Education

Before the Teacher program

The early Kingdom, besieged on all sides, floundered with education. Only Izu managed to continue public education through the tumult of war. Other Lineages, preoccupied with existential crises, simply dropped the matter.

This resulted in hundreds of years of intellectual neglect. Only the richest of children were taught to read or write, and untold years of records have crumbled away. No one knows exactly how much of the Kingdom’s history has been lost, rotted in a damp cellar or misfiled at the bottom of an old library.

Attempts to reinstitute proper education took hold in some pockets, but never managed to grow into a tradition outside Izu.

Just under one hundred years ago, the Crown looked upon this situation and decided to invest in a change.

The Teacher program: Beginnings

That every child of this Kingdom should be educated for a Harmonious society

The nascent Teacher program began four centuries ago with etiquette tutors for Aloran noble children. Over decades, these tutors sought to answer a simple, bedeviling question: How should one comport oneself?

From this question arose the first Graces: a system of meditation and composure meant to grow you into your truest self.

Supported by a few mysterious grants, the Graces soon took root among the Aloran nobility. The rest of the Kingdom carried on as usual. Who cared how the royals arranged their flowers?

Slowly, however, these tutors began to find new applications for the Graces. Their students began to excel in more than their table manners! Growing to be parents, these former students found success in the arts and the world, and the tutors evolved their instructions yet further.

Like a patient seed, a new form of cultivation slowly spread. First to the upper crust of Alora; then to high society in Flora; then even to the Aloran commoners who could afford such tutelage. Reaching Izu, the Graces syncretized with Izuno pedagogy and returned west stronger for its experience.

At each step, money arrived from mysterious donors to encourage the program further. To include more. To become deeper and broader.

Finally, fifty years ago, Queen Astra was ready to play her hand. She summoned forth the most skilled tutors, who themselves were products of their own program, and named them Teachers. Then she bid them to go forth and spread Grace upon the land.

No expense would be spared. None would be excluded.

The Kingdom began to reawaken.

Manners and cultivation

The Graces began as etiquette, and they remain expressed in those terms. A student of the Graces must learn how to compose themselves in mind and body; how to speak clearly; how to honor those above and treasure those below.

This etiquette-based approach is not universally popular. Alora has whole-heartedly embraced the Graces as the proper manners of the genteel soul. Flora accepts the Graces as yet another identity in the quiver of the Game of Titles.

Izu reinterprets the Graces model to match its own notions of politeness and proper behavior. Though the Izu have no objection to Graces in general, the difficulties in travel and communication have slowed adoption.

The Whistlers generally live closer to nature and thus have less use for instruction on how to take tea. Wiser Whistlers have noticed the surprising talents that emerge from this program and encourage their children to apply, but many caravans find the whole thing a nuisance imposed by the Crown.

In Wehr lands, the Graces have met stiff resistance. The Graces emerged from Aloran culture and thus use Aloran norms. For example, Seedlings of both genders wear skirts. To Alorans, this is simply the clothes of a young child in school. To Wehrans, this is emasculation of their boys by a foreign power!

Only time will tell if the Graces can overcome the Wehran challenge.

Attendance by Lineage, roughly speaking:

• Alora: 89% of children
• Flora: 75% of children
• Whistler: 50% of children
• Izu: 40% of children
• Wehr: 5% of children

Grace education

Grace education is sorted into age categories:

• Dewdrop – Infants and toddlers (mostly a Crown-funded daycare)
• Seedlings – Young children
• Buds – Preadolescents gaining independence
• Blossoms – Younger adolescents
• Flowers – The beginning of adulthood

There is no formal process of graduation between the Grace levels. Instead, Teachers will require that students pass quizzes or trials to enter their classroom. Common trials include performing social greetings such as bows and curtsies; answering questions of history and lore; solving puzzles; and demonstrating proficiency with age-appropriate tools.

For students almost ready to enter the next phase, Teachers will often quietly ignore cheating or poor attempts so the child has an opportunity to be exposed to the next steps.

Similarly, the older students are expected to return to the lower levels on occasion. This gives the older students a bit of a break, nudges them to assist the Teacher or nannies, and provides a role model to the younger children. In general, an older student should help a student at least two levels lower.

Dewdrops and Seedlings

Dewdrop and Seedling classes are typically run by a mousefolk nanny or two; these mousefolk accompany the Teachers on their travels. Here the natural charm of these diminutive neighbors is a great boon for these small children.

With such small children, the focus is naturally on healthy development. The nannies keep an eye on developmental play and address any roadblocks such as speech impediments or bathroom issues.

Here the children learn basic politeness, Kingdom myths and stories, a little mathematics, and start on their letters.

Older children returning to this level as helpers are often surprised to meet the same nannies that raised them. Even more surprising, they may find these nannies have solid advice even for older children!

Buds and Blossoms

These levels introduce competitive sports, formal history, basic meditation, practical mathematics, and the high form of the local Lineage language. Buds still wear a unisex uniform, but with the move to Blossoms girls and boys move to gendered uniforms.

Here the foundations of cultivation are laid. Buds are taught simple meditations to help them fall asleep or prepare for a quiz. Blossoms are slowly exposed to more complex forms of meditation, including breathing control and energy circulation.

As the students grow, the Teachers take them on field trips to see crystals; to pay respects at spirit shrines; and to reflect on the natural world. The students are given small crystal shards to handle so they can practice attunement and elemental control.

