Poem: "Education Is the Passport"
This poem came out of the January 2022 Crowdfunding Creative Jam. It was inspired by a prompt from Dreamwidth user Fuzzyred. It also fills the "Transformation / Revelation" square in my 12-23-21 card for the Story Sparks Fest. This poem has been sponsored by zianuray. It belongs to the series Polychrome Heroics.
"Education Is the Passport"
There are many paths to
the future besides college.
10,000 Hours is a 5-year program
for people who already know
the basics of their craft and
want to focus on practice.
Students spend five days
a week honing their skills,
usually one or two days of
classwork and the rest
practice in a studio.
It works best for arts,
crafts, performance, or
other creative pursuits.
The Academy of Hypatia
is a worldwide array of
autodidactic programs
run through libraries.
People can read books,
take classes or workshops,
join clubs, volunteer at a library,
or enjoy other opportunities.
They can track how many titles
they read or how long they spend
studying a particular subject.
The Academy offers a variety
of tests to measure progress.
The Alexandrian Year is a
travel program in which
members travel around
from one library to the next,
exploring new possibilities.
Everything gets recorded in
the Scroll of Accomplishment.
This works best for people
who love reading and prefer
to choose their own studies
rather than be led by others.
The Get a Life program
assists creative youth in
personal development.
It offers tour guides
and travel programs
around the world.
It attracts primarily
writers, artists, and
musicians but also
dancers, sculptors,
computer programmers,
and other creative types.
This program upholds
the principle that in order
to make great art, you
need to experience life.
Handymen for Humanity
is a training program as part
of Habitat for Humanity.
It teaches all kinds
of construction and
home repair skills.
In a year or two,
a diligent volunteer
can learn enough to set up
as a handyman, all without
spending a dime on tuition.
This program serves those
who learn best with their hands.
Many Paths Up the Mountain
is a personal development program
for spirituality and philosophy.
It offers opportunities for travel
and education around the world,
whether a student wishes to focus
on one tradition or explore many.
This program appeals to people
with high existential intelligence
who might not be well served by
conventional academic environments,
as well as those who are questioning
what they grew up with or just want
an opportunity to find themselves.
The process takes many forms
to serve a variety of people in
their search for revelations,
but one thing remains true:
Education is the passport
to the future, for tomorrow
belongs to those who
prepare for it today.
* * *
Notes:
"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."
-- Malcolm X
Terramagne has a much more extensive range of educational opportunities than local-Earth, some academic and others practical. This supports a wider range of options for high school graduates, which include but are not limited to starting a family (with advanced relationship and parenting classes if desired), getting a job immediately (with on-the-job training), apprenticeship (the only way to learn some jobs, and especially popular for superpowers), trade school (including things like bricklaying and emergency medicine), other specialized schools (like art or dance), conventional college, 10,000 Hours, the Academy of Hypatia and its Alexandrian Year, the Get a Life program, Handymen for Humanity, Many Paths Up the Mountain, and so on.
10,000 Hours is an intensive 5-year program for people who already know the basics of their craft and want to concentrate on practice. They work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. There is no homework; everything is supposed to get done during work hours, with the remainder of the day for personal activities and rest. Tuition includes full room and board, workshop and studio space, field trips to inspiring places, and classes. Most students choose to take one or two class days and the rest practice, but the balance is flexible. Classes typically cover advanced technical skills in arts, crafts, performance, or other creative pursuits.
40 hours x 52 weeks = 2080
- 2 week vacation = 2000
5 years x 2000 hours = 10,000 hours
10,000 hours of dedicated practice can make most people an expert in a chosen field. This benefits from the deliberate practice of small, specific skills.
8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will is a slogan of the labor movement and unions. Today it's just called "good work-life balance," which is increasingly out of reach for many people. T-American colleges and other educational programs commonly follow this guideline to maximize learning without burnout.
The Academy of Hypatia is a loose array of autodidactic programs run through libraries. It is loose in that it sprawls all over the world, with contributions by many people, rather than because it is disorganized. Anyone mature enough to earn a library card can participate. That's a crucial qualification, because it marks the point at which a learner can start choosing their own material rather than passively consuming what others choose for them. Readers are free to explore whatever the library holds or to make outside requests of those that offer interlibrary loans. They can read books, take classes or workshops, join clubs, volunteer, and so forth.
