Harry's education begins
Harry was awakened by his aunt, who told him tersely that things had changed. From now on, he is to wake up at an early hour, and go to their friend Mr. Thornton’s, where he was to work for him until bedtime, at which time he was to enter the house though the back door, and quietly go to his cupboard, where he would sleep until the next day and repeat it. Harry knew enough to not act happy about this, but inside, he was overjoyed. Mr. Thornton wasn’t a bad person, in fact, he’d fed and comforted him.
Mr. Thornton was nice to work for. In fact, it wasn’t really work at all. Harry could even pretend that he was family, other than having to return to the Dursley’s every night. The first thing that happened every day was that Harry was given a substantial breakfast. Then Mr. Thornton had him do calisthenics and go for a walk. After that, he was given schoolbooks and told to study for several hours. A healthy lunch followed, and in the afternoon, Harry was free to read and enjoy himself. In the evenings, he was again fed, and after helping with the washing, he was sent back to the Dursley’s, where he crept in and slept until the next day.
Since this was early July, Harry didn’t have school, but he really didn’t mind the studying. In some ways, though, Mr. Thornton was different. One conversation stood out. Harry had been “helping” Mr. Thornton for a week, and asked him: “Mr. Thornton? Why don’t you watch the telly? Everyone around does, but you don’t even have one.” Alfred replied: “I don’t have one for a very good reason. If you are around for a long time, you will understand more completely, but for now, you see, most people that watch the telly all the time are wasting their time. They don’t learn anything, and they don’t really have active lives. There’s more to it than that, but if you watch people that watch the telly, you will see that they think differently from me.” This was interesting to Harry – he could certainly understand how that worked with the Dursley’s, the Dursley males were certainly too lazy to exercise, and Petunia spent several hours each day on her soaps. If she didn’t have Harry to clean in the past, her house would have certainly been a lot more of a mess. In fact, since Harry had been staying with Mr. Thornton, he could see that the Dursley's things hadn’t been dusted or cleaned as they had been.
As the second week came to a close, Alfred called Harry over before sending him back. “Harry, now that you have been here two weeks, how are you liking our arrangement?” “I love it, sir. I haven’t been as tired, and I have really enjoyed being able to eat as much as I want.” Alfred replied “Now that it’s been a couple weeks, I think the Dursley’s are getting used to you not being there. I think that if we continue for the rest of the hols, they probably won’t even notice that you are gone most of the time.” Harry emphatically said: “I’m glad of that, sir!” “Do you want to continue this through the school year?” Alfred asked. “Yes!” “Then I will see about what to do with your schooling. I don’t think that the school you went to will be a good choice, unless you want to have classes with Dudley.”
“No, I don’t! I can’t get good grades, because Dudley beats me up, or if I get home, Vernon and Petunia get mad at me.”
Alfred cautioned Harry: “If I am going to watch your schooling, I want your best efforts. Getting bad grades to protect yourself is smart when Dudley or others can harm you, but you harm yourself if you keep doing it.”
Alfred went to Harry’s school, dressed in a respectable, quite expensive suit, and made an appointment with the school administrator, claiming to be a lawyer from the Potter Estate. He told the administrator that there was a change in guardians, and that Harry would be withdrawing from the school in order to be taught elsewhere. The administrator sat back, relief visible on his face. “Thank you. While we have been teaching Harry for the past year of so, there has been no official paperwork accompanying him. There’s no birth certificate, no injections record, nothing. We were frankly concerned, as we really are in an awkward position with regards to Harry. We’ve tried complaining to the local Child Services, but nothing comes of it. So Harry has basically been here being taught while we aren’t getting any credit from the government for it, and frankly, we have no idea where to send his assessments for passing on to the secondary school this fall.”
Interesting. More things from Harry’s life that simply don’t add up. There is an invisible hand throughout Harry’s life, and it is certainly doing its best to keep him in this odd state. I will have to pay very close attention as time goes by, whoever is doing this has a lot of political power to make things like child abuse reports disappear, and whoever is attached to that invisible hand certainly doesn’t have Harry’s best interests to heart. Alfred thought.
