While there are some on-campus students who prefer a more traditional classroom based education, with set schedules and such, it is not the norm. There are certain subjects that are suggested and others that are highly suggested. No one has missed a “highly suggested” class in over a century.
For instance, it is highly suggested that our young learners study all the languages offered at Duolingo. Each has a premiere edition by dint of tuition fees. Same goes for other founts of learning and practice. Youtube, Chess, Khan Academy, Codecademy, and so on. The academy gets a special group rate, and so we are all covered for all the best ones.
This has been discussed in other places, but while on the subject, it should also be noted that our academy is unlike that other place, perhaps most poignantly, in that while their students have to study all the languages at Duolingo…our young geniuses get to study each language…from every other language.
We don’t just study Chinese, Greek, Hebrew, Latin, Esperanto, Hindi, and such. We study Dutch from German and Chinese from Japanese. Every possible combination, and they evolve and grow.
As it is a lifetime endeavor (our students have LIFETIME membership) everyone is encouraged to go at their own pace, pushing the ball up the hill a few inches every day.
Other learners on Duolingo will have different strategies, with many sticking with one language, learned from one other language. They may advance, numerically, faster than you, but that is of no concern. You have your whole life ahead, and there are no tests, per se, although there will be journeys, where the skills you learn will be put to the test, on the ground, where the language is very much alive. But that is a different chapter.
Here is an example from a student. You will notice that the top ones are the easier ones, all from the native language.
While further down the list, when the native language (English) is excluded altogether, the scores are not as high, since it does, of course, involve a greater degree of information processing.
In addition to getting to play on Duolingo, our young “stewards of the tongues” get to pick a language from each letter of their alphabet. There are other chapters on this, but in essence it is about the power of incantations, words…and why we are called upon to protect the truth by protecting the words, the incantations, themselves. For they contain power. They are keys to Queendoms, and I’ll just leave it at that.
What are the incantations? Well, we started with the incantation of greeting. Utterances sounding a bit like Hi, Hey, Hei, Hej, Hello Hela, Hallo, Halo, Hail up, Hola, Ola, Aloha, Allo, Allu, Hoy, Ahoy, Ahoj, and Salam, Salom, Salem, Salame, Shlam, Shalom, and Zdravo, Zdraveite, or Salut, Salute, Saluton, and ciao, chao, and kumusta, como esta, also Namaste, Namaskar, Namaskaram etc. etc.
Then we proceed to the incantation of gratitude; thanks. Words like Thanks, Thank you, Danke, Dhanyabad, Dhanyavad, Dhanyavada, Dhanyavadah, Tak, Takk, Dik, Diky, Dekuji, Dekujeme, Gracias, Grazie, Grasie, Grazzi, Gratias, and so on.
At some point each is taken on a magical journey to places where the various languages are spoken, and in order to get through the front door, they need to exchange proper incantations. If satisfactory they are given the key to the city, village or tribal gathering.
In addition to language, and taking advantage of the travel opportunities, each student is encouraged to learn what is called ethnomusicology, which is just a fancy word for music of the whole world. Morever they are encouraged to record, edit, process and post their evolving musical creations on the various platforms available.
Buck spoke of what he called “original energy” which he liked to capture on record, and that this original energy typically only spans the first or second take of a song.
Here is Buck’s ricketty first taketty on Mexicali musicano.
Buck Wondrous spread his creations among Bandcamp, Soundcloud, Reverbnation, and a few others. Here was his first attempt auf der Waltz:
Story is told about how Mr. Wondrous was sitting at his stony Steinway watching birds dance about from the rather large window near where the piano found its resting place. Apparently, he imagined these festive robins coming into the room and dancing about on the piano keys. So he wrote this little piece called “Morning Birds on a Piano”:
The hopes of the academy were that each student would document their conscious evolution in ways they deemed fit. And for the most part the students were treated with the same respect of adults, but everyone was expected to be respectful of each other in return. Ideally, it was an evolution of cooperation and not a war of competition. The vibe itself contributes to global cooling.