching, she wasn’t a parent. She was an educator, a professor. She was her old self, somebody she recognised. She wasn’t ‘daddy’ and that helped her get through the difficult days.
She did have to admit though that the changes in her life had inspired today’s lesson for the Advanced class. Defence Against the Dark Arts was all about learning how to protect oneself in particular situations, which spells to use, a dark creature’s weak points but something she’d never really focused on was something that Tabitha had come to realise was very, very important. Fear.
She wrote the word on her chalkboard in big capital letters. From that word, she drew three arrows, each one pointing to a different word. ‘Physical’, ‘conscious’ and ‘subconscious’. That was all there was going to be on her chalkboard today. She trusted her Advanced class to listen to her and decide on the notes they should take. The only students in the Advanced class were those who still wanted to be there and who had passed their CATS exam to get in. It was these students who truly respected her subject and who truly wanted to learn. They would be smart enough to know what to write down.
When they started to file into her classroom, Tabitha offered a polite smile to each of them as she leaned against her desk with her arms folded. Her wand lay on her desk just behind her. She wouldn’t be needing it for this wasn’t a practical lesson. She knew a few of her students would be disappointed by that and it was true that, more often than not, the theory wasn’t always as interesting as the practical. However, Tabitha hoped that today’s particular subject would be the exception to that rule.
“Good morning, everyone,” she greeted. She kept her voice steady and calm, loud enough to be heard but not too loud that she was shouting. It was her lecturing voice. “You will not be needing your wands for today’s lesson so if you have taken them out, please put them away.”
She waited until those who had had their wands out had put them away and nodded her thanks. “Today, I will be teaching you about something that is very important when it comes to Defence Against the Dark Arts. I am going to be teaching you about fear. Yes, I do mean the emotion. Please be ready to take notes.”
She took a deep breath before she began. “Fear, as you will already know, is an emotion which flares up when your brain believes that there is danger or a threat to you. It can be triggered by rational or irrational stimuli. By this, I mean, it would be perfectly rational to be afraid of heights. There is a risk that you could fall and injure yourself. If you are particularly high up, there is also the additional risk of dying. It would be irrational to be afraid of clouds. They are high up in the sky, you can’t touch them and I do not believe anybody has died because of a cloud.”
Tabitha might’ve laughed at her own words if the subject matter wasn’t so serious so she kept her face neutral and didn’t laugh or even smile. This was too important for hilarity. “Fear is a perfectly natural emotion. There is nothing wrong with being scared. One may argue that being scared is a good thing. Years upon years of evolution has given us this emotion to keep us alive. It fuels our flight-or-fight response which in turn helps to protect us in a dangerous situation. However, there is also the argument that fear is a bad thing. Particularly traumatic events can leave their mark and when it comes to confronting something similar or reminiscent of that traumatic event, it can make us freeze or hesitate and as I have repeatedly taught you over the years, hesitating can mean that you end up dead.”
She paused for effect, letting her words sink in. She wanted her Advanced class to walk out of her classroom at the end of the lesson understanding just how important what she was teaching them was.
“That is why it is vitally important that you understand not just fear as an emotion but your own, personal fears. It is important you understand them, respect them and then, eventually, master and overcome them. This is not an easy process nor is it a quick one. There is no spell that can make your fears go away. This is something that you will have to do without relying on your magical skills.”
Tabitha moved over to her chalkboard and gestured to it. “So, to that end and to help you, we are going to make steps today towards understanding fear. There are many different kinds of fear. To keep it as simple as possible, I’ve broken them down into three main categories - my trifecta of fear. Fear of the Physical, Fear of the Conscious and Fear of the Subconscious. Make sure you write those down.”
She moved back over to her desk, leaning against it again. “Fear of the Physical is probably the easiest to understand. You can probably already guess what it encompasses. For example, being scared of a dragon would be a physical fear. You are scared of the creature itself, scared of the very real, physical harm it poses. It is also classed as an external fear as a dragon can harm you by burning or scratching you. There are also internal physical fears and a common one is poison. There are many poisons that exist and they all wreak havoc from within. Physical fear can only be defeated and overcome by preparation, by learning. Three times a week, you come into this classroom and I teach you and prepare you to deal with those physical fears by teaching you various spells and methods that you can use to defend, nullify or escape a physical threat. It is also why you learn how to make antidotes and healing potions in your Potions classes. Knowing these things would hopefully give you the confidence to overcome this type of fear.”
