*sighs* (Tag Jezebel) on Care of Magical Creatures

Lawrence Marsh

October 29, 2020 9:24 AM

Examining Biases of the Most Biased Magical Creature by Lawrence Marsh

This was always the hardest group to start up with. The ages in Intermediates meant that at the beginning of the year you had some students who were still in the beginner's mindset and others who wanted to be, and for a select few should be, in Advanced classes already. So trying to tie all of these groups together was always a challenge. Add to that Lawrence knew he had to cover some of the boring stuff first this year, so he could get to the exciting things later. Thankfully, his time over the break had been well spent, he thought. He’d released most of the Jackalopes back into their habitat, acquiring new ones, he learned more about North American fauna and, since the preserve also had an educational center, he learned a few nifty ways to engage kids in the more necessary parts of learning about magical creatures. Lawrence thought this lesson plan was interesting, to him at least. He was sure the Aladren’s would be interested in this lesson, the Pecaris, usually his most interested students, would probably be bored.

Professor Marsh smiled at his pupils as they walked in. It seemed so long ago when he had to give himself mantras to overcome his fear of these magical creatures. And that’s what they were, magical creatures, something he was quite adept at, most of the time.

“Hello, class. I know many of you are looking towards interacting with creatures, as is the usual case in this class, but today I wanted to start you off with another side of Magizoologists. Though we work with all kinds of creatures often outdoors or away from desks, magizoologists also need to spend time in a library, or personally for me outside in the labyrinth, reading journal articles and books on said creatures. All of you have,” Lawrence reach behind him to pick up the textbook for this course (the world over it seemed), “Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them. This though is merely one of many books you could use to write reports or find information. But how are we to know that we are getting the right books, journal articles or magazine articles before we read them all the way through? Through summaries. Can anyone give me an example of a summary of a book, journal, or even a radio show?”

Lawrence called on one of the raised hands and sent the chalk to the board behind him.

“Correct, points for your house, that’s a great example of a summary.”

He called on another hand, “Another great example, points to your house as well.”

The chalk continued to write on the board. Soon different types of reviews, book flaps, trailers, and even the word abstract were up on the board.

“These are all great, but we must understand that each of these has its own bias. Can anyone tell me what a bias is?”

Lawrence called on a raised hand. He nodded along to the student's response, which was fairly accurate. “That’s pretty good. Points to your house,” Lawrence said, he was just giving out points left and right today.

His chalk went to work behind him as he said out loud, “Bias is a disproportionate weight in favor of or against an idea or thing, usually in a way that is closed-minded, prejudiced, or unfair. In any sort of writing you will find this, but especially in summaries. It isn’t necessarily bad. We all have prejudices, for example, I believe my students to be some of the smartest in the world,” Lawrence said with a smile to his class, “but that’s just my bias. So as we read summaries, we must be on the lookout for bias, especially when it comes to magical creatures. There are often different viewpoints on not simply where the creature should be classified, but how wizards or muggles should interact with the creatures, maybe even what the creature does or eats. Today we are going to practice writing, and critiquing, our own summaries so we get a better sense of how hard it can be and also what to look out for.” With a wave of his wand copies of short articles on endangered magical creatures floated up onto his desk.

“I’d like everyone to get into groups of three. If there could be at least one older student for each group, that’d be ideal, but you’re all old enough to decide your own groups. Once in your groups, your group will get one article. You will each read the article and write a short, no more than a paragraph or two, summary of the article. We’ll then switch your three summaries and articles with another group and you’ll critique that group's summaries. Does anyone have any questions?”

Lawrence answered any questions that pupils had and then nodded.

"Great, team up and as always, if you have any questions I will be walking around the room. For those in their third year, don’t worry, we do continue to work with creatures in Intermediates as well.”