Back at Alfred’s flat, he called Harry over. “I’ve removed you from your old school for this fall. We can do one of two things now. We can find you another school, or I can take over your education up through at least the end of middle school.” Harry asked Alfred: “I’d really like to stay here and study with you. I feel safe here, even if there aren’t other kids. I really wouldn’t miss them anyway, most of them have been rather cruel to me, helping Dudley play ‘Harry Hunting’.”
Alfred stated: “Very well. In that case, I will home school you. However, it won’t be like a regular home school or tutor situation. I will teach you a lot of things that are simply not taught in schools. For example, most schools will try to teach you what to think. I will teach you how to think. However, before we begin, I will take you shopping to get clothes that are more appropriate. You’ve been with me long enough that I don’t want your sloppy appearance being associated with me.” Holding up his hand at the distressed look coming across Harry’s face, Alfred continued: “It’s not your fault, any fool can tell that you’re wearing that fat lump’s hand-me-downs. I want your appearance to reflect that you are a serious student with people that care about you.” Harry deflated a little, and said: “Thank you, sir, I am not very happy looking like this, but it’s all I have.”
Harry liked going to the shops with Mr. Thornton. Their first stop was to an economical store, where basics like underwear, socks, shoes, and pyjamas were bought. Alfred then told Harry: “We are going to a second hand store for more clothes. Don’t get the wrong idea, I am trying to get you a decent wardrobe that doesn’t cost too much. That will leave us extra money for more expensive items should we need them.” Harry was quite happy with what they bought, there were shirts, jumpers, slacks and denim pants, as well as a selection of nice winter wear. After that, Alfred and Harry went to a much nicer store, and purchased one set of nice clothes that would do for more formal occasions.
Shopping done, Alfred took Harry aside, and told him: “I know that you probably want to throw away Dudley’s clothing, but you will need to keep them, and here’s why. The Dursley’s have an opinion of you. If you come home with nice clothing, they will be shocked, and if I’m not mistaken, greedy, jealous, and angry. They may either take the nice clothing away, or find some way to cause us trouble. So when you need to return to the Dursley’s, you will need to wear these Dudley clothes, and since they are so large, you could even put them on over the top of your regular clothes. You could find a quiet place and put them on or take them off. I believe your uncle has a shed in the back of the garden that you could use. Put your shoes in your backpack as well.” This was the first of many lessons about appearance that Mr. Thornton taught Harry.
“Appearances are vital, Harry. Nobody buys insurance from a salesman that looks untrustworthy. No bank will lend money to someone that looks like they cannot pay off the loan. We all wear uniforms of some sort or another. A doctor, even when not in their office, looks prosperous. A wealthy aristocrat dresses and acts in such a way that people immediately know their station in life. Even those people that claim they are not wearing uniforms almost all wear what amounts to a uniform. For example, artists, who are known for not conforming to regular standards of dress wear purposely ratty clothes and things like berets. It's a source of amusement to me that their efforts ad avoiding wearing a uniform result in what amounts to a uniform. It’s not just that you want to look your best. You have to look the part, so that you draw the kind of attention that you want. It’s a lot like getting poor grades because if you did have good grades, your cousin would find out, and find a way to make you unhappy.” Thinking about grades reminded Harry of the papers he had scored -poorly on so a jealous and lazy Dudley would not find a way to make him pay. “Okay, sir.”
“I’m glad you agree. Clothing and consequently appearance are very important. You don’t need to dress as a lord, but you do need to not make the Dursley’s suspicious or angry, and in later times you may find a need to either impress or pass unnoticed. I by far prefer to pass unnoticed, but everyone has their own style.”
