The Surprising Trouble with Harry
Perry Glanzer on Harry Potter & Public-School Moral Education
Everyone seems to love Harry Potter, except a few suspicious Christians. While many public school educators applaud how the Potter series motivates kids to read, they—not conservative Christians nervous about the witchcraft and wizardry—are the ones who should be scared of the Harry Potter series. For the books attractively challenge the moral vacuum within public schools. Those concerned with moral education in public schools—traditionalists, progressives, believers in Lawrence Kohlberg’s stages of moral development, and fans of character education—should beware the revolutionary challenge of Harry Potter’s moral world.
Beyond Rules
J. K. Rowling makes her moral message prominent. She recognizes that moral qualities are more important than intellectual ones. As Harry’s friend Hermione tells him, “Books! And Cleverness! There are more important things—friendship and bravery.” In Rowling’s story, moral outlook takes precedence over the wizardry and witchcraft, a point many Christian detractors overlook.
What her Christian critics tend to notice, however, is that Harry seems continually to be breaking school rules. That Harry and his friends also demonstrate certain virtues comes as no consolation. As one traditionalist critic, Berit Kjos, maintains, “Harry and his friends may show loyalty to each other and courage in the face of danger. But they also lie and steal. Would you call that a moral world?” What such critics fail to realize about Harry’s moral world is that school rules are not tightly linked to the ultimate moral order, and obeying them can, at times, be pharisaical and even disobedient to the moral order. Staying out past curfew and breaking into a restricted book section are hardly the stuff of major rebellion, although they do cause problems for school bureaucrats.
Harry and his friends usually do not break school rules for fun. They reason that, in light of the larger battle between good and evil in the world, obeying school rules cannot be their ultimate end. Thus, in the first book, defeating evil becomes more important to Harry than following rules to ensure that he stays at the elite magical academy of Hogwarts—even when his best friends oppose him:
“You’re mad!” said Ron.
“You can’t!” said Hermione. “After what [Professors] McGonagall and Snape have said? You’ll be expelled!”
“SO WHAT?” Harry shouted. “Don’t you understand? If Snape gets hold of the Stone, Voldemort’s coming back! Haven’t you heard what it was like when he was trying to take over? There won’t be any Hogwarts to get expelled from! He’ll flatten it, or turn it into a school for the Dark Arts! Losing points doesn’t matter anymore, can’t you see?”
Though when Harry does indulge in a little rule-breaking for his own pleasure, other voices challenge him. For example, in The Prisoner of Azkaban, a professor provides a stinging critique at one point when Harry’s rule-breaking stems less from reasons related to the overall battle between good and evil and more from his selfishness:
Perry Glanzer is an Assistant Professor in the School of Education at Baylor University and the author of The Quest for Russia?s Soul (Baylor University Press). He attends First Baptist Church in Woodway, Texas.
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