The Academy offers various means of recording progress. One measures the number of titles or the wordcount read, with a special note of completion for readers who consume the entirety of a topical section (e.g. all the horse stories or all the gardening books shelved together) in that library. Another marks the length of time devoted to studying a given topic, which can be either an ongoing interest (a lifelong love of astronomy) or a specific project (reading about France before visiting Paris). A wide range of tests are available, of which the Academy's own are scored by simple percentage: material retained with X% accuracy.
However, the Academy also has the right to give and record most other tests, for free, although the service is for Academy members rather than all patrons or everyone in the library's footprint. The Academy has negotiated this with as many testholders as possible, and members who create a new test customarily grant access to other members. So Academy members who want to take the ACT, SAT, Pimsleur Language Test, or whatever, can do it through a participating library. This is not widely known outside the Academy, but it is a perk made known to members.
A reader's various activities are recorded in a Scroll of Accomplishment. Titles read, workshops attended, tests taken -- it all goes in there. None of it gets shared without explicit permission, and the library will release part or whole as directed. (Usually, not even a court order can break in: the Order of Hypatia contends that a person's reading choices are part of their soul, and in defense of this, they have repeatedly packed up and left tyrannical regimes. This has caused enough upset that most countries treat it like a confessional and just don't ask anymore.) The Academy is not a college, and in fact determined to remain a bastion of self-directed learning; and the Scroll is not a diploma; but it is entirely possible for an avid reader to learn more from a library than from college. As a result, employers often ask if a job applicant wishes to share any relevant portions from their Scroll of Accomplishment, and some want ads reference specific parts the way they would college level.
The Alexandrian Year is a travel program similar to Get a Life. Members travel around from one library to the next, usually for a year although shorter and longer spans are available. The most common option is 12 libraries in a year, one month at each, but it can be more or fewer. A summer program also exists, ranging from two weeks to three months, in which people visit libraries usually for a few days to a week each. Travelers can choose destinations personally, ask for a random selection, or any combination of the two. Unlike Get a Life, this program is available at any time, and young members often take advantage of it over summer or other vacations when traveling with family. Some libraries even have what amounts to a reading camp to supervise youth whose families are doing something disinteresting in an area with a more interesting library -- a feature most offered in big cities or rural libraries near main attractions. However, the Alexandrian Year is most popular as an insert between high school and college or between college and jobhunting. Notably the latter usually winds up with someone finding a job along the way.
The Get a Life program assists creative youth in personal development. It offers tour guides and travel programs at two levels, one for people who want to travel between high school and college, the other for those who want to do it after college; and participants may do both if they wish. It includes many options ranging from two to three month summer sessions on up to full year sessions. About 10% of high school graduates do not immediately go into higher education or employment, and taking a travel year is a popular option. Some travelers choose a regional destination and meander within it; others cover the whole globe. In the year-long package, it's common to choose three or four different continents and move from one to another. Themed packages are available for people who wish to study particular subjects such as architecture, crafts, literature, or the environment.
Another popular option is to visit multiple countries all sharing a world language, such as Spanish or French. The formal packages customarily include at least one "serendipity" stop, and travelers may choose more if they wish, up to selecting the entire itinerary at random. Get a Life also offers support for people 18+ who wish to backpack or otherwise travel on their own but still have access to the group's hostels, maps, lesson plans, and other resources.
The program attracts primarily writers, artists, and musicians but also dancers, sculptors, computer programmers, and various other creative types. It upholds the principle that in order to make great art, you need to experience life. Traveling around the world is a terrific way to cram a lot of experience into a relatively short span of time. Often participants find a culture or career they love, which shapes the rest of their life and work. College-age travelers are more likely to find a life partner. (Participants are encouraged, but not required, to use a long-term form of birth control while traveling, so that is available to everyone at no extra cost.) The program also supports travelers in finding places to live and work after returning home, with ties to a wide range of publishers, galleries, and performance art companies.
