Cosmere Schools

[Gray to he/him]

How come no one ever mentions schools in the cosmere? The closest things we have are wardships, the ardentia, and Silverlight. 

Also, if there were schools, how would they deal with a bunch of kids running around with superpowers?

[Weltall]

Pre-Catacendre Scadrial didn't really have a place for schools; Education for the skaa wouldn't serve Rashek's purposes and the nobles could hire tutors for their children. It's mentioned that a number of Terris stewards served this role. Post-Catacendre we know there are public schools and Marasi attended a university with a very modern-sounding curriculum, club activities and so on.

We don't know a lot about Sel and education isn't really much of a focus, but we do get references to characters feeling like schoolboys/girls so the Aonic peoples clearly have institutions. In Hope of Elantris we see Matisse teaching how to draw Aons, which is likely part of the regular schooling though it's obviously more relevant to Elantrians (even if the magic isn't working at that point) and we know that the Aons are part of the everyday world through Brandon's Aonic dictionary. We also know there are religious schools in Fjorden for the education of priests and there's probably some form of public education to go along with it, organized by the church.

Teaching on Roshar depends on location and it seems like the Ardentia does most of the teaching in Vorin lands. We know there are private tutors for those who can afford it. In addition to what Sigzil has to say about studying for the Azish exams (which sounds a lot like the Confucian exam system in historical China) we have Lift making comments about children attending lessons, so there appears to be some form of public schooling as well.

We don't get much of a look at education on Nalthis and we saw that Vivenna and Siri were educated by tutors, not too surprisingly. There's probably some form of public education in Hallandren but I don't recall if this was ever formally confirmed. But they're got a thriving economy that's able to support a restaurant trade so it's a safe assumption that they've got educational systems as well and we just don't see them.

We know there's higher education on Taldain (Khriss was already a scholar before becoming a worldhopper after all) though we don't get much detail on how it's done on either Dayside or Darkside. Probably depends on where you're from, with the different cultures and kingdoms in each region. We can assume there's formal education on First of the Sun and Threnody but we spend all of our time there in locations on the fringes of 'civilization'. And we know there's a university in Silverlight.

So education is there, it's just never been a huge onscreen factor.

[Doomdrinker she/her]

Well there's school in mistborn era 2, and I'm fairly confident that there are schools in azimir from what we hear from Zigzal about him failing the tests. Perhaps the arentia is somewhat school like when they are teaching crafts and skills to darkeyes. 

Other than those I can't think of other places with obvious schools, 

 

As for how they would deal with magic, in mistborn for example, perhaps the classrooms have aluminium lining or perhaps some Leechers on staff.

We haven't really seen much of the acadamy unfortunately. 

Edited May 10, 2018 by Doomdrinker

[Barbarian AL he/him]

There probably is schools in many areas of the cosmere. I'm sure we'll hear about them if the stories go that direction.

[+robardin he/him]

As far as "kids running around with magical powers", I think there would be "private schools" run by masters of specific skills to train them in it - or at least, specific masters who would take on "generations" or classes of students at a time.

On Nalthis, where there is basically one kind of native magic - Awakening - powered by the same source, Breaths, that anybody can acquire and amass (you don't have to be born with the right sDNA like you do on Scadrial), I could imagine there could be schools for the skill, since Breath is available on the open market for anyone to purchase (as Lemex did). It stands to reason that training in using Breaths would also be openly available, as long as you trusted the teacher to be worth the cost, that would probably be in the form of Breath.

It's more interesting to consider what training there is for Allomancers on Scadrial, especially in Era 2 which is far more open and egalitarian than in The Final Empire. Just imagine L'il Wax going to the Coinshot Cubs assemblies on Saturdays, with his little bag of clips and that cute little neckerchief. Awww.

 

 

Edited May 10, 2018 by robardin

[king of nowhere]

public schools are quite a recent development. Preindustrial society couldn't afford them, and it was generally left in the hands of the church, the nobles, or the effort of individuals. While some places in the cosmere are advanced enough for schooling (great post by weltall) I'd guess most of them just don't have them, or they have very simple institutions that barely teach to read and write

[Bridge 4.0 he/him]

There are apprenticeships like when Kaladin's father wanted to send him to Karbranth to apprentice him to become a surgeon. Do apprenticeships count?