OOC: This lesson is based off this AVMA lesson plan: https://www.avma.org/sites/default/files/resources/food_supply_grade5.pdf

For those interested in Endangered Creatures in Magizoology the Golden Snidget is classified XXXX not for the difficulty in domestication or hazardous properties, but because it is an endangered species that will result in severe punishments if hunted or harmed. You can find other XXXX classified creatures here: https://harrypotter.fandom.com/wiki/Category:XXXX_Creatures (also look up XXXXX creatures)

Subthreads:

I admit to having biases. (tag an older student) by Mab with Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Holding an abstract court. by Jessica Hayles with Sapphire Brockert, Sadie-Lake Chalmers

*sighs* (Tag Jezebel) by Bridget Ferguson with Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Biases (Josie) by Sophia Priory

41 Lawrence Marsh Examining Biases of the Most Biased Magical Creature 1462 1 5

Mab

October 30, 2020 10:41 AM

I admit to having biases. (tag an older student) by Mab

Being an newly minted intermediate, Mab did not volunteer any answers to the questions Professor Marsh asked during his lecture. Even for the ones she thought she knew, she figured they were all tricky and more complicated than they sounded like to her, and she didn't want to get caught out sounding like a simple child in front of her older peers. Neither did she want to be corrected in front of Alexander or Sadie.

Of course, she had rarely spoken up during Beginners, either, so she doubted either of them or Professor Marsh would notice she was being quieter than normal, though she thought explaining what a summary or a bias was might have been a question where she would have ventured to try volunteering an answer, because usually offering definitions was a fairly safe way to prove to the teacher that you had some grasp of the subject material and they didn't need to call on you unexpectedly now.

As it turned out, there didn't seem to be too much hidden complexity behind the questions after all, which she was a little mad about, because she could have volunteered after all and gotten that over with for the month. Now she would need to find an older student willing to work with her without the benefit of having correctly answered a discussion question already.

Groups of three that included both her and an older student were additionally complicated by those two required members of her group not having any shared peers, so far as she knew. Alexander had strange family ties to older students, but none of them were still in Intermediates. Sadie . . . might know an older Crotalus girl? She'd been sitting with a new prefect during the Feast, Mab had noticed. And Esme probably had relatives. (Not that she really knew Esme all that well other than that she'd been part of her booth last year.) So those were potential possibilities, maybe.

Though, really, any group that did not include Theo and Anya was probably fine. Mab could only feel pity for whoever their third might be if those two chose to work together.

It would probably be easiest to just approach an older student who didn't already have two people standing around them and hope they did not reject her. Spotting one such person, Mab approached. "I'm supposed to work with an older student," she stated, putting the blame for this encroachment where it belonged: on Professor Marsh. "Do you have a group yet?"

1 Mab I admit to having biases. (tag an older student) 1473 0 5

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

November 02, 2020 8:50 PM

That is I! No. Me! by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Johana Leonie was not a prefect. Zara was good and kind and deserving, and Johana Leonie was not. She had already known that, naturally, but it was a painful reminder and she sort of thought that maybe it was her penance her something. Like she'd been awful enough to Freddie that now she got to pay for it with status and importance and all the sorts of things she'd always wanted. At least she could still wear pretty things. She could cover herself with pretty things instead of that shiny badge on Zara's robes. She wondered if Kai had felt like this the previous year, but supposed that he'd been distant enough not to want status. He was still distant, but he mattered. At least, he mattered to Johana Leonie.

Johana Leonie always enjoyed Care of Magical Creatures. There were cute little creatures and weird scary creatures and Johana Leonie liked to take care of things. It was nice to feel like she could do that with little animals, since she couldn't do that much with real people yet; learning to be a healer would have to wait a while longer unfortunately. Today's lesson, however, was reading and writing based. And it was about biases and prejudices, concepts she had become more familiar with - even in English - since working things out with Freddie. She would rather have fed one of nastier creatures they usually worked with than had to do this activity. At least in English; she liked the idea of research in German, or when she had time in the library to consult her dictionary. It was frustrating not to be able to do that now, especially since the idea of research at all was something she'd only learned about since coming to Sonora. It was going to be a long day.