Tabitha stopped for a moment to let her students finish making their notes on this particular part of her lecture. While she did, she thought about her own physical fear. She wasn’t sure she’d ever confessed this to Mary but Tabitha was terrified of Devil’s Snare and getting trapped by it, unable to reach her wand and being restricted and choked.
“Our next category is Fear of the Conscious. This is when things start to get a little more complicated because many things that fall under this category can also fall under fear of the physical too. Fear of the conscious is all about interpretation. Take my earlier example of the rational fear of heights. How do we interpret what is high? When is it acceptable to be scared of heights? Some people’s fear of heights is so bad, they can’t climb onto the second rung of a ladder. Other people feel no fear of heights at all and actually, heights give them a thrill. Conscious fears are completely individual and that’s what makes them hard to discuss because of the level of interpretation that is involved. The way to differentiate between a Fear of the Physical and a Fear of the Conscious is to ask if there is any room for interpretation. If there is, it’s a Fear of the Conscious.”
Tabitha paused again, not only for her students but for herself as well. The next category she was going to explain was a difficult and heavy one.
“Finally and this is probably the worst category of the three, is Fear of the Subconscious. Like Fear of the Conscious, these are fears that we have mentally but they have so badly affected us that we may not even be aware of them because our mind has tucked them away to protect us. Sometimes, these fears can be related to a trauma that we have experienced and there are some theories that connect Fear of the Subconscious with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. For example, public humiliation or losing loved ones. Your deepest, darkest fears. These fears are what Dementors use to torture you. As you will have already learned, Dementors feed on happy memories. They grow stronger because of it. They suck all that happiness out of you and that is why Dementors can make you relive some of the most traumatic or horrific experiences of your life, some of them you may have even forgotten about. This is why if somebody is left alone with a Dementor, exposed to them for a long period of time, they can succumb to insanity as a direct result of being forced to relive their deepest and most horrific fears. This is also why the Patronus Charm is so difficult to produce in the presence of a Dementor. It is so incredibly hard to see past the trauma to conjure the happy memory that the charm requires.”
She paused again, letting the students take a break from her battering them over the head with information about a particularly hard subject. This was, however, something they needed to learn and understand, especially if some of them were looking to pursue careers in Magical Law Enforcement or Curse-Breaking. Even if they weren’t, it was a good idea to be prepared for the world outside of Sonora’s walls that could, as Tabitha had learned over the years, be cruel and unforgiving.
“I do not teach you about Fear to scare you or present the view that the world is a bad place. I teach you about this because I want to equip you with the knowledge and tools so that you will all become great witches and wizards who are confident, prepared and will not falter in the face of danger. And please note, fear itself is not always where the danger lies but how we behave when we are frightened.”
She gave her class what she hoped was a kind smile, a little more relaxed now that her lecture was over. “For the rest of today’s lesson and for your homework, I would like you to pick two of the three categories and two fears for each of them. Tell me why the fear belongs in the category, analyse it, break it down and suggest how one would overcome that fear. They do not have to be your own personal fears. You have one week to complete this assignment and feel free to discuss your ideas with your neighbours. If anybody has any questions, please ask. You may begin.”
OOC note - normal posting rules apply! Remember, house points can be earned and are awarded OC. If you have any questions for Tabitha, feel free to tag her.
Subthreads: Emotions are why I'm here, and now I am having them... by Parker Fitzgerald with Gary Harper
Well, that's two things I don't want. by Beau Tate
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Tabitha Brooding-Hawthorne
Advanced DADA - Being scared is part of the job.
