Worldbuilding: Education

In your story world, how were people educated?

What age do they begin instruction? What age do they finish?

Who received an education?

Who decided the type and level of education: parents, elders, social status, ability, wealth?

Where did students receive an education and who taught them?

 Did they have Socratic lectures, one-room schoolhouses, boarding schools, colleges, or universities? 

Were they taught by family members, elders, tutors, governesses, teachers, professors, or religious leaders?

Did their schools have levels? Did they have uniforms?

Were there apprenticeships, military boot camps, or artisan schools?

What areas of study were available?

Did the places of education have governing bodies?

What determined their career path?

Was higher education valued?

Did education level indicate status, position, wealth, race, caste?

Did they have to travel or relocate to obtain an education?

Were people content or discontent with the options available and access?

In your Fantasy or Science Fiction world, you can craft unique options such as Hogwarts in the Harry Potter series, the school for vampires in the House of Night series, or Camp Half Blood in the Percy Jackson series. You can base it on a real system such as the English boarding school or come up with something entirely new. Readers love discovering new twists.

In Historical novels, you can take us back to the one-room school house. 

Secrets lurking at a university or boarding school are perfect settings for suspense or murder mysteries.

Suggested references:

1. School: The Story of American Public Education by Sarah Mondale
2. Advanced Educational Foundations for Teachers: The History, Philosophy, and Culture of Schooling by Donald K. Sharpes
3. Sixties Legacy: A History of the Public Alternative Schools Movement, 1967-2001 by Richard Neumann
4. Teach Like Socrates: Guiding Socratic Dialogues and Discussions in the Classroom by Erick Wilberding
5. Socratic Logic: A Logic Text using Socratic Method, Platonic Questions, and Aristotelian Principles by Peter Kreeft & Trent Dougherty
6. The One-Room Schoolhouse: A Tribute to a Beloved National Icon by Paul Rocheleau
7. The American One-Room Schoolhouse by Henry R. Kaufmann
8. On the Methods of Famous Teachers Lao Tzu Gautama Zeno Socrates Jesus, Hypatia, Muhammad, Hildegard, Clare, Nightingale, Galileo and Gandhi by Anthony Barton
9. A History Of Education In Antiquity by H.I. Marrou & George Lamb
10. Scribes and Scholars: A Guide to the Transmission of Greek and Latin Literature by L. D. Reynolds & N. G. Wilson

Next week, we consider Employment options.

For advanced world-building, the SBB Build A World Workbook is available in print and e-book.

Other titles in the series:

Story Building Blocks: The Four Layers of Conflict available in print and e-book takes you from story seed to conflict outline. The fourteen companion Build A Plot Workbooks, in print and e-book, offer step by step development prompts: Comedy, Con, Heist & Prison Break, Fantasy, Gothic, Historical, Horror, Literary
(Drama),  Mystery, Road Trip, Romance, Science Fiction, Team Victory, Thriller & Suspense, Western.

SBB II Crafting Believable Conflict in print and e-book and the Build A Cast Workbook in print and e-book help you build a believable cast and add conflict based on the sixteen personality types.

SBB III The Revision Layers in print and e-book helps you self-edit your manuscript.

Free story building tools are available at www.dianahurwitz.com.