Journal Entry Number Five: Our Educational System

Today I am going to talk to you about our educational system, since I am currently sitting in Master Breton’s History of Equus class.

Along with most of our modern society, our educational system was set in place at the time of the Equi Awakening, about ten thousand years ago.  Education has a very high value amongst all Equi, and our system reflects that.

We have twenty-one years of compulsory education.  We start Creppia Nonage when we are five, and spend two years there.  We spend seven years in Primary Form, six years in Intermediate Form, and six years in Final Form.  By that time we are twenty-six years old.  We are also expected to go to Lycee, which can last from four to ten years, or into a guided apprenticeship.  This sounds like a long time, but we are long lived, and since very few of us marry before our forties, and many of us well past that, we have time for such endeavors.

Because I am High Equi, I am required to go to Lycee.  I may also go into an apprenticeship, but not to the exclusion of higher education.  My dam did both.  She spent ten years in Lycee and she also apprenticed with healers on Calumet, which is one of our Affined Equi Worlds.  She is an herbalist and healer.  She is also a Master Weaver and serves on that council.  With my granddam, Ah’rane, she maintains the huge gardens and orchards of our keep, and is a Master Gardener.

I tell you this not only because my mother is an amazing woman, but because she has done what is expected of all Equi – she has responsibilities, careers if you will, in each of three major disciplines.  We are not only expected to be well educated, we are expected to be well rounded.

My father is Master of Horse for the Great House of Equus.  He makes sure each rider in our cavalry, or our Horse Guard, is suited to his horse, and that each horse is suited to its task.  So, he is in the military.  He also has a Secundoctora in Equine Medicine … and he, working beside his sire, is one of Viridia’s premier vintners.  Again, proficient in three major disciplines.

We study all kinds of things all through school.  Nothing is held back until a certain form level, but all things are introduced simply and then gradually added to as we progress.  Our classes are small, discussion-based, and we spend much time “out in the world” learning firsthand about subjects and how they are applied in day-to-day life, both in science and art, as Equus places a high value on music, drama, painting, sculpting, weaving and landscaping, to name but a few.