What Hogwarts Gets Right About Schooling
It's a culture built around reading, writing, and hard work.
For Harry Potter’s birthday, I thought I would write an appreciation post in honor of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.
Because, for all its magical quirks, Hogwarts has some lessons for us today. Strip away the owls and broomsticks and magical ceilings, and the school rests on a foundation of rigorous academics. Students read books, write essays, memorize key facts, learn from expert teachers, and demonstrate what they’ve learned through demanding, standardized exams.
Hogwarts' approach to learning probably feels quaint today. After all, why memorize facts when you can Google them? Why spend hours writing an essay when ChatGPT can produce one in seconds? Why require students to read a book when they can watch a summary on YouTube? And yet, decades of cognitive science suggests that Hogwarts’ old school approach may have done a better job teaching its students to think than technological shortcuts would today.
Students read books. Lots of them.
When Harry and his classmates need to learn something, they don’t search the internet or watch a five-minute explainer video. They head to the library.
Their classes revolve around substantial textbooks like The Standard Book of Spells, A History of Magic, and The Monster Book of Monsters. Hermione is the role model here. She is constantly reading ahead, consulting additional books, and digging through library stacks to answer difficult questions. But even less-serious students like Fred and George Weasley regularly pop up in the library, and it’s clear that reading is seen as the foundation of learning.
Students are constantly writing essays.
One of Harry’s biggest complaints throughout the books is the mundane task of homework. Again and again, J.K. Rowling describes students writing essays about arcane (wizarding) topics like moonstones or goblin wars.
These essays are not personal reflections like, “How did this spell make you feel?” or “Describe a time you showed courage.” Instead, these are research papers, and they’re often about historical figures and events that require multiple sources. The students are being asked to write specifically because writing is how they will learn the material.
Knowledge comes before creativity.
Modern education advocates sometimes set up background knowledge and critical thinking as competing goals. That’s not the case at Hogwarts. Beginner students have to memorize spells, magical properties, historical events, ingredients, and procedures. Only after mastering those basics do they get to perform more advanced magic.
That reflects what cognitive science has taught us for decades, that critical thinking flows from knowledge. Students cannot analyze history without knowing facts and people and dates, and they can’t solve complex math problems without being fluent in basic foundational skills.
High expectations are normal.
Nobody at Hogwarts argues that exams should be easier because some students struggle. Some students excel. Some barely scrape by. Some fail!
At Hogwarts, the expectation is that students should rise to meet high standards. Natural talent is important, but effort often matters more.
Students work toward rigorous, standardized assessments.
The wizarding world has high-stakes standardized testing, much more so than anything we have in the USA today. At Hogwarts, students prepare for their Ordinary Wizarding Levels (OWLs) and later their Nastily Exhausting Wizarding Tests (NEWTs), which include both written and practical components. Students have to recall facts and demonstrate that they can perform the skills they’ve been taught. Importantly, both sets of exams are administered by outside examiners rather than Hogwarts’ own teachers.
These exams determine a student’s future opportunities. Aspiring Aurors (like Harry) need high marks across a certain set of fields. Students who want to become magical “healers” need a different set of qualifications. A student’s career trajectory depends on what skills they can demonstrate that they have mastered. Because these assessments carry such high stakes, the wizarding world makes a tremendous effort to ensure they are rigorous, consistent, and credible.
Learning is cumulative.
At Hogwarts, knowledge is expected to build on itself. Students are not expected (or even allowed!) to brew advanced potions without understanding basic ingredients. They cannot cast difficult spells before mastering simpler ones.
Nobody expects students to learn everything from scratch, and each year builds on the last. That’s how learning works in the magical world, and it’s how learning happens in the real world as well.
Learning is not magic.
Of course, Hogwarts also has some relatable flaws. As headmaster, Dumbledore makes some questionable hiring choices. Student discipline is inconsistent. Bullying often goes unchecked. To put it mildly, no real school would want to emulate Hogwarts’ safety record.
But through it all, Hogwarts maintained a remarkably strong academic culture. Rowling imagined a school where reading books is worthwhile, that writing helps students think, that knowledge should accumulate over time, and that rigorous assessments can open doors rather than close them.
Sometimes, learning can feel magical. But it also requires a lot of hard work.
Reading List
Charlie Barone: Classic Learning Test is Dumbing Down What It Means To Be College and Career Ready
Wayne D’Orio: Report Ties Chronic Absenteeism to Sluggish Academic Outcomes
Learning Science Design: “Effective teachers present new content in small steps, model concepts, ask a high volume of questions and check the responses of all students.”
EdWeek: Governors Want Guidance on How Parents Can Build Numeracy Skills at Home
EconTalk: How young people can make their 80,000 working hours count