“I’ve a set of books recommended for people that homeschool their children. I expect you to do your best, and develop good work habits and discipline. I’ve listed the books and your study schedule will remain similar. In the afternoons, you will have time to read. I want you to get good grades, so you can become an adult with some skills and training, even though it is homeschooling we will not be lazy or take advantage of this.”
Harry liked staying with Alfred, and hoped that summer would never end. He was fed, had clothes that fit, and felt wanted. Nobody yelled at him, and his schoolwork was done to his best. Alfred always looked over his lessons, making sure that he understood everything before going to the next lesson. Going back to sleep in the cupboard wasn’t as nice, but since the Dursley’s didn’t see much of him, it was almost like he didn’t live there. Alfred took a lot of walks, visited with a lot of people, and read a lot. He was interesting to talk to, and it was clear that the people that talked to respected his opinion. As time passed, Harry was able to talk about his life with the Dursley’s without being too sad. Alfred didn’t say a lot about it, but Harry could tell that he didn’t like the Dursley’s because of how Harry was treated, and Harry liked that very much. In some ways, it was a little lonely, as most of the children in his neighborhood spent their time in their houses watching the telly.
Every afternoon, Alfred would have tea with Harry, and they would talk about all sorts of things. At the end of July, Alfred even got Harry a birthday present, and with it, a lesson.
“You are now eight years old, Harry. You have been a good student, and I’m proud of how you are acting. You behave as a much older, wiser boy, and I think you are ready for more lessons. I know that you don’t spend a lot of time with other children, but I don’t think that they are at your maturity level anyway. As you get older, and they grow up, eventually you will find more in common with them.”
“I am going to take special care with your education. I think that as bright as you are, regular schooling will not allow you to reach your potential and be your best. You read well, and more importantly, you understand what you are reading. This is important, because I think that you should be allowed to progress past your current school year’s lessons. If you are always challenged, you won’t get bored, and bored boys get into trouble. Don’t think it will be all work, though, or even all reading. I will take you with me when I need to travel, and there are a lot of fun books you can read that also help to grow your mind. It is important for you to grow in mind, body, and spirit. The things I will guide and teach you will help make you a very capable young man.”
Harry was happy to hear that, ever since he had started coming to Alfred’s, he had begun to idolize the older man. Going places with him would be interesting, and reading was always something he enjoyed. Having a full stomach, and being exercised had made it so he didn’t have to struggle to think or learn.
“We will have conversations from time to time that are important. Most of our conversations are just you and I enjoying ourselves, but I will ask you to think about some of these lessons, as I need you to tell me in your own words what you are thinking and learning from them. I will also give you novels and books from time to time to read. They aren’t just fun books, they will teach you valuable lessons that you will never get in school.”
“The first thing we need to do is for you to read ‘The Hobbit’. It’s a big book for a boy your age to read, but it is important. I expect you to read at least one chapter every other day, and we will talk about it.”
Harry liked reading the Hobbit – it was fun to read about Bilbo and his adventures. Every day, Alfred would ask him about what he had read, and as the days passed, Harry was reading more and more, going to one chapter a day, then to two, and even three. All too soon, the book was done, and Alfred took Harry to a bakery to have a bun and talk about the book as a little celebration.
Alfred began: “I’m proud of you and how you read this book so quickly. Do you know why I chose that book for you to read, Harry?”
“I think because it is fun to read.”
“That’s part of it. Reading for pleasure is enjoyable, but it is like the food I feed you. If you feed your body good food, you grow strong, and your exercise helps you. If you ate bad food, you’d either starve, or get fat as a tick. The word 'malnutrition' doesn't always mean not enough food, it can simply mean a person is eating bad things. It's the same thing with books. Good books grow your mind, and bad books just eat time. Even in a fantasy novel like this, there are important lessons. Bilbo is a good person, and the lesson here is that good things happen eventually to good people that stay true to their goals. Some books are like that, they will take 400 pages to convey one simple lesson. They may still be healthful to you if they describe things in a way that you can learn from and use the lessons you’ve learned.”
