I don’t understand this whole Wizard education system

There are many bigger questions that the Harry Potter series opens up around how the magical world works with the normal “muggle” one, but none that stick with me as much as the strange lack of knowledge wizards seem to have on their human counterparts. The gimmick is that the wizards are living in secret among us, and there are elaborate hiding techniques unveiled through the course of the series that show the commitment to keep the wizarding world secret.

However, at the same time we get regular reminders of how completely inept the wizards are in understanding the non-wizard world. When faced with dressing up to blend in, hilarity immediately occurs with strange outfit combinations and cross-dressing, a British staple of comedy. Transportation is completely confusing; while using a toilet flushing teleportation system makes complete sense, boarding a subway eludes fully-grown wizards.

You come to understand why this system seems so broken almost immediately. The “wizard government” elects to put people in power who have even less qualifications to do the job than Sarah Palin did. Arthur Weasley, father of one of the primary characters has a fascination about the non-wizard world but absolutely no concept of how basic things like light switches, lawnmowers and vending machines work. So naturally he’s the head of an office devoted to non-wizard relations. Really? There was nobody else more qualified for this job than the guy who wonders what electricity is? It’s stated in the book that you need to do four years of wizard schooling and score high on tests to work within the non-wizard relations branch of government, but apparently Hogwarts always as screwed up as the period when Harry is in school because nobody is learning anything there.

Further, what is the education system exactly? There’s various threats in the books around standards needing to be high to keep the school open, but at the same time you’ve got final exams canceled as a school treat in Harry’s second year. For that matter, were the exams canceled for the whole school? What about the people who were in their final year and taking final placement exams? Never mind that studies are regularly interrupted for things like snake attacks, trolls, visiting schools, festivals, mass-murderer attacks, firing other staff members… Hogwarts has the worst education record of any school in history, with the possible exceptions of wherever Ranma and Carrie went to.

It’s meant to be charming that “muggle-lover” Arthur Weasley ponders what a lightbulb is for, but this is the guy who is making sure dangerous wizard poisons and curses aren’t making their way into unsuspecting hands. Oh, and he has personally built a flying car but doesn’t understand what basic components like sparkplugs are. Feel safe?

It feels like the world is broken almost from the start. None of the wizards understand what basic sports like Soccer, Baseball and Basketball are. They don’t understand what pictures don’t move or how things get clean without magic. But they start Hogwarts school at the age of 11… so one wonders what they are doing for the first six formative years of their education. Are they going to school at all? Is it some kind of wizard elementary school? If so, how? They establish that child wizards can’t use magic and don’t have wands. They also establish that first year students at Hogwarts are mystified at all of the magic stuff going on. So we can assume that they aren’t in some kind of wizard pre-school or elementary… that part of their life starts at 11. Yet at the same time, in six years they haven’t figured out how to dress properly or understand basics of the world they live in… despite it being repeatedly said that they must blend in at all costs.

I’m just saying. This whole series makes no sense if you stop to think about it.