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Parker Fitzgerald
May 29, 2020 12:31 PM
Emotions are why I'm here, and now I am having them... by Parker Fitzgerald
Parker had continued to take Defense Against the Dark Arts for a few different reasons. One, was that he’d found it helpful when he was thinking about if he needed to protect himself around Cleo. Two, DADA and CoMC often overlapped in different ways. Three, Parker had found he was not necessarily good, but he wasn’t bad at it. It was possible this was because of his dueling club experience, but he could understand the concepts better here. There was often a lot more practical work than theory, unlike charms or even potions, but he could grasp magical theory in DADA in ways he just never could in charms.He smiled at the professor when he got in the class working his way back to a desk. He then took out his wand and laid it on the desk before getting out his notebook.
His eyebrows knitted together as the Professor began talking and he reluctantly put the wand back in his bag. When he came back up, then Professor Brooding-Hawthorne caught his interest again. They were going to work on emotions? This was one of the reasons he was in this class now. Though granted it was due to another emotion. But weren’t all emotions combined really? There was at least a little fear in love and a little love in anger (ect.).
Then the Professor began talking. Talking about traumas and your own personal fears and Parker felt a shiver go down his back. Images of JR standing in his room so long ago threatening Lyssa and him flashed into his head. The image of fear, disgust and anger on his parents faces when JR threatened them in front of their parents again when the man appeared in their kitchen.
Parker could feel a lump forming in his throat and it took him a moment to start writing notes when the Professor told them to. As Parker listened and wrote he could feel his heart thumping. This wasn’t a lesson for class, this was a lesson for life. This was a deeply personal lesson, one that he knew from experience with the Bogart could be all kinds of strange and unnerving.
Parker let out a deep breath, pushing extra air out once he’d “finished”. This lesson was going to be harder than most of the other ones. Parker nodded as Professor Brooding-Hawthorne smiled at them. This was an important lesson. He moved to a blank page and wrote down John Jr across the top and ripped it out of the notebook. He then took another blank page and wrote down Cleo across the top of it before ripping it out of the notebook. He looked at them in front of him for a moment, his fears beginning to swirl around inside his mind.
He closed his eyes. Trying to drown out stimulation for a second before starting. Opening them again he simply started writing down fears associated with each one. He didn’t stop to think if they were right or wrong, he just needed them out of his mind. In a matter of minutes he had a long list under each name. Some of them were obvious, fear of violent attack. Some were less obvious, fear of sharp objects and fear of losing control. He could feel tears welling up in his eyes as he read through his list, adding some words to certain fears he'd written down.
He sat back and looked at his collection and turned to look at his table partner.
“I feel a bit drained,” Parker said with a slight smile, “like I’ve just gone to a shrink.”
41
Parker Fitzgerald
Emotions are why I'm here, and now I am having them...
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Gary Harper
June 02, 2020 5:44 PM
That's good, right? by Gary Harper
Gary wandered into class, sat down and purposefully did not get out anything other than class supplies. The book, notebook and wand. He was here to study and learn. This was his last year and he needed to do well on his RATS at the end. Defense Against the Dark Arts was one of his best classes. It was also usually pretty fun. It was the closest thing the school had to an actual wizard adventurer training. Here in this class he could indulge in the fantasy of traveling with a group of friends, seeing the world and being a hero.Not that he felt like much of a hero lately. Somehow he had really managed to mess things up this year, and the year had just begun. He wasn't sure anyone was happy with his decision for the game club this year. Ness certainly wasn't. On top of that, it looked like he may end up running a bunch of the sessions anyway. Fortunately he had stocked up on a pile of short one-shot adventures he could review briefly and run as necessary without a lot of extra work. It wouldn't be the same, but it would have to do, and if the players didn't like it... he'd be gone next year.
He sighed as he stowed his wand at the professor's request. He had really been hoping for a practical lesson. One where he would get to blast something. Oh well. He began scribbling notes as she talked. Yeah, fear was a thing to face. Understanding fear was good. Apparently Professor Brooding-Hawthorne had never run into the 'Cloudkill' spell before. One or two of Gary's long past characters could attest to the appropriateness of it's name. Well, they could if they hadn't been killed by it.