Prices vary depending on destination and length of session. However, Get a Life is heavily subsidized both by the National Foundation for the Arts and the Department of Education. Another major source of funding comes from their own graduates. Most successful graduates fund at least one new traveler; many have set up ongoing scholarships. Those who can't afford to contribute such sums can choose between a general scholarship fund supported by graduates, or one open to the public at large, both of which offer a variety of categories in which applicants can qualify.
Get a Life is so effective at improving maturity, tolerance, diversity, and excellence in its participants that many high schools recommend it to creative seniors instead of going directly to college. Conversely, most colleges -- and almost all fine arts schools -- view it more as alternative education than as a vacation in terms of accepting applicants. Often they let high school seniors apply and then defer enrollment in college until after completing their Get a Life tour. College seniors may announce plans to travel after college, and use that to gain admission to classes that will help them in that endeavor. This results in a higher level of artistic quality and cultural awareness in Terramagne.
Handymen for Humanity is a Terramagne-American training program as part of Habitat for Humanity. It teaches all kinds of construction and home repair skills. Interested volunteers simply describe what they want to learn, and a volunteer coordinator finds mentors to teach those skills. Group courses are available too. In a year or two, a diligent volunteer can learn enough to set up as a handyman, all without spending a dime on tuition. The program also helps volunteers find official tests to document their skills for professional credentials. Some volunteers go on to an apprenticeship, trade school, or college.
Volunteering for a program like Habitat for Humanity can be a valuable hands on method to gain experience. Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit company that builds homes for homeless and less fortunate families. If this program exists in your city, you may consider volunteering some of your time. You’re likely to get exposed to a wide range of trades and the best part is you don’t have to pay a dime. It’s basically free education while helping those in need.
Many Paths Up the Mountain is a personal development program with a spiritual and philosophic approach, intended for youths from high school to college age. Like Get a Life, it offers travel and education opportunities around the world. Members can focus on one religion or philosophy, or explore across many. This program appeals to people with high existential intelligence who may not be well served by conventional academic environments, as well as those who are questioning what they grew up with or just want to find themselves. However, it often loops back to seminary or philosophical schools if someone discovers a vocation along the way, and is particularly prone to producing a lot of chaplains and interfaith workers.
"Education Is the Passport"
There are many paths to
the future besides college.
10,000 Hours is a 5-year program
for people who already know
the basics of their craft and
want to focus on practice.
Students spend five days
a week honing their skills,
usually one or two days of
classwork and the rest
practice in a studio.
It works best for arts,
crafts, performance, or
other creative pursuits.
The Academy of Hypatia
is a worldwide array of
autodidactic programs
run through libraries.
People can read books,
take classes or workshops,
join clubs, volunteer at a library,
or enjoy other opportunities.
They can track how many titles
they read or how long they spend
studying a particular subject.
The Academy offers a variety
of tests to measure progress.
The Alexandrian Year is a
travel program in which
members travel around
from one library to the next,
exploring new possibilities.
Everything gets recorded in
the Scroll of Accomplishment.
This works best for people
who love reading and prefer
to choose their own studies
rather than be led by others.
The Get a Life program
assists creative youth in
personal development.
It offers tour guides
and travel programs
around the world.
It attracts primarily
writers, artists, and
musicians but also
dancers, sculptors,
computer programmers,
and other creative types.
This program upholds
the principle that in order
to make great art, you
need to experience life.
Handymen for Humanity
is a training program as part
of Habitat for Humanity.
It teaches all kinds
of construction and
home repair skills.
In a year or two,
a diligent volunteer
can learn enough to set up
as a handyman, all without
spending a dime on tuition.
This program serves those
who learn best with their hands.
Many Paths Up the Mountain
is a personal development program
for spirituality and philosophy.
It offers opportunities for travel
and education around the world,
whether a student wishes to focus
on one tradition or explore many.
This program appeals to people
with high existential intelligence
who might not be well served by
conventional academic environments,
as well as those who are questioning
what they grew up with or just want
an opportunity to find themselves.
The process takes many forms
to serve a variety of people in
their search for revelations,
but one thing remains true:
Education is the passport
to the future, for tomorrow
belongs to those who
prepare for it today.
