Re: Owl
Given our propensity for long exchanges, I've decided to spare our owls and move this to the journals.
I don't think the school is or was supposed to be very different. I believe that like many she understood that you can't protect yourself from the Dark Arts without understanding them and you can't understand them without studying them. I think Dumbledore is the one failing the students, because only the ones interested in them will study them afterwards, leaving everyone unprepared, because the ones who don't care will not be able to protect themselves and the ones who care won't understand the dangers of studying them.
I grant you things changed with Karkaroff, but then I'd think that things have changed from Slytherin's time to Dumbledore.