Underlight Discord Chat: http://discord.underlight.com/
Production Server: Online (Version 3.1.15)
Player Test Realm Server: Offline (Version 3.1.15)

Lace's Lessons for Laieus

Lore, history and other content by the citizens of Underlight preserved for posterity.
Locked
Laieus
Dreamer
Posts: 11
Joined: Sun Oct 13, 2019 1:48 pm
Character Name(s): Laieus

Lace's Lessons for Laieus

Post by Laieus »

Teaching is a subject that was very dear to Lace. As such after Ethor's recommendation, I have decided to Resume here the lessons I was given during my apprenticeship. In an effort to be concise, I will mainly paraphrase while doing my best to keep the intention and lessons intact. However, it is still my interpretations of said lessons and intentions thus I ask you to take this into mind as you read. I have broadly separated this into two segments, one segment focused on philosophy and the other segment being a practical segment.
The Term Teacher be a misnomer
I would rather it be called Guide or Advisor. When ye replace Teacher with one of those, the position be a completely different scenario.
The very first Lesson Lace gave me started with this. How do we teach? And is what we do even truly teaching?
Separating the preconceptions that we have from what we teach is important, because by giving the Student the space for creativity, not only are we teaching them, we can learn from them.
Give them the space to be creative, and they can turn something mundane into something special.
By Guiding and advising the student rather than forcing our ideas onto them we can make the learning environment more interesting and varied.
it's hard, Laieus... I won't lie
So hard to hold back... nay spill all the beans or give it
all away.
But it gives the student something to look forward to...
something interesting or unknown.
Be careful to fit the lesson to the Student not to yourself.
One of the first things that Lace made sure to correct in my mannerisms was calling what we do Quests rather than Tasks.
This lesson is to separate what was once considered teaching in the past and the current standards.
A Task be a chore or duty
A Quest be an adventure
This lets us use the naming convention as a way to remind ourselves of what we are supposed to be creating.
Each Quest should be the invitation to some sort of adventure or mystery.
Many of Laces Lessons had multiple faces. A quest she would give me to do during my apprenticeship might be there to teach me both how to help newlies as well as how to learn from the impossible.
A talk about the responsibility of a teacher and the tenets of her belief would lead to learning how to bring out the best of others.
There are only three rules in this City, or there were only three
for the decades when I dreamt afore
1. Respect each other
2. Respect this place
3. Stay true to your persona
And those be the tenets.. the 'beliefs' I dream by.
And that's what I expect out of m'apprentices
Talking of Persona's was a rather important part of that lesson, notably how '' to reach thru to a new person's persona
and help that person develop his or her OWN persona''
By letting them have their individuality, it brings much more to the dream. It creates possibilities for the future.
I remember when Lace had even done this for myself. It all began as she was working on a project, and I wanted to help. A simple mission of trying to find samples of the Elements and Spirit brought me to realize the possibilities that I already had. I could already create with Inscribe. I could bring into the Dream my Runes. The simple act of giving a quest that was open enough and telling me that I could do it led me to become the Dreamer I am today.

Lace also stressed the importance of the Arts and how teaching relates to training them. How the Arts are both the way to reward someone for doing something noteworthy, the way we explain how things work in the City, and a source of inspiration to make interesting Quests.

After discussing the philosophy of teaching for a while, we eventually moved onto the creation of quests. Teaching this came by example. I would write quests, and Lace would show me the problems present in how I wrote them. But before doing my own, there were still a few points to be discussed.
When possible, it is a good idea to write the quests with a finite number of charges since they behave as Codi do, and if you have it with infinite charges you won't be able to destroy it easily.
It is also generally a good idea to write the plateau of the quest and to have a color scheme for quests and to stick to it, this makes it easier for others to recognize from who they got the quest from at first glance.
Here are some of the notable points from the period where I was creating test quests. The use of clear criteria is important because just as there are those who go above and beyond for quests, there are those who will do the minimum. Having a guideline of what each plateau should teach is a good starting point to making sure their difficulty remains somewhat consistent, but it is important to tailor the lesson to the student.