[king of nowhere]

by the way, i wonder about coinshot training. we always see characters who are competent at it, but when you're novice, a wrong steeljump is easily fatal. when you are falling, you only have a couple seconds to find an anchor and push, with failure being often fatal. if you instead manage an off-center push, you are going to slam into a wall at high speed. even a trainer ready to cath you can only help you so far; the times are tight enough that he's not a guarantee of safety.

I'd figure casualties during training would be quite common, and I have a hard time figuring a way to reduce them. Unless you have the capacity to set up a huge training center where everyone is attached to ropes

[+robardin he/him]

1 minute ago, king of nowhere said:

by the way, i wonder about coinshot training. we always see characters who are competent at it, but when you're novice, a wrong steeljump is easily fatal. when you are falling, you only have a couple seconds to find an anchor and push, with failure being often fatal. if you instead manage an off-center push, you are going to slam into a wall at high speed. even a trainer ready to cath you can only help you so far; the times are tight enough that he's not a guarantee of safety.

I'd figure casualties during training would be quite common, and I have a hard time figuring a way to reduce them. Unless you have the capacity to set up a huge training center where everyone is attached to ropes

I think some of it is instinctive after only a bit of initial practice, like how hard to push and in what direction. And Steelsight would help in terms of finding anchors.

But yeah, in Era 2 where a child being an Allomancer is no longer something you'd try to keep a House secret, I'd imagine getting formally trained at a novice level in a room with padded walls and stuff. With merit badges and pizza parties, why not.

[Weltall]

37 minutes ago, king of nowhere said:

by the way, i wonder about coinshot training. we always see characters who are competent at it, but when you're novice, a wrong steeljump is easily fatal. when you are falling, you only have a couple seconds to find an anchor and push, with failure being often fatal. if you instead manage an off-center push, you are going to slam into a wall at high speed. even a trainer ready to cath you can only help you so far; the times are tight enough that he's not a guarantee of safety.

The two times we've seen A-Steel training, the mentor's approch has basically been 'throw the trainee off the highest available structure and let them sort it out on the way down', though Kelsier at least started Vin off with grounded pushing and pulling before taking her to the top of Luthadel's wall and then leaving her to make her own way back down. It's evidently something you can learn pretty quickly with the right pressure. In a less extreme situation, I can imagine people teaching in an environment with at least three stable anchors so that coinshots get used to holding themselves up (Kelsier mentions that having a tripod of supports is the easiest way) before graduating to single anchors.

And Kelsier does provide some advice to Vin on how to slow her descent, even if he leaves her to figure out the actual mechanics on her own. Of course, as a mistborn she's safer to train since she also has A-Pewter. And he was there to catch her when she did botch her first landing attempt, then mentioned that since steelpushing and ironpulling are inherertly dangerous, letting a trainee face that danger from the start helps them adjust.

29 minutes ago, robardin said:

With merit badges and pizza parties, why not.

Does Scadrial have pizza? If so, definitely the best planet in the Cosmere. I know Hoid likes it in part because it's where he's likely to be able to satisfy his craving for instant noodles but come on, pizza. xD

Edited May 10, 2018 by Weltall

[Dunkum he/him]

3 hours ago, king of nowhere said:

public schools are quite a recent development. Preindustrial society couldn't afford them, and it was generally left in the hands of the church, the nobles, or the effort of individuals. While some places in the cosmere are advanced enough for schooling (great post by weltall) I'd guess most of them just don't have them, or they have very simple institutions that barely teach to read and write

seconding this.  In western society public schools are extremely recent, and older schools were generally for educating priests and/or the wealthy.  only Era 2 Scadrial is really far enough advanced to align with when we had public schools in our world (at lest in America.  can't speak for other societies)

[king of nowhere]

3 hours ago, Weltall said:

The two times we've seen A-Steel training, the mentor's approch has basically been 'throw the trainee off the highest available structure and let them sort it out on the way down', though Kelsier at least started Vin off with grounded pushing and pulling before taking her to the top of Luthadel's wall and then leaving her to make her own way back down. It's evidently something you can learn pretty quickly with the right pressure.

To me, it's evidently the kind of actiivity where you'd have 1% to 5% casualties in training. Something acceptable to ancient scadrial, where houses treated their children as resources.  Not with more modern sensibilities.

Steeljumping is also fairly dangerous when you're skilled, too. I guess it can be as easy as walking for someone trained; well, you ever tripped and fell while walking? In years and years, it can happen. And when it happens with steeljumping, you die. Although I'd say in this case the risk is more or less akin to that of a car accident, i.e. something we consider acceptable ffor the commodity it provides.