One of the younger students approached and Johana Leonie only shook her head before remembering to smile too. "No," she said. "Not yet." Her English was improving, so that was good, but she was sure this was still going to be a very long class period. "I think that this will be much hard for me," she warned with a grimace, raising an eyebrow to make it a question of whether the girl would still like to work with her.

22 Johana Leonie Zauberhexen That is I! No. Me! 1432 0 5

Mab

November 04, 2020 7:39 PM

You are older or you have bias as well? by Mab

Mab knew there were people in the school who did not speak English natively. One of them was in her House. Hilda was, in fact, one of the least objectionable of Mab's Housemates, precisely because she didn't try to talk a lot, so Mab often tried to sit near the older Pecari girl when the new prefect wasn't at Aladren or Teppenpaw instead (and when Mab herself wasn't sitting over at Teppenpaw to be with Alexander). This older student was, if she recalled correctly, one of the people Hilda left Pecari to go sit with. So, not a perfect connection, given that 'Housemates who don't irritate each other' was a pretty low bar to set for a relationship (though a harder one to hit than one might have guessed coming in) but it was something, she supposed. Come to that, she didn't recall Alexander ever complaining about a foreign older girl, so they had two ways to calculate two-degrees-of-separation if 'Housemates who don't irritate each other' was considered valid.

"I'm a third year," Mab pointed out, "I expect Intermediates to be difficult." Granted communication barriers hadn't been the top of her list of expected trials, but she could roll with it. That's why she was a Pecari, wasn't it? She could roll with whatever life threw at her. A group member of foreign origin was hardly the worst thing she'd ever had to face. "I can read the article and help break it down. You can tell me Care of Magical Creature facts I don't know yet. We both help and use our strengths."

She realized an important step had been skipped over, and she added, "I'm called Mab. Do you have anyone in mind for the third person in our group?"

1 Mab You are older or you have bias as well? 1473 0 5

Jessica Hayles

November 24, 2020 7:22 PM

Holding an abstract court. by Jessica Hayles

After quickly - well, relatively quickly - adjusting to having her sister in the same school, Jessica had expected it to be relatively easy to adjust to having Mara in the same classes with her. After living with the reality for just a little while, though, Jessica had stopped wondering 'when' she would get used to odd moments when she looked up and spotted her sister there, and had moved to wondering 'if' she would ever do so at all.

Part of it was, of course, other people's faults. Everyone at Sonora who knew about their relationship now spent most of every day in the same rooms, and the tension was so great that there were times when all Jessica would think of was how much she wanted to start screaming. There was Felipe, who she did trust - unless he lost control of his health again, and who knew what he might babble in such a state, even before they presumably drugged him silly for his own protection? There was Leonor, who Jessica no longer knew what to think of at all, not since she had taken to the company of Jeremy Mordue - the only reason Jessica felt relatively safe assuming Leonor had not betrayed her was that she was fairly sure Jeremy would have loudly used the information by now, just for spite over the prefect thing. And finally, last and worst, there was The Other, the one Jessica tried to pretend didn't exist, but who was nevertheless always, always there....

That would have been enough to keep her from fully settling into the new circumstances all by itself, but unfortunately, that wasn't all of it. There was another factor, one which frustrated her even more in some ways, since it felt like there should have been some way for her to control it better than the others, and yet she couldn't. It was that Mara simply seemed to see no reason not to call attention to herself and her cleverness - and how Mara's brains were almost a third problem into and of themselves. For the first time in her life, Jessica was forced to see one of her sisters as someone to compete with - almost as a rival, even. And she did not like it one bit, and didn't think she would have liked it much better even had she given herself higher odds of coming out on top if it ever did blossom into proper rivalry.

