An Auraic Academy, part 1: Background

 So one thing I’m working on, in my nonexistent spare time, is the Auraic education system. Mostly because I recently spent our road trip listening to the first Harry Potter audiobook and realized how messed up Hogwarts is. What happened to math classes and science and writing classes and discussing literature and actual nonmagical history? What happened to all the things you need to know to function as a being in society? Does anyone at Hogwarts ever take a civics class?

So I started thinking about the Auraic Academy for Aspiring Mages. In universe, most of the Auri call it simply the academy. Sometimes they even drop the first syllable; it’s in the neighborhood of Academy Commons, and most folks call that area ‘Cad’my Comm’ns to save a few syllables. 

It’s the center of middle and high school education for the city of Valus Dae, and thus for about 60 to 75 percent of all Auri. Valus Dae is not a particularly small city, but as the Auri mature at about the same rate as humans but live longer (I haven’t quite pinned down how much longer. But any dates for events I’ve given are accurate so the exact rate barely matters), the birth rate is pretty small. The average size for a school year is between 150 to 300 children. For elementary school (kindergarten through 5th grade), students primarily go to their local neighborhood elementary school, and live at home with family. However, from 6th grade through 12th grade, about 85-90 percent of students (anywhere from 130 to about 275) go to the academy as a combination of full time boarders, weekday boarders, and day students. (Students not attending the academy are usually homeschooled or going to a nonmagical middle/high school outside the city, as the academy is free to all residents of the city.)

As Valus Dae is set nebulously in the United States, I’m using US terms for schooling since that is what both I and the Auri would use. 

Anyways, the academy is pretty big but not absurdly so. Its curriculum covers the core subjects (math, language, science, history), some subjects which are common to normal schools (physical education, art, music, choir, dance, theater, comp sci, etc), and a number of classes that are about magic (I’ll expand on these in detail later). Students are divided by year more than anything else and even that is mostly not because of a social reason but an organizational one. 

I think that’s enough general background; I’m going to continue this over the next few weeks with some more detailed discussions of how the academy functions and probably some essays about why it’s a reasonable way to do it.

I’ll mention one or two other things now though. First, the goal of the Auraic magical education system is to ensure that students are prepared to enter both non magical and magical society. As the Auraic education system only goes up to grade 12, college requires spending prolonged time outside of Valus Dae without anyone to handle things if they go wrong. So surprisingly, very few classes are focused on solely magical subjects (electives, plus a Magical Theory and Practice class and a handful of the subjects required for a certain number of semesters). The academy, since whenever Advanced Placement (AP) classes became a thing, has offered AP classes for high school level students and is a testing site for major standardized tests. 

Also, most of the current staff of the academy (who I’ll get to at some point) are well qualified. This means both well versed in their chosen subjects and actually having teaching skills and the ability to work with their students. No teachers who are good at their chosen subject but awful at interpersonal relationships (I’m looking at you, Snape). 

If there’s a bit of the academy you want to hear about, please let me know!