“There’s a difference between books and videos like the telly. Do you know what that is?”
“Well, I can stop reading the book, re-read it, or read just a part at a time.”
“Sort of. Your brain processes the two differently. As an example, in a movie, you can only see the outside of the characters. In a book, you can actually be the character. If the hero in a movie is a girl, you watch, and it is simply a girl doing something. If the hero in a book is a girl, since you are reading their thoughts, you are actually reading them as that girl. Books write directly to the mind, and movies simply display things that your mind has to process. That’s why movies are never the same as a book. Language has a lot to do with it as well. As an example, when they say that a book was translated to a different language, they actually mean that the book was totally rewritten in that language. For example, a book written about winter translated to a language of a people that live only on the equator would have to be totally rewritten to use concepts that people that have never seen and don’t even have a word for snow can understand.”
Alfred continued “As another illustration, take the Chinese written language. It consists of pictographs for many different words. The word 'pictograph' simply means it is a picture of a word or idea. In fact, although the written language is the same across that country, there are many different spoken languages – a speaker of Cantonese may not understand a speaker of Mandarin, but they can read each other’s letters. That wasn't an accident -- a common written language was the glue that held the Chinese empire together for thousands of years. Now, you think in a given language. Since the ideas the pictographs represent are the same, even though they are called different things in different languages, the writing happens – directly to the mind, regardless of the language you think in. On a side note, there are a lot of Chinese characters, and it takes years of study to learn them all. A proficient reader of Chinese can read at a tremendous rate, because each character represents an entire word.
Compare this to the European way of doing things, where a word is built of letters. In a learner’s mind, they may have to mentally place each letter together and sound them out to make a word. As you continue to read, your mind will increasingly interpret each word as a linear pictograph (that’s a symbol all in one row or line), and your reading speed will increase to the point where your reading speed rivals a proficient reader of Chinese – with one very important difference. You can pick up a new word, gain most of its pronunciation, and learn its meaning almost entirely from the context it is in and the letters that make it up. You should never criticize someone that mispronounces a word as a result – they may have learned it from reading, and there’s nothing wrong with that. As your reading skill grows, your mind will increasingly read entire fragments of sentences as pictographs – and then you are essentially reading at the speed of thought.”
“A funny thing. Your mind is so versatile at these pictographs that it can reconstruct these even when they are broken,”
Alfred took a piece of paper and wrote on it. He turned and said “Now read it back to me, Harry.”
Harry took the paper and read aloud “If you can read this, thank a teacher.” He asked Alfred “what’s wrong with that?” Alfred said “Now look closely at the sentence, Harry.” Harry looked, and the sentence read:
“If you can raed tihs, tahnk a taehcer.”
“The letters are all mixed up!”
“Yes, but your mind reassembled the letters into pictographs and you didn’t hardly notice until I called it out. The trick works because the first and last letters of the incorrect words are correct, but your mind knows how to assemble the word.”
“So to sum up, books write directly to your brain, and video doesn’t. Writing directly to your brain stimulates your imagination, while simple images don’t. This is why people actually like video – it allows them to turn their brains off, and simply be a spectator instead of a participant.”
“The next book I want you to read is called “The Colour of Magic”, by Terry Pratchett.” (AN: At this time of Harry’s life, he wasn’t Sir Terry yet.)
“This book, and the series that it starts, are interesting because Mr. Pratchett has an abiding love of the English language, has a genius about explaining things, and introduces new ideas in his books.”
Over the next week, Harry enjoyed reading “The Colour of Magic” – Rincewind was not what he expected for a wizard at all!
On Friday, Alfred talked about this book with Harry. “This is a fun series. I do not like a lot of fantasy, but Pratchett’s fantasy is different. Do you know why, Harry?”
“Well, the wizard is not a regular wizard, and he wrote about a lot of things that weren’t in The Hobbit.”