Tailoring the lesson to the student means that you need to figure out the subject best suited for the quest.
Ye will note that I try to talk to the student some, unless I already know what they're doing, up to or wanna do... and I find something the Student finds interesting.
Essentially leading into the philosophy that we had discussed
it is not the teacher's job to teach everything to the student
but rather to teach what the student searches for.
This is true for Quests, Mini's or simply teaching in general. As such it is generally a good idea to consider the following questions.
What do they want to do or learn?
Why do they want that?
How will they do it?
What preferences does the dreamer have in terms of Quests?
How does their objective fit into what they wish to learn?
It is to be noted that these questions can at the very least be partially answered if you know the Dreamer enough.


Practical segment
On the Oracles Gift.
Even though the Oracle's gift doesn't require a quest, it is a good idea to explain something about the Art, preferably in line with what you have as guidelines for the corresponding plateau or learn. And when teaching a very new newly it can also be useful to mention the difference between the Arts one has and the arts one can learn and to mention the importance of improving and plateauing your arts.

Questing takes space even for Oracles

Sequence:
Quest->Art->Student (target)

Example for Oracles
Codex has charges
Chamele Learn
Oracle's gift

On Questing in general
Sequence:
Quest->Art->Student (target)
Then you get what looks similar to an Inscribe box to work in.
So ye can talk while ye Quest tho I dun recommend it... focus on
one thing at a time, and only use this when necessary,
like if you forget what plat you were writing for or something
Much of the philosophy and what I discussed earlier is related directly to the creation of Quests. As such, take the time to write a good Quest. That way it will be much more pleasant for you and the Student. And let's be honest we've all seen many quests, some of which we consider good, some bad. It's important to make quests that are of high quality, and that take into account what kind of Quest the student enjoys. Some enjoy finding the hidden history of an Art, some enjoy thinking about how or why the Art works, some prefer using it directly and some prefer using it creatively. A good quest for one is not necessarily a good quest for all.

And with Quests, you also need to consider the reports that you will eventually get. It is important to get all the details relevant to the quest in the report, if the student doesn't expand on them all it's a good idea to bring them up. Talking about what they did is a good way of getting the details that are missing. Consider the following questions Who, what, where, when, why, with, and how. Ideally, they will all have clear answers.

And with the reports, there's also the possibility of failure.
What do you do when a student doesn't succeed in a quest? Lace recommended that when it seems likely that a student will fail the objective they set themselves, that it is clear in the quest. Something along the lines of
Effort put into this is more important than success or failure
or
the effort means more than the results
To Cite Lace
I learn more from m'failures than I do m'successes
And students need to know what it means to fail and learn.
So...usually when someone comes to me and says...
I'm stuck on this quest
it tells me... they've completed it.
That teacher will have them off doing something else, when they've completed the quest, learned from it, and don't know it!
These types of quests ye will do better at writing after ye've had some
experience, and I dun recommend trying to do them just yet.
But they're more interesting quests, and actually more fun to do, usually.

On Support Train
they do what they imply
Support train makes mini-quests

The chain for Support Train is
Quest->Support Train->Target

Since the art isn't mentioned it's important to say what the mini is for. The difficulty of the mini should be in line with the fraction the mini fills in getting the plateau. up to 3rd plat, it is 3 minis to a plateau, and afterward, it increases to the plateau in minis, say a 6th plateau would have 6 minis
The product of Support Train is a purple Ribbon.
Here are some examples of mini's
Know 3rd mini (1/3 of a 3rd plat)
Is there a Correlation between a Rooms Aura and the presence of secrets?

Judgment 2nd mini (1/3 of a 2nd plat)
What other ways could someone know the Sphere of a Dreamer?

Destroy Talisman 3rd mini (1/3 of a 3rd plat)
The Act of Destruction can often be seen negatively, but must that always be the case?
Find 3 examples of Destruction that had a positive impact.

Blast 4th mini (1/4 of a 4th plat)
Try fighting the various kinds of mares using only your Blast. What was your limit?

Sacrifice 4th mini (1/4 of a 4th plat)
Using your knowledge of Alchemy how can you maximize the effectiveness of a sacrifice?

On Support Sphere
Support Sphere is easier and is the way to make sphere ribbons
When a Student is looking for supports, ask about their quest if you don't know of it, and then
The chain for Support Sphere is
Support Sphere -> Target
The product of Support Sphere is also a purple Ribbon

And that concludes this recounting of some parts of my apprenticeship.
To finish it off, I leave you this quote from my last conversation with Lace.
...this be the stuff dreams be made of, in m'humble opinion.
When ye can envision something and then make it so.
Thank you for teaching me, Lace
Locked