Care of Magical Creatures, to Jessica's mind, was especially bad as far as making her worry about that went. In matters of theory and magical practice, she had an edge because she had both more experience and the feverish, semi-compulsive work ethic instilled in her before she could even remember; it was, perhaps, not enough to offset Mara's ability to soak up anything she set her mind to at a rate that left Jessica dazed for long, but it would probably carry her through this one year of overlap. In Care of Magical creatures, though, Mara's greater stock of courage and her efficient, straightforward manner more than cancelled out Jessica's advantages. A book-oriented class there was, therefore, welcome, though Jessica still found a small frown forming between her pencilled-in eyebrows as Professor Marsh talked. An example of a summary? What, like of a specific book?

Tentatively, not quite sure this was what he actually wanted but not able to think of anything else he could mean by that question, she put her hand up.

"I guess you could summarize that one - " she pointed to his copy of the textbook - "broadly as 'a list of magical creatures one guy has seen in his life, in alphabetical order, with descriptions'?" she hazarded.

This was not, it soon proved, the actual question - he wanted names of the sub-categories that fell beneath the heading of 'summary'. Well, that was embarassing enough, even if she did maintain that the misunderstanding was perfectly reasonable. She busied herself with note-taking for the rest of the lecture period, determinedly fixing her face in what she hoped was an unabashed look.

Afterward, she was not too pleased with the idea of group work, especially when it seemed to be expected that she would help the younger ones instead of working with only her own people, but she smiled instead of grimacing and decided to make things easier on herself. He wanted at least one older person in each group, and she was one of the oldest in the class. She stood up and used her wand to write '5th' above her head with the tip of her wand, allowing other people to come to her - she wouldn't think of it as receiving petitioners like a queen, or think of how she was fairly sure Mara didn't know how to write in the air yet, something Jessica only knew by chance. Those would not be nice thoughts and so she would not have them as she sat back down to see what happened, soon smiling at someone.

16 Jessica Hayles Holding an abstract court. 1442 0 5

Sapphire Brockert

November 30, 2020 2:58 PM

Joining your court by Sapphire Brockert

OOC: CW-Internalized ableism BIC:

While Sapphire could never say she was looking forward to classes, she was very happy that this year Topaz would no longer be in the same ones-and that Sadie would. She had been so excited when the younger Crotalus had written to her that she'd written back almost immediately, though her letter had gone through several drafts before she showed it to Ruby to make sure it was okay, which her older sister of course had said it was and that she didn't need to worry so much. In hindsight, maybe she should have asked someone like her dad or Esme who would have been nicer than say, Topaz, but not someone who was super positive and nice about everything as when someone was, they weren't necessarily being helpful.

Of course, Topaz had seen her being happy and tried her best to both figure out why-which Sapphire was reluctant to let her know for obvious reasons-and to do things to counteract the fourth year's happiness.

There was, however, a drawback to Sapphire having class with Sadie again-and that was that the third year seemed to think the older girl was smart . Which seemed rather confusing to her, based on the fact that she'd always been told she wasn't.Okay, there were people that seemed to think she wasn't dumb such as Ruby or Allegra or Neal, but that someone would actually ask her for help was strange. Not that she meant that Sadie was strange, but that this was a strange experience for Sapphire.

And she sort of thought that maybe she could see that initially Sadie had been new to a world that the fourth year had grown up in and so therefore, experience made her more knowledgable. Now, however, Sapphire was worried that Sadie would realize that she wasn't very bright after all, and not really like her or want to be friends with her. It wasn't as if she had anyone else who was even sort of her friend. Not only that, she also didn't want to let the younger girl down if she needed help.

Professor Marsh began the lesson and Sapphire stifled a groan at the mention of journal articles and other such academic literature. Not that she never read or anything, she just stuck to mostly fiction that was meant for teenage girls. She really hoped she wasn't going to have to look at the sort of reading material the professor had mentioned. There would be no way she could make sense of them.

And, while she understood the concepts of bias-and she didn't buy for a minute that Professor Marsh thought she was among the smartest students in the world-and summaries, how was she supposed to recognize bias in an article? While Sapphire could easily recognize bias of those she knew-Uncle Eustace was biased against women, Esme against Pecaris, almost everyone was inclined to think Topaz was in the wrong, though that last one was usually not at all inaccurate-how would she recognize that of someone whom she didn't, whom knew the topic far better than Sapphire would.

