I always assumed the Collegia were large. In Arrows of the Queen chapter 4, Talia asks how many students there are and is told "About sixty in Healer’s, forty in Bardic, and with you, exactly fifty-three in Herald’s Collegium. The number of Blues varies; there’s never less than twenty, not often more than fifty." That's danged small! Guess they don't have to pack 28+ kids in a classroom like we do in the USA lol. Pokemama1 (talk) 14:37, 21 February 2021 (UTC)
Valdemaran Education[]
A discussion on the nature of Valdemaran education took place in a message wall thread in Nov-Dec 2021. The relevant portions are quoted below.
Pokemama1: (I removed the first paragraph which was only about bardic and had been added to Talk: Bardic Collegium. All of the strikethrough parts below were added to the Collegia article)
I do want to try to keep an eye out for artificers/scholars info. Like that Temple scholar sponsorship that I mentioned but have no recall of the source. There have to be non-Herald Historians etc that gobble through classes, heh. Hard to think of other jobs, I guess in a medieval/renaissance-type society, children of nobles got private tutoring for things like art or whatever, and (the following part was added to the article:) most work was based on talent or apprentice situations rather than education. Like Mayors: studying law is likely secondary to having leadership skills and tact to keep things moving, except for things requiring a Herald."
WrenDancing: "Members of the Guard also attend classes. It's where the Blues' uniform color comes from after all. :) I assume it's a kind of Officer Candidate School. I'm sure the Guard Archivist is a Collegium graduate also."
Pokemama1: (following bits were added to the article:) "Well, the Guard was a given, for the colors, sure, even though we have never seen a guard in classes. lazy! At least they do show up in the salle and for Companion games, lol. But no I meant scholars, like people who go to college but aren't engineers or scientists. Bachelor of Arts degrees, heh. Librarians. ;-) (the following part was added to the article:) I guess a lot of education in valdemar just happens in the apprentice/master system. And maybe the "intellectual" types all become heralds, idk."
WrenDancing: "I think it's rather like our current real life system, in that going to college requires the money to pay for it. Even if there isn't any tuition, there are still years worth of expenses for food, paper, personal items, etc.
"For Heralds and Guards, they're government employees and military personnel. Their work-related study is paid for by the government. The program for Healers seems to be a mix of something similar to the program Alaska has for doctors, combined with work-study. Meanwhile, Bards who don't come from rich families are purely scholarship students. There are numerous references to them being sponsored.
"For the rest of the students, they're either sponsored (by a temple, a village, a rich family, etc.) or they come from rich families themselves. I doubt most institutions/temples/villages are going to sponsor someone who isn't in a practical program that will make them useful for the institution/temple/village later.
"All of this means there probably are pure scholars, but if they aren't already enrolled for another reason, they would almost have to be rich. While the novels don't tend to center on the highborn (unless they're Chosen), there are numerous examples of this in the various anthology stories: Tarek Strand, his best fried Ro, Lady Jhosan, etc. I'm guessing these folks are the nameless Blues in the background of the novels.
"The exception to the must-be-rich rule would be the children of faculty, and we do see quite a bit of this in the novels, with the children of Heralds and Healers among the student body. They don't have to worry about expenses while enrolled. I'm also assuming that if there was any tuition, it would waived for faculty families, just like in real life. So, these people also have the option to be pure scholars, if that's what they want to pursue."
Pokemama1: "You are right about temple tuition sponsorship needing something useful back, I hadn't thought of that. Any intellectual work they need for temple purposes would get trained in-house, like the monks in our olden days; they'd only send out artificer students because giving a four year education in higher math and engineering would exceed local resources, and they might not even have someone local to form a master-apprentice relationship to polish off their education. I wish I could think which story had a specific boy in it who resided at the Haven branch of his temple and took classes to be an artificer. The temple had living quarters just for the multiple students they brought in from rural areas. I haven't re-scrutinized the collegium and family spy books to see if he's in there or if it was just a short story.
(the following part was found in a Storms book and added to the article:) "I was thinking in terms of the "sponsorship" being just "hey we've got this brilliant kid from east yahoo and we want you to look at him, we think he's got what it takes," and then the collegia would go "oh heck yeah, the world needs people like him!" and put him on a scholarship provided for those situations. (Under the Most People Can't Do Math theory, of which I am Not A Fan, lol.) But Funding issues are sometimes disregarded in Valdemar, lol.
