What the heck is Dumbledore doing?

[Alice I]

but not in liberal beliefs (locking people up ?! Harry served him right during the final talk in the office!!!)

Not sure I get what you mean here. Can you elaborate?

[Nobby]

yeah im a bit confused

[Athena Appleton]

I think that Dumbledore has served his time as a teacher. It's not selfish for someone who is really good at something to have a calling other than spending all their time showing other people how to be good at something.

As far as your list of classes go, even though Dumbledore is in favor of progressive teaching, and some things he does seems to the more conservative bunch to be downright dangerous, I think he would draw the line at having a lot of kids from 11-17 years old trying to invent new spells and potions. Serious, serious accidents could occur there.

About him teaching an ethics class, I think Dumbledore teaches ethics just by being Dumbledore. Most everyone in the school (Malfoy and Co. excluded) really respects him.

Occlumency Legilimency : this could be a tricky subject to try to teach in a school setting until he knows for sure who's for good and who's not. I mean, how much would it suck if Draco were taught how to get into someone else's head?

There are certain branches of magic, too, that Dumbledore would be qualified to teach, but the students just aren't ready for it (as a whole). There are lots of things that are highly advanced that we know of a few people being able to do, but it would be somewhat foolish to try to teach everyone, just because it is so advanced. It would be similar to trying to teach physics to first graders.

Out of your list of subjects, the only one I could see as a possibility is Dueling. Magical Laws are out-of-date, but you can just as easily go read them in a book. Research and Development is just too risky to try to put a lot of underage wizards at. Use of Magical Instruments, well, well over half of the kids at Hogwarts grew up in wizarding households, familiar with a lot of magical instruments, and I think it would be a really boring class to be learning about how to use a pensieve or how to use some other magical instrument.

I have a feeling that the Dueling Club will be brought back to the school, but I think it more likely that Flitwick (who was one of the best duelers in his day) would teach it.

Dumbledore's got a lot on his plate. He's got a lot of competant teachers working at Hogwarts. There's nothing wrong with him not teaching.

[Nobby]

yeah Dumbledore trusts his teachers so why not delegate responsibilities, not just teaching duties

[Evil Wizard Petting Zoo]

but not in liberal beliefs (locking people up ?! Harry served him right during the final talk in the office!!!)

I think Reverie is talking about how Harry was going nuts in the final chapters of OotP in DD's office talking about how Sirius didn't like being locked up and neither did Harry. Reverie's saying that Harry was right to yell at DD for cooping him up all summer and not letting him know anything. That was my take on it Reverie say so if that wasn't correct.