They were released to work in groups and the fourth year looked around for Sadie. However, first she noticed Jessica Hayles, whom she had also seen her maybe-friend around. And Jessica seemed a good deal smarter than Sapphire, not that that took much.

She approached the older Crotalus. "Do you mind if I work with you? We can ask Sadie as well."

11 Sapphire Brockert Joining your court 1459 0 5

Bridget Ferguson

December 04, 2020 7:41 PM

sighs (Tag Jezebel) by Bridget Ferguson

Bridget wasn't all that surprised that she hadn't gotten prefect, and that Sophia-and Zara-had. Her cousin more or less had everything, she was pretty and smart and had a normal family structure. Sophia's parents had issues, but they weren't as bad as those of Bridget's parents. She wasn't an outsider the way the Teppenpaw often felt that she was. And both she and Zara were more confident than Bridget. Although she wasn't sure that was everything when Allegra Brockert had gotten it last year. She'd think that was nepotism, except that Topaz, the headmaster's other granddaughter, had not .

Anyway, she really didn't care that much, honestly. It was just another way Sophia had gotten a break in life that she hadn't. And it wasn't one that Bridget was half as bothered by as the whole "family" thing. Where the Teppenpaw's background took explaining and was confusing and weird. Though, to be fair, the side she and her cousin shared was a big huge complicated family tree but that wasn't the same as Bridget's grandfather cheating on his wife on a regular basis and having a crap-ton of illegitimate kids including her mom and her grandma being married to a Muggle old enough to be her dad and so her step-cousin was a year older than her mom, among other things. It was weird and freaky and it made her feel weird and freaky too.

Bridget stared dully as Professor Marsh talked. Care of Magical Creatures had never been a subject that especially interested her and she'd probably drop it after CATS. Actually, she wasn't interested much in any of her classes, except the two she excelled at.

Oh well, it wasn't as if she was going to become a magizoologist. Or anything really. She was going to just get married and have kids like most pureblood women. If anyone would have her with her background. Maybe Bridget would end up with someone from a small, new money pureblood family. She was still a pureblood after all, still Clifford Brockert's great-great-granddaughter, just as Sophia was.

And maybe someone would actually love her. That was one thing she could say about her parents, they loved her-and each other. As opposed to Uncle Oliver and Aunt Jessica. Bridget was pretty sure Uncle Oliver didn't even like his wife much. She understood if he wasn't attracted to her because he-possibly-liked men, but he could still treat her a little bit nicer. Being gay wasn't the same as being a misogynist, Uncle Oliver just happened to be both.

Of course, maybe he couldn't help that he was sexist. After all, Grandfather was a terrible role model. In his case, sexism was one of his lesser flaws.

Bridget sighed to herself. This wasn't even a very interesting assignment but at least with the way the groups were set up, she was more or less required to work with someone younger than herself. Which meant she could work with Jezebel.

She approached her friend. "Want to work together?" The Teppenpaw asked.

11 Bridget Ferguson *sighs* (Tag Jezebel) 1448 0 5

Sophia Priory

December 05, 2020 6:58 PM

Biases (Josie) by Sophia Priory

Sophia sat in COMC, her prefect badge gleaming from her robes. She was proud of the achievement, even though she was not entirely excited to work with some of the other prefects nor would she be with people who would inevitably get it in the future. At least Jessica and Hilda had also gotten the honor, not that the latter had any competition. She wished Zara hadn't though, not because she had anything against the Teppenpaw, but because she liked the alternatives better. Johana Leonie was her friend, and the rest of them had gotten it so Sophia was concerned about her feeling left out. And Bridget was, well, Bridget . Her cousin, her best friend. Besides, the other fifth year deserved something nice.

