This past week held the official end of our first major public activity as an organization: operating “The General Will” bar/schoolroom in collaboration with the Mattress Factory and Glenn Loughran. We had some excellent events, important meetings, and met some great people during our 6 weeks working on Federal Street.

Some of the most memorable times included numerous strange visitors to the bar who, understandably, were looking for a drink. Many of them were too confused and left, but a number were intrigued and stayed to talk (and even drink) with us.

So, now that we’re done with the first of our temporary headquarters (there’s more to come) I’m excited to get back to writing. Specifically, I’ve been sitting on a nerdy (but important!) idea for a long time that I am really excited about. It’s about Harry Potter.

I was initially a skeptic of all things Hogwarts, but in college I was overwhelmed with the amount of densely philosophical literature I had to read. Rowling’s novels were a welcome break from hyper-intellectual essays. I read them all eagerly and now readily await the last film’s release in a few weeks.

I’ve always been fascinated with why Harry Potter is so appealing to everyone. Obviously there are a number of reasons, but the one that holds primary interest for me is the school of witchcraft and wizardry, specifically the way the education of wizards transcends the normal bounds of the classroom and has epic importance.

This is why I wanted to be there, this is why I fell in love with the stories: students of Hogwarts learn to fight, defeat evil, save the world, train dragons, and grow magic plants. Their learning is so important that when their schooling is impeded by difficult headmasters they take it into their own hands and continue their training in secret. They are not treated as mere children, but as important contributing members to the community.

In the wizarding world, school matters, which reminds us that it matters here as well. The evils and battles of our non-magic world are equal to the fantastic ones of Rowling’s world, just easier to ignore.

What if when we went to school we were training to save the world?

In fact, this is what we are doing… we’re just not doing it very well.

Certainly, we do not live in the Harry Potter universe, but schooling is too often reduced to an obligatory practice that does not engage student’s passions and enable them to fight meaningful battles. If higher education becomes merely an extension of the the rest of our schooling, does it deserve the lofty distinction? This is why Harry Potter appeals to us, because it is a higher education, it is an education that trains heroes. I want so badly to sneak into the restricted section of a library to study answers from history that will solve the current crisis.

There are no young wizards fighting trolls or dark magicians, but there was this group:

and there is her:

and there was him:

.