As important as Gary knew this lesson was, he just couldn't get into it. He was going to study architecture after Sonora. DADA was on his list so that he new how to incorporate protection spells into the buildings and how to avoid designing dark corners that Boggarts like to inhabit. Still, he dutifully got out a sheet of paper for the assignment. Now he just needed some fears.
Well, may as well start off easy, he thought and wrote 'Physical' and then for fun he put 'Subconscious' next to it. Now he needed examples, dragons was already used, so he wrote 'Getting stabbed in a dark alley' under physical. That was an external one, for variety he should do an internal one as well. 'Getting an incurable disease'. He could look up a specific one later.
Now for the Subconscious section. He tapped his writing utensil on the paper and looked around the classroom. He wasn't really expecting to find inspiration, just letting his mind wander. Nothing seemed to be coming to him though. He sighed and looked back at his paper. Huh? Someone had written on it, in his own handwriting. It now said 'Future' surrounded by questions marks. How...?
Then Parker interrupted his train of thought. He smiled back, "Yeah?" a glance at Parker's papers showed that he'd been busy. "Looks like you're doing better than me." He showed Parker his own sheet and pointed at his 'Subconscious' column. "Did you write that on my paper while I wasn't looking?"
2
Gary Harper
That's good, right?
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0
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Parker Fitzgerald
June 05, 2020 12:54 PM
Depends on if you control them or they control you. by Parker Fitzgerald
Eyes passed down onto the paper next to him. Parker let out a small laugh. Getting stabbed in a dark alley was a fairly good physical fear. It was also very Batman-esq. He pointed his quill to it.“Sorry, made me think that you might be Batman’s dad. I mean, I know he was shot, but still…” Suddenly Parker could feel the red flush run up his cheeks as a thought ran in one ear and out the other. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to laugh at your fear… I just...” Well now he’d stuck his foot in his mouth. He shook his head. He couldn’t look Gary in his face cause he felt bad about laughing at what might be a fairly specific fear.
When Gary asked him if Parker had written something on his paper, Parker looked at Gary’s paper again. Parker shook his head. “No, I mean I’ve been a bit busy. Did…” Parker thought back to the year everyone got sick with accidental magic. He’d blown up a room and did not want that to happen again. “Umm… are you… did. Are you feeling ok? You’re not sick are you? Or maybe your subconscious wrote it out for you. I know that’s probably a good fear for me as well.”
Parker took his pen and wrote Future? on Cleo’s page.
“What are you thinking about around “future”?” Parker asked, using finger quotes when saying future.
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Parker Fitzgerald
Depends on if you control them or they control you.
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Gary Harper
June 05, 2020 7:41 PM
That's a very good point, which do you prefer? by Gary Harper
Gary smirked at Parker's reaction to his list. "Other than the getting shot and killed part, being Batman's dad would be pretty cool. I'd be pretty rich then, have a good family. But yeah, I'd definitely need to stay away from alleys." He waved his hand dismissively at Parker's apology, "It's fine, while it's something to worry about, I wouldn't classify is a a real fear. The Professor said we could pick and write about any type of fear. I just couldn't really thing of any actual, physical fears off the top of my head," he shrugged, "So I wrote down whatever popped into my head.""I don't think I'm sick..." Gary did a quick internal audit and none of his systems seemed to be complaining about anything major. His bladder reported that a detour from his normal route to charms class may be required after class, but nothing more. "I guess I just wrote it without thinking about it. Oh well, best way to get a subconscious fear out in the open I guess." He smiled as noticed Parker write it on the sheet labeled Cleo.
"Well, thanks to you, I have got a little direction over the summer." He recalled the Herbology class last year where they had discussed some future plannings, "I looked more into the magical architecture options and they look pretty cool. I've got to do some serious catching up on some of the requirements, but it shouldn't be impossible. If all goes well with the RATS at the end of the year, I'll be heading over to MENTAL. The Magical Engineering, Nature, and Technology Academy of Learning. After that... I don't know. Get a job as an architect somewhere?"
"Other than that..." he waved his hands in something of a hopeless gesture, "I don't know. Ideally I'd love to find the right girl, settle down, do the family thing. Unfortunately I don't have much of a lead on that plan." He decided that turnabout was fair play, "How about you, got all your plans sorted out?"