Professor Marsh began the lesson and Sophia groaned inwardly at the mention of bias. All too often, when that word was brought up it was in respect to people like her being biased against non-purebloods. Nobody ever seemed to acknowledge that the reverse could be just as possible and just as unfair. Either that or they didn't care or thought it was justified. Because they too were biased against people like Sophia.

Not that she wasn't biased at all. She totally was, just not necessarily in the way people assumed purebloods were biased. Everyone was in some way, and the Aladren was glad that Professor Marsh had acknowleged that, although the remark about him thinking his students were among the smartest in the world earned an eye roll. That was probably utter bull crap. Or he was an idiot which he'd never struck her as being.

Anyway, Sophia was biased against, for example, people who thought they were so cool and special that they could do whatever they wanted, such as wear whatever they wanted when there were rules that they had to wear robes. She was also highly biased against child abusers as well as parents who kept their children ignorant of things they should have known, the way Josie's father had. Of course, those particular biases were completely reasonable.

Speaking of Josie, the younger Aladren was in her classes this year and Professor Marsh had just basically said she had to work with someone younger, given she was a fifth year, part of the oldest group in Intermediates. Sophia was definitely going to take advantage of this situation. Especially as the other fifth years she was friendly with had to find at least one younger student to work with too

She made her way over to the third year. "Would you like to work together?" Sophia asked.

11 Sophia Priory Biases (Josie) 1447 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 06, 2020 5:32 PM

I'll endeavor to be a kind and gracious sovereign (tag Sadie) by Jessica Hayles

Jessica smiled at the girl who approached, wondering if the younger student really did manage to have a complexion even more transparent than her own or if it just looked like that because of the rest of Sapphire’s coloring. Her mother had the same dark eyes Jessica had, but had gotten her own, darker shade of red hair from the skilled ministrations of her hairdresser instead of from nature; natural redheads, Rosalie was known to fuss, were too prone to looking sallow anyway, but adding the contrast of Jessica’s eyes could make it even worse and made it extremely important to pick her colors closely and never be photographed in the wrong light….

And your nose is so long…you don’t want to look like a horsey redhead, Ros would say, looking at Jessica’s profile from different angles. But you’re still growing, maybe you’ll grow into it and you won’t need any work done.

Jessica hoped that would be the case, as privately, she very much disliked the idea of having ‘work’ done. She didn’t think it was wrong or anything like that, or even that it necessarily only had trashy-looking results (her parents both, she thought, kept their Botox treatments within very tasteful, natural-looking limits), but she just did not want to do it herself, at least not for a long time, and certainly not just because of her nose. Power, influence, and beauty all brought enough pain to those who possessed them by default, she thought; it was hard to grasp why she would want to willingly add extra on top.

One day, when she old, she would certainly need some tasteful Botox, and might have to have other work depending on her luck. For now, though, she could smile without fear of wrinkles, or even any real thought of them – she was more occupied with wondering if this was going to go well.

It had only been since third year that she had known why, other than Sophia, all her friends tended to be people on the margins. Those friendships worked just fine for her, of course, and she was not really interested in clutching people unintelligent enough to be racist to her bosom, but nor was she idealistic enough to fail to see the potential benefits to maintaining civil relations with one of the headmaster’s granddaughters. How, exactly, she knew that Sapphire was one of Brockert’s granddaughters, she was unsure; information of that sort had a strange way of seeping into heads, she supposed, a way she could only wish that the lists some classes needed to her memorize would do. However she had come to know the fact, she knew it, and she knew that this severely limited her ability to give as good as she got. It would have done anyway in any school, but here, where these people were so very odd….

“Of course,” she said when Sapphire asked if she could work with her. Well, they were starting off pleasant enough. That was always a good thing. It could continue in this manner. It was not as if things were guaranteed to go poorly, after all. Jessica’s father might have been only a second-generation Georgian, but her mother’s family had been in the South far too long for Jessica to assume anyone in a group was going to share its worst vices, past or present. She was a little wary of anyone who was even potentially more powerful than she was, but she’d let an individual prove themselves awful. After all, if such generalizations were always true, then Jessica and Zara would be on the same pages. “Oh, you know Sadie, too? She’s the best, isn’t she?” She spotted Sadie and waved to get her attention. “Hey, Sadie! Want to work with us?” she asked, gesturing to Sapphire as well.