Flowers

Finally, the Teachers guide their charges into actual cultivation. Here the Teacher exposes her students to the six elemental forms, testing to see which is the best fit. With the Teacher’s help, the student travels beyond school to experiment with professions.

As the program progresses, the Teacher even teaches a few Arts. Gradually, the student transitions out of the classroom and into the world.

At the end, the young cultivator is released – to take the Kingdom into its future.

Refined Graces

Not to be outdone, the Aloran nobility went ahead and created Graces for Graces. These refined Graces offer no additional cultivation potential compared to the existing Graces but suit the need to delve ever deeper into etiquette and form.

Realistically, these forms are only seen in Alora at functions of the highest classes. Honestly, these nobles (sometimes a little bit too competitive!) have turned the high Graces into something of a sport. After all, anyone who is anyone would keep up with the times, right?

These Refined Graces are alien to normal folk. Entire segments of grammar shift depending on the relative social status of speaker and listener. Requests become ornate performances. Symbolic languages of gesture and flower acquire meanings from insult to courtship.

The Izu would call this keigo. The Wehran would call it insanity.

Sonnets? Keigo? Really?!

Yep. Given this book is written in English, chances are your players can’t speak formal Japanese. (If they do, give them a chance to practice!) The storyteller is encouraged to help players set the mood by stealing formal languages of ages past. Sonnets? Sure. Flowers? Go for it! Ballads? Absolutely!

Making your players die of embarrassment while they wax eloquent about an imaginary noble woman’s hair is half the fun.

The other half is when her suitor challenges you to a duel via song.

Teaching techniques

Teachers expect to instruct anywhere. Pen, paper, and a classroom are all optional.

• History can be taught via song and rhythm game
• Letters can be drawn on leaves or in sand
• Mathematics can use everyday objects

In fact, most Teachers consider the location more important than the materials! In particular, Teachers prize retreats to nature such as forest glades, ponds, or waterfalls. If the ley lines are strong, even better!

The goal is to do more than simply instruct. The goal is to shape the student’s mind with a deep-set connection to themselves and the world around them.

Tricks and Arts

To the end, the Teachers maintain an elaborate bag of tricks. Some are simple social manipulation:

• Ask students to write their own songs of history
• Conspire with an older student to intentionally flub a trial in front of the younger. Then place the older with the younger and let them commiserate
  • Especially useful when the younger student is afraid to be shown failing
• Let the student cheat once or twice. Then adjust the quiz to prevent it the next time.
  • Especially useful for children that need a little push to excel
• Arrange for a mousefolk nanny to chance by the student with an ear ready to hear any woes or worries

Other tricks are kept secret – for each Teacher is herself a cultivator!

• Games of rhythm and song with hypnotic allure
• Arts that manipulate perception such that the Teacher might suddenly seem much larger – or the student smaller
• In extreme cases, Arts that can cast silence upon a student, or drop them into a deep slumber

You are how you act

When the Teachers reached Flora, they noticed the power of the Game of Titles. The Teachers realized that this flexibility was a powerful tool. Everyone should have the ability to “try on” a role for fit, and thus “you are how you act” was born.

You as a clever student might declare yourself the Teacher. Now she has to listen to you! Naturally the Teacher would then sit down among the children and ask you to what the next lesson is.

Perhaps you do not feel like lessons and you declare yourself a squirrel. Of course, the Teacher would then ask you about your life, top to bottom. After all, a squirrel would be an expert, right?

Particularly popular roles? Heroes of legend like Sun Wukong, romance heroines, and nobility such as the Crown Princess.

Two forms of this play are the subject of scandalous rumor in Wehr:

• Grown boys, seated among the Dewdrops! As if Wehran boys aren’t suitable to sit with the men!
• Boys and girls swapping roles! As if the Seedling dresses were not humiliation enough, now there are boys in Flower skirts!

Most Teachers would respond to the first with “And how was he acting at the time?” and to the second with “And?”

Adult education

One more area deserves consideration: catch-up.

Aloran society has come to regard the Graces as core to the proper adult. If you do not know these manners, you are doomed to treatment as a child. Naturally, this means that some portion of adults will need to learn those manners.

Naturally, adults can blow through the lessons far faster. Most adults can finish the full course of Graces in about a year of intense study.

Unfortunately, cultivation is a far slower process, and most adults need several more years of study to achieve the beginning of Graced cultivation

The Teacher Program Today

The Teacher program so far has been wildly successful. Literacy and lore spread like wildfire through the Kingdom.

The high languages begin a revival. Students graduate more aware of not just their own clan and Lineage but the broader Kingdom.

Children playing. Such a tiny thing to plant the seed of Harmony.

However, the program has several major challenges.

First, its expense. To send a Teacher to every corner of the Kingdom is a tremendous financial burden on the Crown, second only to the wards. To keep the program running, new revenue will have to be found.

Second, clan distrust. Parents anywhere have strong opinions about how their children should learn, and the Teacher program is seen as Aloran impositions into clan affairs. Worse, the products of this program often seem more concerned with the Kingdom than their own clan!

Third, the power of knowledge. Knowledge might be used for good or ill; students might turn their newfound Graces to evil ends. Young Path warriors are already a headache enough as they seek to demonstrate their power; what will the young Graced cultivators do to cause their parents headaches?