“Good answer, but there’s more. In order to have fantasy believable, it normally has to act in certain ways. You’ve heard the saying ‘The truth is stranger than fiction’, right? In writing fiction, things have to be recognizable enough that people will understand. People often follow certain rules of behaviour – for example, a judge may appear strict, a mother may appear loving, etcetera. A few changes from normal often makes a plot, but too many, and the readers can’t like the book. In real life, things don’t actually follow – from your life, you know that mothers aren’t always loving, and life isn’t always fair. The hero doesn’t always get the girl, and sometimes wonderful people just get cancer and die. It takes a good writer of fantasy to make truly unusual characters and situations – most writers almost have formulas like they have for women’s romance novels. One day, there will be a computer program that can write novels like that, but a true writer can not be replaced like that, because they have the skills to break the rules.”
“So in most fantasy, as an example orcs act like Tolkien’s orcs, and only in some situations can an unusual orc behave in a not normal way.”
Harry thought about this. It did make sense.
“It is important to understand that the best novels, whether they be about fantasy, science fiction, romance, or whatever, all are about human behavior. Human behavior acts in certain ways, and we don’t understand and often have a hard time liking humans that behave in unexpected ways. A novel about a brilliant solicitor that makes a horrible legal mistake in chapter 17 and then through the rest of the book is back to brilliant makes readers not like the book, because it doesn’t ‘make sense’. ‘Making sense’ in this means that it is unexpected and unwanted. In real life, a brilliant solicitor could just have a bad day and forget something basic. Like I said, ‘truth is stranger than fiction’.”
“I think you might be wondering why I am having you read these books, when you could be doing something else, right, Harry?”
“I suppose so.”
“It’s normal to think about the things other people do, and try to understand them. What I am trying to do is to get you to be able to do more than just read books like some kind of tape recorder. I want you to think about things, and learn to come up with your own ideas. It’s better than having people feed you ideas.”
“The next novel I want you to read is science fiction. It’s called ‘The Dosadi Experiment’ by Frank Herbert. A lot of people only think of Herbert because of his Dune series, but this book is far more important.”
The Dosadi Experiment was a much more difficult book for Harry to read. It was a little hard to follow, but he did like Jorj X. McKie. The life on Dosadi was hard for him to read about, because it reminded him a lot of his past. It took Harry almost two weeks to read this book, but he worked hard at it, and was quite proud of himself for finishing it. As Harry was on his morning walk, Alfred started the discussion.
“What can you tell me about this novel, Harry?”
“Well, it’s about this McKie guy, who has some kind of sabotage job, and how he goes to a planet called Dosadi, but can’t escape. Then he acts like a lawyer and winds up killing this frog guy, and then it got weird.”
“Yes, this novel takes some explaining. First, you are right about the sabotage job. Frank Herbert writes about two things brilliantly – religion and society. He thinks that in any long-lived society, government and people tend to create bureaucracies, which then stifle progress, and hurt civilization. In his universe, they create a group of people that come in and break things up every now and then, in order to cause things to be rebuilt in fresh ways. In Science Fiction, people don’t always have to follow the rules of expected behavior. If your aliens or society is interesting enough, the writer can say all sorts of things, or even create entirely new behaviors, and as long as they make sense within the story, the reader can understand and like it.”
“Dosadi is different because the planet is used as a plot device to essentially change how people behave. In a world where life is difficult, people act and think differently than those living a life where things are easy. A philosopher named G. Michael Hopf once said: ‘Hard times create strong men. Strong men create good times. Good times create weak men. And, weak men create hard times’. The goal of the people going to Dosadi, the entire attraction to them, was to cheat that cycle by creating strong men to live in a good time. They are looking at a way to get and keep power, but it is actually good to have strong people keeping the good time going. It of course doesn’t work out so well for a regular person living on Dosadi, but powerful people can often be cruel. Bear also in mind that Herbert has a different definition of ‘man’ – in his book, a man can be a man, a woman, or a male gowachin. The ability to reason is what makes a ‘man’ a ‘man’, not biology.”