16 Jessica Hayles I'll endeavor to be a kind and gracious sovereign (tag Sadie) 1442 0 5

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

December 10, 2020 5:47 PM

I'm sure you will be! by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Intermediates was going sort of okay. It definitely felt like a big step up but feeling small and stupid weren't new feelings for her. That wasn't much of a silver lining, but there actually was a real one in that she didn't feel small, stupid, and lost. She actually felt almost settled in some ways. The teachers were all the same, and she actually knew enough of her classmates not to feel like she was totally floundering. She was sticking to the same tactics that she had used in beginners of just keeping her head down and working really hard on her homework, and so far she wasn't crashing and burning. Admittedly, they weren't too far into the term yet, and there was still plenty of time for it to be awful, but it wasn't awful yet. She wasn't drowning.

She took her seat in Care of Magical Creatures, feeling an uptick both in terms of being in her comfort zone but also in terms of pressure. This was her best class, and Professor Marsh seemed to think she could maybe be better than average here. He certainly expected her to give more to this, as he had made it clear that a condition of keeping Jack-Jack was doing the assistant job here. Or at least, applying for it. She didn't expect to be given it by default just for already having another privilege, and she wasn't sure what would happen if she applied and wasn't good enough. She was supposed to prove herself, and to give something back to the professor, so she had to do well.

That wasn't off to a particularly promising start when the words 'theory class' were announced. She tried not to groan, even inside her own head. She had actually read quite a few online articles about bunny training during the holidays. She wasn't sure that counted as doing theory, but it was definitely learning stuff about animals and wasn't doing practical. Though she planned to put it to practical use, so maybe there was a bit of a difference. It was kind of like reading a bunny instruction manual, whereas actual theory seemed to be about thinking and suggesting, which weren't really her strong points.

The professor specifically requested that the older students help the younger ones out, which was great, because she happened to know two really kind, helpful and smart older students. She didn't want to seem like she was pestering them all the time in class, but as a Crotalus, an adult saying 'If there could be, it would be ideal' read to her as a definite mandate. As far as she was concerned, the element of choice has been about which older students paired with which younger ones, and how the fourth years chose to categorise themselves.

Whatever forces were in charge of everything not really sucking right now seemed to continue smiling down on her. She had glanced around and noticed the big glowing '5th' in the air, and figured that was at least an indicator that the person was open to having whoever in their group. As she made her way over though, she found not only that it belonged to Jessica, but that she had Sapphire with her too, and they were enthusiastically waving her over. She would have just about died of happiness had she heard Jessica's comment. As it was, she still joined her group with a huge smile on her face.

"That would be great!" she nodded.

She wasn’t sure whether it was luck or Professor Marsh that was on her side as an article about Jackelopes landed in front of them. Step one was reading, which was easy enough, in that she knew how to do that as a basic skill. The article itself wasn’t even too complex. Sure, it had the word ‘lagomorph’ but between this and herbology she had long since learnt to recognise ‘science word for a thing that doesn’t mean anything except what its name/group is in science.’ Knowing about groups and families was probably useful somehow if you were properly into this, but at their level it just tended to be a case of being aware of the name. The article mentioned ‘amorousness’ and the mating habits of Jackelopes, and whilst it was far from the first time such things had come up in class, it was odd to read about that – along with their tendency to enjoy whiskey, allegedly – and think about Jack-Jack, who she regarded as a baby. There were also several things in the article that she knew for a fact to be wrong. Why would Professor Marsh give them a bad article? Oh, right, they were meant to… criticise? Or look for flaws?

“I feel like this person doesn’t know much about jackelopes,” she stated, when she finished the article. “Is that the same as a bias? And are we even looking for those, or are we just meant to be looking at what he said, and then seeing if the other group has biases about what they read?” she queried.