* * *
Notes:
"Education is the passport to the future, for tomorrow belongs to those who prepare for it today."
-- Malcolm X
Terramagne has a much more extensive range of educational opportunities than local-Earth, some academic and others practical. This supports a wider range of options for high school graduates, which include but are not limited to starting a family (with advanced relationship and parenting classes if desired), getting a job immediately (with on-the-job training), apprenticeship (the only way to learn some jobs, and especially popular for superpowers), trade school (including things like bricklaying and emergency medicine), other specialized schools (like art or dance), conventional college, 10,000 Hours, the Academy of Hypatia and its Alexandrian Year, the Get a Life program, Handymen for Humanity, Many Paths Up the Mountain, and so on.
10,000 Hours is an intensive 5-year program for people who already know the basics of their craft and want to concentrate on practice. They work 8 hours a day, 5 days a week, 50 weeks a year. There is no homework; everything is supposed to get done during work hours, with the remainder of the day for personal activities and rest. Tuition includes full room and board, workshop and studio space, field trips to inspiring places, and classes. Most students choose to take one or two class days and the rest practice, but the balance is flexible. Classes typically cover advanced technical skills in arts, crafts, performance, or other creative pursuits.
40 hours x 52 weeks = 2080
- 2 week vacation = 2000
5 years x 2000 hours = 10,000 hours
10,000 hours of dedicated practice can make most people an expert in a chosen field. This benefits from the deliberate practice of small, specific skills.
8 Hours for Work, 8 Hours for Rest, 8 Hours for What We Will is a slogan of the labor movement and unions. Today it's just called "good work-life balance," which is increasingly out of reach for many people. T-American colleges and other educational programs commonly follow this guideline to maximize learning without burnout.
The Academy of Hypatia is a loose array of autodidactic programs run through libraries. It is loose in that it sprawls all over the world, with contributions by many people, rather than because it is disorganized. Anyone mature enough to earn a library card can participate. That's a crucial qualification, because it marks the point at which a learner can start choosing their own material rather than passively consuming what others choose for them. Readers are free to explore whatever the library holds or to make outside requests of those that offer interlibrary loans. They can read books, take classes or workshops, join clubs, volunteer, and so forth.
The Academy offers various means of recording progress. One measures the number of titles or the wordcount read, with a special note of completion for readers who consume the entirety of a topical section (e.g. all the horse stories or all the gardening books shelved together) in that library. Another marks the length of time devoted to studying a given topic, which can be either an ongoing interest (a lifelong love of astronomy) or a specific project (reading about France before visiting Paris). A wide range of tests are available, of which the Academy's own are scored by simple percentage: material retained with X% accuracy.
However, the Academy also has the right to give and record most other tests, for free, although the service is for Academy members rather than all patrons or everyone in the library's footprint. The Academy has negotiated this with as many testholders as possible, and members who create a new test customarily grant access to other members. So Academy members who want to take the ACT, SAT, Pimsleur Language Test, or whatever, can do it through a participating library. This is not widely known outside the Academy, but it is a perk made known to members.
A reader's various activities are recorded in a Scroll of Accomplishment. Titles read, workshops attended, tests taken -- it all goes in there. None of it gets shared without explicit permission, and the library will release part or whole as directed. (Usually, not even a court order can break in: the Order of Hypatia contends that a person's reading choices are part of their soul, and in defense of this, they have repeatedly packed up and left tyrannical regimes. This has caused enough upset that most countries treat it like a confessional and just don't ask anymore.) The Academy is not a college, and in fact determined to remain a bastion of self-directed learning; and the Scroll is not a diploma; but it is entirely possible for an avid reader to learn more from a library than from college. As a result, employers often ask if a job applicant wishes to share any relevant portions from their Scroll of Accomplishment, and some want ads reference specific parts the way they would college level.
The Alexandrian Year is a travel program similar to Get a Life. Members travel around from one library to the next, usually for a year although shorter and longer spans are available. The most common option is 12 libraries in a year, one month at each, but it can be more or fewer. A summer program also exists, ranging from two weeks to three months, in which people visit libraries usually for a few days to a week each. Travelers can choose destinations personally, ask for a random selection, or any combination of the two. Unlike Get a Life, this program is available at any time, and young members often take advantage of it over summer or other vacations when traveling with family. Some libraries even have what amounts to a reading camp to supervise youth whose families are doing something disinteresting in an area with a more interesting library -- a feature most offered in big cities or rural libraries near main attractions. However, the Alexandrian Year is most popular as an insert between high school and college or between college and jobhunting. Notably the latter usually winds up with someone finding a job along the way.
