Worldbuilding 201: Education Basics
Greetings and spondyle! No, I don’t have any, but I know you do, you boney fish! Today, I will be talking about education in the world. I hope you’re ready for an education yourself!
What is education?
I love me some definitions and I cannot lie!
Education is the intentional act where one party, the educator, passes on knowledge that they possess to another party, the educatee or learner.
As per often, it is a very encompassing definition because more often than not, I find having broader definitions are more helpful as you can specify subclasses then. Some of the astute among you, my dear readers, will realise, this is in fact done by animals too. Not all of them, but those that invest a lot of energy into their young.
Some might think that this means all learning is education and…
Beings can learn without anyone wanting them too. As much as you humans might think you are trying to teach and educate language, 99% of it is not done with any intention. The child learns on their own observing, listening, and reacting to people. People can learn things without anyone intentionally trying to educate them, so the intention is important!
Informal vs formal
With education as a thing, what is the difference between formal and informal? Well, if you ask me, it would be this: formal education is carefully planned and done by someone whose profession is to educate, and it is often done at a specific location. You generally call this school and teachers, but it doesn’t have to be that. Tutors can teach at home, for example, and it would still be a form of formal education. The key point is that it is structured by someone who knows pedagogy and relies on education as their income to survive.
Informal education is more haphazard and kind of just happens whenever and wherever. The educator is not themselves educated in how to teach or has not acquired that expertise through time. Anyone can be an educator in something, but if it lacks the structure, planning, and experience of teaching, it is informal. The people who do informal education generally do not rely on it as their main source of income.
Education vs indoctrination
Some seem to be under the delusion that education is indoctrination, which it is not. But their relationship is not simple, either. Let me explain. Education is about giving knowledge to someone, as stated above. Indoctrination is about making a person think what you want them to think.
The difference is subtle but crucial. In education, you are allowed to ask questions because the purpose is to learn. So you learn more by asking questions, and a good educator will be honest and say “I don’t know” if they don’t know the answer. Sure, an educator can get frustrated, especially with kids and how kids are, but that is about being human. In education, questions are encouraged as it helps learning so you can understand the topic better and use it more in the future.
In indoctrination, it is very different. Questions are discouraged or even outright punished. You recite and repeat what you are told to do because repetition helps make it true in the human brain. Any attempt to explore and question is squashed directly or indirectly. It can be as simple as shunning the person, like many cults do, or it can be outright beating like fascist states did. And no, getting a bad grade is not punishment, and not passing you is not punishment here. Grades and such are a different issue that I will explore later, but not in today's blogpost.
Of course, a system meant to educate can quickly, and often has, been turned around and used for indoctrination purposes. No doubt about that. Nazis did it, fascists to this day try to do it. A lot of people try to use the education system to indoctrinate. An easy way to see where it falls is if the people allow opposing views to be taught or discussed. If opposing views, no matter how dumb, are allowed to be talked about without any form of punishment or attempt at silence, it remains education.
Purpose of education
When it comes to education, it is obviously intended to pass on knowledge. But a thing to remember is that education is as old as humanity because parents are the earliest educators. They teach a lot about the world, and in the early days of civilization, they also imparted knowledge about a profession. That is why for the longest time jobs were inherited within a family. The child of a smith became a smith, and so on. And that was the majority of the purpose of education throughout history: learning to do a job.
But with the advent of formal education and nations and people figuring out that having it formalised and maybe not something for rich and noble cloacas but also for everyone, the question was also, why?
Well, first it was the most basic of ones to function: reading, writing, arithmetic, the 3 R’s, as the joke goes. Those help you do almost all kinds of jobs around 1900 for most of the population, and those take time to learn. So as we can see, the point is still jobs even with that, only now society has realised that a slightly more educated population is better for working. And if you think about it, almost all education is about doing various jobs better, or the hope of it in the end.
But for democracies, there is also another purpose that is more crucial to them. For a democracy to function for a long time and function properly, it helps a lot if the population knows to not vote for bad choices. What is a bad choice? Well, if the state tries to dictate it… it isn’t much of a democracy in the sense that the West imagines it. I like my gradients, but in reality, it is very dangerous. What a “bad choice” means is left to the voter, but with a decent education, you can assist people making better choices even if you disagree personally. It is much harder for a demagogue to say bovine faeces if the population can call them out on it. Though they still can, as we have all seen in modern society; ah, the 1930s.