OOC: Link to the article

13 Sadie-Lake Chalmers I'm sure you will be! 1480 0 5

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

December 10, 2020 11:30 PM

also sighs by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Jezebel thought this was a very important lesson and one that she was glad was being addressed. Considering the rampant racism in this school and the disproportionately high numbers of foreign students and gay staff members, the biases in the magic world seemed to be way different than the ones Jezebel was used to; this lesson was important to her in terms of learning more about this whacky world she was stuck in now, and also because people needed to stop being such jerks about stuff. But mostly, she just wanted to fit in. If fitting in meant being racist . . . well, she wasn't sure she could stoop that low, but she could definitely learn not to talk so much about her family. They didn't really super want her that much anyway.

Today's lesson really was about biases in other things though too. For all she knew, they were going to get an article about someone being biased against the color blue in the care of fire-type Pokemon or something. Jezebel wasn't exactly looking forward to working in groups because she mostly avoided people as much as possible, except the few people that stood out to her as people she liked. Luckily, one of those ones, the one with the pretty mermaid hair and the one who had kept being nice to her even when Jezebel felt like all of her inner secrets were pouring out her ears (spoiler alert: they weren't) was the first to approach.

"Yes, definitely," she agreed, sighing and giving into a smile at the opportunity to work with Bridget. "It's going to suck when you go up to Advanced classes without me," Jezebel added. "But that's not happening yet!"

22 Jezebel Reed-Fischer *also sighs* 1454 0 5

Jessica Hayles

December 17, 2020 7:47 PM

You're sweet. by Jessica Hayles

Jessica would have smiled at anyone joining a group she was in anyway, but with Sadie, she did it in a genuinely fond way. There was something sweet about how happy Sadie seemed about the invitation, as if she felt she was lucky to be asked – though that was a little sad, too, as she found it hard to imagine Sadie being someone to put up a front, or think to act sycophantish. Sadie was, she thought, transparent as a flat sheet of glass.

“Great,” she said warmly. “It looks like we have a group, then!”

She was glad to observe the topic of their group’s article, despite her embarrassment (she blamed it on her mother growing up Baptist; it was true that Rosalie Hayles had little of the demurity her original denomination would have preferred to see in a woman, but it was probably still genetic, or…something) at the allusions to the existence of mating. Mating, after all, was an utterly unavoidable topic in this class, one she had long since learned to keep a straight face about, and she thought it would be nice for her shy little friend to have a topic she could shine on.

“It could be,” she agreed when Sadie said a lack of good information might be a bias. “I guess it depends on why the information isn’t there…does the person not like jackelopes? Or just not find them interesting? Or maybe they only had access to bad sources. Do you see specific incorrect things in there?” She probably could have rummaged in her memory and come up with something, but there was no harm in letting Sadie have her day in the sun as a subject expert.

16 Jessica Hayles You're sweet. 1442 0 5

Lawrence Marsh

Examining Biases of the Most Biased Magical Creature by Lawrence Marsh

Mab

I admit to having biases. (tag an older student) by Mab

Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

That is I! No. Me! by Johana Leonie Zauberhexen

Mab

You are older or you have bias as well? by Mab

Jessica Hayles

Holding an abstract court. by Jessica Hayles

Sapphire Brockert

Joining your court by Sapphire Brockert

Bridget Ferguson

*sighs* (Tag Jezebel) by Bridget Ferguson

Sophia Priory

Biases (Josie) by Sophia Priory

Jessica Hayles

I'll endeavor to be a kind and gracious sovereign (tag Sadie) by Jessica Hayles

Sadie-Lake Chalmers

I'm sure you will be! by Sadie-Lake Chalmers

Jezebel Reed-Fischer

*also sighs* by Jezebel Reed-Fischer

Jessica Hayles

You're sweet. by Jessica Hayles

sighs (Tag Jezebel) by Bridget Ferguson

also sighs by Jezebel Reed-Fischer