“The star power was used as a way of showing that there is no way regular people can get to Dosadi, and no way a person can leave unless they already came in from outside. Of course, at the end, he set the Dosadi free, and a large part of the story was to show how evil the process was to keep people trapped like that, and require a death to get in, and a death to get out. You have to understand, most powerful people do not, and never will share power. They may loan some of it if they want someone to do something, but they will never allow someone to be their equal.”
“The two things I want you to get from this novel is first that human society often stagnates and needs something to shake things up. Second, that the thought process that makes a Dosadi a Dosadi can be taught. These people are like invisible sharks swimming in a school of tuna. They never lack what they want, and the tuna does not even know they are just a natural resource like coal.”
“There are a lot of rules to life. One is that truly wealthy people exist differently from other people. They know that even though life is not a zero-sum fame where if you get something, it has to be taken away from someone else, if they truly freely share information on, say, how to get and stay rich with everyone, then no one’s rich, and there are no distinctions. So they may or may not share.”
“Another rule is that often the distinction between wealthy and not wealthy comes down to pennies. A successful musician in our time sells music and makes only a few pennies per song. However, millions of people buy that, and those pennies add up.”
”Another rule is that people behave in certain patterns.”
“Another rule is that information can be controlled. For example, I know a businessman that was cheated by an associate over a small amount of money. From that day on, every time they had a business dealing where he could either treat that associate like a partner sharing risks and rewards, or an employee who is insulated from risk at the cost of sharing in profits, he treated that associate like an employee, and kept track of the difference in amounts. It added up to a large sum of money. After a few years, when he told me of that, I asked him if he would ever tell the associate what he had lost, he said 'No. if I ever did, I’d have to stop doing that to the man that cheated me.' Knowing that the associate was willing to cheat over a small amount revoked any right to sharing in rewards, and the self-satisfaction of telling him would simply be a waste of money, and the associate would never trust him again.”
“Another rule about expected behavior is that it can be useful. I don’t mean for you to grow up to be the sort of person to cheat others, but if someone is planning to cheat you, there’s no reason not to deny yourself any advantage you can get from it. There’s an old story about a little boy in the US. At the time, ice cream cost five cents, and there is a coin called a nickel of that value. There is another coin called a dime, that is physically smaller, that is worth two nickels. The little boy was often at the ice cream shop with some other boys who made fun of him, saying that he was so dumb that he didn’t know a dime was worth more even though it was smaller. They would offer him a choice between the coins, and the little boy would take the nickel every time. One day, after the other boys had left, the ice cream clerk asked the little boy why he let them take advantage of him like that. The little boy’s reply: ‘Of course I know a dime is worth two nickels. If I ever told them that, they’d stop, and I wouldn’t get any more free ice cream.’”
“I wanted you to understand what it means and the value of being a Dosadi. The human mind is a computer. It is a fascinating thing to study, and a human mind can be programmed or taught to behave in wildly different ways. A bushman of the Kalahari has entirely different thoughts than a stockbroker, but if you put either in the other’s situation, they would both starve, because neither has the social programming to survive in the others’ world. Herbert used an entire world to do the programming – in fact, what he used is a lot like what they used to refer to in the 1950’s at the height of the Korean War as ‘brainwashing’. There is a fascinating book by an author named Meerloo that describes the process in detail. It’s a bit much for you to read now, but one day you will find it very useful. However, we don’t need a society or a planet to change your social programming to help you get along better in the world. All’s we need are the right books, and to know what we are programming your brain to do.”
“This is why I am keeping you on a diet of good books, and away from the junk food of the telly and videos. I want you to be able to think and reason, to be able to deal with new problems in a rational way. We will read other books, and discuss them, and it is all to help you.”
“Don't worry if you don't remember all this, over time, I will repeat lessons and quiz you to get you to where your mind is a powerful tool.”
It was a lot to think about, but Harry was hopeful that he would learn everything that Alfred wanted him to.