"I like your analogy to the Alaska program! Brilliant! But there might be a bit more to it. I think it's shown that people with an untrained Gift are a menace to themselves and society. They need to be trained just to protect the populace from a Gift gone rogue." (following part added to article:) So I think educating Healers (and even Bards) is a Public Service. But like you put in the collegia article, those two could be master-apprenticed if there are local masters."
WrenDancing: "Rogue Gifts are a good point, but I suspect a lot of very basic training could be done on the spot with the local field Herald, local Healer, etc. depending on the Gift. The kid might not need to go all the way to Haven, maybe just to the nearest large town. As I think about it. we have examples of those with weak Gifts being left to their own devices (though the weather witch Talia encounters is the only one coming to mind at the moment). The stronger Gifts would almost certainly end up Chosen or sponsored in some fashion. I've always gotten the idea that Bardic has some sort of fund/scholarship program to take care of students like Stefan.
Pokemama1: "Well, Healing has always (?) been presented as something that can be trained to some capacity locally, whether in their home village or in a relatively near House of Healing or larger town. Some people are urged to go to the Collegium if they have the potential for more than the locals can teach them, but it's optional. I think weather predicting is generally a "hedge witch" type of magic, not a Gift that can be used to harm people. If the person could *control* the weather, now that would be a serious Gift! But boiling it down, you are right - people with Gifts are generally left alone unless they are chosen. But people are usually quick to offer the suggestion of coming to the Collegium, and they are always saying it's free in those cases. But you are right, someone can just deal with their Gift on their own, unless they become a problem. We already know that the Heralds will shut down someone caught abusing their Gift.
"I'm still thinking that in most cases "sponsored" means "we are bringing this person to your attention." Maybe like a letter of reference. My dad had to get letters from Senators/Representatives as part of his application to the US military academies. They were his *only* chance for an education due to poverty. Of course a graduate belongs to the military for a certain term afterwards. Just that Heralds don't leave, heh.
(this part was found in a Storms book and added to the article:) "I definitely think there are "scholarships" for unaffiliated, in contrast to the nobility who pay tuition for "educating" their possibly indifferent offspring. So Selenay and the Council and others would have a fund set up for kids that get noticed. Maybe the Temple I mentioned has scholarship funds as one of their charities. Or maybe that sect is known for it in particular.
"Btw I was recently thinking about Guards - specifically, the local guard post that picked up Mags had substantial numbers, and an armory and I think a bookkeeper who taught Mags some math. I had originally been thinking of Guard training in terms of like an MBA or war tactics (they are The Army after all), or forensics or something, heh. But even bookkeeping (although they'd obviously pick someone adept at it) takes training. Talk to my mom, she's a CPA, lol. But maybe they would just hire someone who'd been apprenticed, idk. It's been pointed out by critics that Valdemar has endless funds and scholarships for some things and a beautiful life, but still has grinding poverty in the slums. Gotta force myself back into RL medieval mentality - only rich people went to school, unless a poor person found a rich patron who paid fees for him. Aannd that's where this discussion started, lol."
- I know one doesn't normally edit Talk pages but this stuff is here for a specific reason so I decided that updating it is important. I had gone into the article and done some stuff after the discussion but before it went here. Today I bolded the part that is still weighing on me, info I'd like for the Blues page. I put strikethroughs on parts of the above which were added to the article. Underlined a couple of edits. One section had already been put on bardic Talk page. I removed Bruny which turned out irrelevant. I don't think a typical Valdemar village could pay tuition for a student, although I really liked your idea of the Alaska model. Healers and Bards have to be Gifted or the Collegium would just kick them out, regardless. And I am pretty confident that their education is considered in the public benefit. Maybe one is charity towards National Health, and the other toward National Endowment for the Arts, lol.
- Our next time around in this Discussion we can remove the bits I noted as included, because the page history will preserve my notes that they were put into the article. Upon reflection, a lot of why I started this discussion, and still remains, is about Blues, so we might move chunks to that article, idk. Pokemama1 (talk) 08:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)