The Get a Life program assists creative youth in personal development. It offers tour guides and travel programs at two levels, one for people who want to travel between high school and college, the other for those who want to do it after college; and participants may do both if they wish. It includes many options ranging from two to three month summer sessions on up to full year sessions. About 10% of high school graduates do not immediately go into higher education or employment, and taking a travel year is a popular option. Some travelers choose a regional destination and meander within it; others cover the whole globe. In the year-long package, it's common to choose three or four different continents and move from one to another. Themed packages are available for people who wish to study particular subjects such as architecture, crafts, literature, or the environment.
Another popular option is to visit multiple countries all sharing a world language, such as Spanish or French. The formal packages customarily include at least one "serendipity" stop, and travelers may choose more if they wish, up to selecting the entire itinerary at random. Get a Life also offers support for people 18+ who wish to backpack or otherwise travel on their own but still have access to the group's hostels, maps, lesson plans, and other resources.
The program attracts primarily writers, artists, and musicians but also dancers, sculptors, computer programmers, and various other creative types. It upholds the principle that in order to make great art, you need to experience life. Traveling around the world is a terrific way to cram a lot of experience into a relatively short span of time. Often participants find a culture or career they love, which shapes the rest of their life and work. College-age travelers are more likely to find a life partner. (Participants are encouraged, but not required, to use a long-term form of birth control while traveling, so that is available to everyone at no extra cost.) The program also supports travelers in finding places to live and work after returning home, with ties to a wide range of publishers, galleries, and performance art companies.
Prices vary depending on destination and length of session. However, Get a Life is heavily subsidized both by the National Foundation for the Arts and the Department of Education. Another major source of funding comes from their own graduates. Most successful graduates fund at least one new traveler; many have set up ongoing scholarships. Those who can't afford to contribute such sums can choose between a general scholarship fund supported by graduates, or one open to the public at large, both of which offer a variety of categories in which applicants can qualify.
Get a Life is so effective at improving maturity, tolerance, diversity, and excellence in its participants that many high schools recommend it to creative seniors instead of going directly to college. Conversely, most colleges -- and almost all fine arts schools -- view it more as alternative education than as a vacation in terms of accepting applicants. Often they let high school seniors apply and then defer enrollment in college until after completing their Get a Life tour. College seniors may announce plans to travel after college, and use that to gain admission to classes that will help them in that endeavor. This results in a higher level of artistic quality and cultural awareness in Terramagne.
Handymen for Humanity is a Terramagne-American training program as part of Habitat for Humanity. It teaches all kinds of construction and home repair skills. Interested volunteers simply describe what they want to learn, and a volunteer coordinator finds mentors to teach those skills. Group courses are available too. In a year or two, a diligent volunteer can learn enough to set up as a handyman, all without spending a dime on tuition. The program also helps volunteers find official tests to document their skills for professional credentials. Some volunteers go on to an apprenticeship, trade school, or college.
Volunteering for a program like Habitat for Humanity can be a valuable hands on method to gain experience. Habitat for Humanity is a non-profit company that builds homes for homeless and less fortunate families. If this program exists in your city, you may consider volunteering some of your time. You’re likely to get exposed to a wide range of trades and the best part is you don’t have to pay a dime. It’s basically free education while helping those in need.
Many Paths Up the Mountain is a personal development program with a spiritual and philosophic approach, intended for youths from high school to college age. Like Get a Life, it offers travel and education opportunities around the world. Members can focus on one religion or philosophy, or explore across many. This program appeals to people with high existential intelligence who may not be well served by conventional academic environments, as well as those who are questioning what they grew up with or just want to find themselves. However, it often loops back to seminary or philosophical schools if someone discovers a vocation along the way, and is particularly prone to producing a lot of chaplains and interfaith workers.