2
Gary Harper
That's a very good point, which do you prefer?
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Beau Tate
July 09, 2020 10:25 PM
Well, that's two things I don't want. by Beau Tate
Beau generally found DADA less boring than most classes and it was the only subject besides Transfiguration that he'd gotten an E on in his CATS. Which meant he could have gotten an O in both if not for stupid, stupid theory. However, the Pecari generally felt that having to study an excessive amount to do well enough to get an O was, as usual, not worth it. Of course, Father wasn't thrilled because he felt that Beau could do the work, but just didn't want to.And he was right.
Still, while the sixth year didn't have a bad relationship with his father, he knew that Father was disappointed that Beau did not have an iota of the same drive and ambition that Arianna did. It was clear that as the Pecari was expected, as a male, to go out into the world and have some sort of prominent career, which did not appeal to him.
It wasn't as if Beau didn't have stomach for corporate work or the family business. He wasn't soft like that. He just didn't want to work period . Working would seriously cut into doing things that he wanted to do. And why should he have a job when he didn't need the money? Just for appearance's sake? He knew his family would never cut him off unless he did something really really terrible like murder someone or marry someone inappropriate and to be disowned. Just not working was not a disownable offense and they would still give him money so he wouldn't embarrass them by looking shabby.
Girls were so lucky. People who were not society members complained how sexist it was-and Beau supposed they were right, because women got to do whatever they wanted all day while men had to slave away at dull, uninteresting jobs where their time wasn't their own. Though those who thought society was unfair to witches was wrong, they had the better deal.
Beau groaned inaudibly as Professor Brooding-Hawthorne told them they would not be needing their wands. That meant theory and effort and he just did not want to put forth effort . Why did it matter how magic worked? Why did professors always want to make it seem like it was less?
And they were going to be learning about fear . The emotion of fear. Oh, dear Merlin, no ! Not a touchy feely class about emotions. Yuck. How...uncomfortable. And of there was one thing the sixth year had a definite preference for, it was comfort. He was not about to get in touch with his emotions and discuss them in front of his classmates.
It was almost as bad as theory but at least Beau knew what fear was albeit not from experience. He couldn't think of much he was truly scared of. He didn't even fear work, he just didn't want to do it. There was a difference. Someone who actually feared work might fear it because they were afraid of failure or rejection by their coworkers.
As it turned out, they were learning about the professor's fear theories. So, this wasn't even a thing that psychology professionals had come up with. That called into question some of the validity of it, but it wasn't as if it was completely nonsense to him. Although, clearly, as Professor Brooding-Hawthorne was not an authority on these things, who was she to say which fears were rational and which were not? Nothing against the woman but she just plain wasn't an expert here.
Still, the assignment was not hard. A big plus. And they didn't have to be his fears. Bigger plus. Though Beau would argue that most fears could be taken to extreme levels. Like, take the fear of bears. It was reasonable to be afraid of bears because they would kill and eat you, much like with dragons. So that was clearly a physical fear. However, if you were so scared of them that you couldn't even be around a teddy bear, that was irrational. Maybe that didn't count? A run in with an actual bear would still be bad no matter what and teddy bears might be considered a totally separate entity. Of course, bear could easily be replaced with dragon and Professor Brooding-Hawthorne clearly said dragons were a physical fear.
Come to think of it, that was actually a good answer so Beau wrote it down. And he'd already thought of two other good subconscious ones before when he'd been thinking of what would make someone afraid to work so he wrote down Failure and Rejection under the heading of subconscious.
And he supposed the Cruciatius Curse would make a good thing to go under Physical since he doubted Professor Brooding-Hawthorne would appreciate him basically writing the same thing for several other animals as he had bears.
Now if Beau just had some idea of how people could overcome these fears. He'd never had to overcome a fear being that he wasn't all that afraid of anything. He turned to his neighbor. "Well, I have fears picked out and categorized, any thoughts on the overcoming them?"
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Beau Tate
Well, that's two things I don't want.
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0
5