Some people are like me and just love learning for its own sake; we’re few and far between, but we do exist. Rarely is education meant for this, and it is generally a byproduct of the previous purposes and the access to education.
Educational topics
So, there is an education system, but what do you teach? For anything prior to proper formal mass education, it is vocational education. Teach a job, apprenticeship, etc. You don’t need no stinkin’ readin’ like nerds! 😛 But if you go for a more modern setting–which is one that drives me nuts in Tolkeinesque fantasy settings because it makes NO sense there that reading is so widespread in a mediaeval setting!–the decision is still, what do you include?
Here is where you can show the values of a society and its many groups. Sure, basic math, reading, and writing are fairly universal, and you will have few sane people thinking those are bad or unnecessary. But beyond that? Well, here is a non exhaustive list of examples:
Mathematics beyond arithmetic
Geography
Social sciences
Economics
Physics
Chemistry
Biology
Magic
Literature
History
Politics
War/Military
As you can see, this alone is pretty wide, and most of Western society has settled for a pretty wide base deeming it the best one as it helps facilitate democracies. But it has not always been the case, and where you place focus informs about the society and its value. For example, for the longest time in 🇸🇪, it was common to learn about all our kings through history. Then it got out of fashion because only learning about the kings sent the wrong message; they were not the most important even in Sweden. It is more important to understand the social evolution of Sweden today than what king reigned when.
Sure, we still learn about the big ones like Gustav Vasa–if you say Gustavus Vasa I will 🔪 you!–but not much else. We have also started laying more focus on learning about the world as a whole rather than just our history. So you can put a lot of culture here. For example, does your society value war and such? Well, teaching about military strategies, tactics, etc. will tell that. Do they obsess about mathematical perfections and shapes? Geometry is going to be heavily prioritised then. You teach what you think is valuable because you have only so much time to teach before students become too old to not be working.
Education and social order
You know the old saying, don’t you? Knowledge is power. Anyone who knows a lot about a lot has a large amount of power where they are. At least compared to their peers who are less educated. That is because knowledge can be used in many ways, and it also makes the person sought after. Someone who knows how to deal with programming and computers today is much more valuable labourwise in the modern IT economy of Earth than someone who dropped out of high school and is flipping burgers at McDonalds. I am not saying the latter is worse or the former is better. I love my burgers, but what I am saying is that in the market, one is valued more because of the education.
This is also one reason why education has historically been monopolised by the influential, the powerful, and the rich. It kept them in power because they knew how to use knowledge, and the rest didn’t know jack. Though it should be stated that it has also historically, and to this day still is technically, been used as a levelling field. In ancient China, if I recall correctly, it was used to create a meritocracy where anyone could take the test and become an important person. It wasn’t only the nobilities or the likes, but anyone who could get the smarts could become important.
Though back then, as it was today, these kinds of systems tend to only help those of significant wealth already who can afford everything extra. The more you can be educated, the better you will do. In China today, they try to keep the illusion up that the Gao Kao, their SAT, is equal for everyone, so the Chinese study hard for it. But of course, the rich can get tutors, which means they can learn more and have an easier time with it.
Education in writing
I am going to go on a bit of a rant here. One thing that annoys me to high heaven in the fantasy genre, and in any genre not set in post WW2, is the overabundance of educated people. If you make a Tolkienesque world where it is mediaeval Europe or anything set before the 1800s… Education is not commonplace! Illiteracy is rampant! Everyone seems to be able to read and write like it's the modern day but no, NO! (Anne: Note that Tolkein himself didn’t do this, as most people in Middle Earth are illiterate, but it’s extremely common in the books that imitate him). Thank you Anne for that additional info!
This is not how such societies work for those times because the amount of effort and work it takes to educate large swaths of society is HUGE. And for most of history, it has not been worthwhile doing it. The societal gain has not warranted it. You can be a blacksmith, farmer, archer, and much else and not be able to read worth a damn. Sure, some will learn it from family anyway, but most people will NOT be able to read or write!
