(Note: I read all of the Harry Potter books one time each back in junior high school. I haven’t read them for a very long time. Some of the details in this article may be slightly off. Sorry.)

We all love Dumbledore for his fatherly advice, calm temperament, and, when he gets into a fight, his total badassery. He’s a great wizard who can go toe-to-toe with the most evil wizards to ever exist and come out on top. I mean, he took Harry Potter under his wing and was a huge factor in Harry defeating Voldemort. That being said, being a great wizard doesn’t make you a great school administrator, just like being a great basketball player doesn’t make Michael Jordan a good GM of the Hornets. Dumbledore’s failure to properly staff his school probably led to the deaths of dozens, if not hundreds of young wizards. The most glaring series of errors he made came from years and years of hiring the worst Defense Against the Dark Arts professors imaginable.

Here we see Dumbledore burning the student-written teacher evaluations without bothering to read them.

Let’s start with Professor Quirrell from the first book.

He was a meek professor who didn’t quite have his students’ respect. While that’s probably not enough to earn you tenure, it doesn’t completely discredit him as a professor. What discredits him as a professor is that he has the most evil wizard of all time growing on the back of his head, telling him what to do. Do you really think Voldemort was telling Quirrell to teach the students awesome spells they can use to defend themselves, or was he making Quirrell teach them complete nonsense?

Next we have Professor Lockhart. The professor from the second book.

He was a celebrity who was famous, but only because he was taking the credit for what other wizards had achieved. Lockhart himself barely knew which end of the wand the magic shot out of. But seriously, even Air Bud could have been a better professor than him. That’s the main lesson from Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets. Don’t let giant snakes live in your plumbing system, and Air Bud would have been an awesome wizard.

Maybe you should re-evaluate your hiring process.

In Harry’s third year, the students were taught by professor Lupin, AKA the guy who turns into a werewolf.

So, apparently Dumbledore DID decide that a dog would be a better teacher than professor Lockhart. Now, just because he’s a werewolf doesn’t make him a bad teacher—I’m not racist against werewolves, I promise. He’s a terrible teacher because he spent most of the year trying to teach Harry the Patronus charm. You know, the one that makes the deer made of light chase away all of the floating, face-sucking monsters (dementors). You’re reading about this in the book and thinking “Damn, this must be a super hard spell. It’s taking Harry forever to learn it”. However, two books later, Harry teaches a group of 30 kids how to do the spell in a matter of days. A well respected scholar can’t teach one kid to do a spell that same kid can teach to 30 students. The only spell he seemed to teach the students that year was the one that makes things you're scared of look silly.

"If we can't defeat Voldemort, we can at least make him look stupid when he kills us"

In the fourth book I thought the kids were in good hands.

Mad Eye Moody, in addition to having a great name for a gangster in the 1920s, was a total badass of a wizard. His previous job was to hunt down evil witches, wizards, and anything else he could justifiably kill, and now he was going to teach his ways to students. This dude even performed the only three spells wizards aren’t allowed to use in front of a bunch of 14-year-olds. That’s what we call a power move, kids. That’s exactly what these kids need to be learning. Hardcore wizardry they can use to defend themselves against any dark arts the bad guys throw at them. However, it turns out that Mad Eye was an imposter who worked for Voldemort’s street team. (Great job with the background check, Dumbledore) I can’t imagine he taught the kids anything worthwhile. Come to think of it, he probably taught them things that were completely wrong. Like if your chemistry professor spent all year giving you formulas that he knew would explode and kill you.

Year five. Voldemort is back. Students are dying.

Ron’s getting strangely buff and weird looking. It’s a crazy time at Hogwarts. The students need a leader who can teach them how to defend themselves from Voldemort and his forearm-tattooed homies, right? Nope. Instead, Dumbledore was forced to hire that crazy cat lady who denied that Voldemort existed and refused to teach them any meaningful spells. That was the year Harry started his secret club in the Room of Requirement. This woman wasn’t teaching the students important information, so Harry had to take it upon himself to teach them defensive magic that will eventually save their lives. In the last part of the book Voldemort and Dumbledore fight, and we learn that there are some awesome spells you can use in a wizard battle. Dumbledore made a forcefield to disintegrate glass into harmless sand and he controlled a giant ball of water to extinguish Voldemort’s flaming snake. As I’m watching this, all I can think of is, “Why aren’t the students at Hogwarts being taught any of this stuff?" They spent the entire movie using a stupid little stun spell and the one that just knocks the wand out of your opponent's hand. They’re bringing knives to gun fights.

A good professor could teach the students how to do this by year three.

In year six, Dumbledore had his own stuff going on.

He was hunting horcruxes, pieces of Voldemort's soul that are sealed away in everyday objects. Professor Snape was hired to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, which worked out pretty well. The kids learned some valuable spells and whatnot, Dumbledore used Snape to spy on Voldemort, and then Dumbledore was murdered. Great plan, dude.

In year seven, Harry, and his friends Hermione and Ron, decided to not return to Hogwarts to hunt down horcruxes.

After months of searching, he found several horcruxes and eventually ended back up at Hogwarts to fight Voldemort. In the fight, a lot of Harry’s friends and classmates were injured, some fatally so. From all the years of slacking professors, the students learned almost nothing and didn't have the proper training for defensive spells. They just ran around, stunning the bad guys and knocking wands out of their hands. You know what spells Voldemort and the Death Eaters were using? The killing curse. They were killing people, and all the Hogwarts students knew how to do was mildly inconvenience the men and women firing green death lasers out of sticks filled with unicorn hair.

"Wait, are you using a stun spell against me? You realize I'm trying to KILL you, right?"

You know what Team Hogwarts could have used in that battle? Some giant floating water balls and whatever other spells Dumbledore was hiding up his sleeve. Maybe fewer people would have died. A lot of the former students handled themselves pretty well in the fight. Ron’s mom knew some cool spells. She killed Bellatrix Lestrange with one flick of her wrist. So, clearly at one time Hogwarts employed competent teachers who instructed young wizards in the art of magical manslaughter, but Dumbledore decided to give him or her the stanky boot in order to hire terrible professors who know nothing about magic. Great job, Albus.