All right, rant over. You can, of course, in any story where education is not rampant, still have your protag be literate, albeit if you ask me, the more interesting choice is to have an illiterate protag. How many have done that in modern times? Not many, as far as I know. And the few that do have characters who are ashamed of their illiteracy, but in a lot of history, illiteracy was nothing shameful; it was the norm. Asking someone else to read or write the very rare few times you needed it was commonplace. But as said, it can be done; we have records of Roman legionnaires being literate and common enough that they could set up notes and expect the literate to help the illiterate to know what to do for the day.
So depending on society, the education will tell where in society your character is located. The less advanced technologically the society is, the higher up in society they are if they are literate, most likely. If it's more modern or postmodern, the literacy itself doesn’t indicate status, but instead the theoretical and abstract knowledge indicates status. Knowledge always marks someone as higher up in society, but what that knowledge is that marks one changes depending on society and how the economy works.
Creating an education system
How do you go about deciding your education system so you don’t over edumucate your characters? Well, deciding first how it all works! For that, I suggest you answer the following questions:
What technological level is the society at?
This is one you start answering early in a world, and while I say technology, it includes magic, too. This one is important because education as you modern humans imagine it is only relevant for advanced economies where knowledge is the primary driver of economy. If your technology is low, the amount of people needing knowledge is very small, and most will only require vocational training. As stated before, you can be highly educated in this era, but it means you are from the upper echelons of society. And as a rule of thumb, unless you’re in the merchant class of people or nobility, you'll always be illiterate before the Industrial Revolution.
What knowledge drives society?
This one is obvious in its first bit: what drives the economy? Education always steers toward economic gain. But another is what society considers valuable on its own. Not everything is about the economy, even if the vast majority is, and a lot is taught because it is seen as having intrinsic value on its own. So think back on what is considered important: the kings? Warfare? Trade? Etc. The more advanced a society gets, the more widespread primary education tends to get and less streamlined toward just a job.
Who is in charge of education?
I know I haven’t covered this in this blogpost–I will in a later one–but to make an education system, you have to also figure out who is in charge of it. If it is reasonable people or democratic organisations, they will lean toward proper education; if it is more fascist-like people, they will lean toward indoctrination. This will affect how educated and knowledgeable your character is greatly.
Summa Summarum
I think this makes for a good point to wrap this post up. It is the first one of many, I feel, that will come about education. As a teacher, I have a lot to say here. But when it comes to education in worldbuilding, it is important to understand what the purpose of it is in theory, what the purpose of it is in practice, and what the purpose of those in charge are. This will affect the efficacy of the education and how it shapes the society in which it is done.
The most important thing to do in worldbuilding and writing is to pay attention to where characters belong and what likely education they would have. A farmer in the 16th century would not know how to read or write because it is not necessary for them, so a farmer boy going on an adventure would be illiterate as well. You can have them learn reading and writing along the way and make that interesting. I think it would be kind of sweet if someone did it for an adventure team, and someone more senior teaches the traditional farm boy to read along the journey.
Well, that is all for today, and remember what I always say: it is only a bad day if you didn’t learn anything new.
Want to dive into a discussion about Stellima or the art of writing on Discord? We’d love to have you! And if you have any topics you struggle with or that you would like to suggest for a future blogpost, we’re open to suggestions!
Interested in supporting our work? Join our Patreon and become a part of Stellima as a citizen of Mjatreonn! Or would you like to give us some caffeine to fuel our writing? Consider buying us a coffee at Ko-fi! Every contribution inspires our creativity and keeps us going. Thank you for your support!
Copyright ©️ 2024 Vivian Sayan. Original ideas belong to the respective authors. Generic concepts such as education and its various aspects are copyrighted under Creative Commons with attribution, and any derivatives must also be Creative Commons. However, all specific language or exact phrasing is individually copyrighted by the respective authors. Contact them for information on usage and questions if uncertain what falls under Creative Commons. We’re almost always happy to give permission. Please contact the authors through this website’s contact page.
We at Stellima value human creativity but are exploring ways AI can be ethically used. Please read our policy on AI and know that every word in the blog is written and edited by humans or aliens.
