Seeking topics for SCA 201

[jducoeur]

As part of Carolingia's upcoming Novice Schola, I'm planning on teaching a new class called "SCA 201". We've had "SCA 101" for a while -- that's an introduction to the Society, aimed primarily at the true novice, giving useful information for getting up and running. This is a little different. The target audience here is people who have been around for a year or three and have their feet under them. It is intended to get into a bit more detail about life in the SCA, and how to survive and thrive within it.

To that end, I'm seeking ideas for topics. Any and all ideas will be considered, but I'm especially looking for ideas from the people who *have* been in for 1-5 years. What questions have you had in the back of your mind for a while? What would have been useful for you to know about, that you learned only through painful experience? This class has a very broad remit -- the primary constraint is that it about SCA culture, *not* about history. Don't be shy about tossing ideas into the pot, and don't be afraid of "me, too" in this case -- if a bunch of people think a topic would be useful, that will bump it up the priority list. (Just bear in mind that I only have an hour, so I can't cover everything.)

Comments

[siderea]

You may find my four modes paradigm a useful one, under the rubric of "How to survive this club with your sanity intact".

I think you may need to cover geopolitics; it's amazing but, yes, quite a number of people manage to make it to their 1-3th years without knowing their borough is in a barony which is in a kingdom.

While you don't want to cover history, I think, doing this class as you are in Carolingia, you should cover a bit about how Carolingia's history as "the scholarly barony" impacts inter-baronial relations to this day.

Likewise, some discussion about authenticity, the various ways to approach it, and how to make peace with it and with others at other levels. Seeing as you'll have a class of "sophomores" it would be lovely to seize the opportunity to pass on the "do whatever works for you, just don't lie about it" meme which was so powerful over on sca-dance. Explain the notion that being able to say, "No, this thing I am doing is not authentic, and this is how it fails to be authentic" will get you infinitely more street cred in the Society than "fudging" -- "oh, well, they had something like this I'm sure." Integrity is not just for the battlefield. "You may be the only book someone ever reads" is advice not just for laurels.

There are some things about the philosophy of the baronial orders which would be lovely and beneficial to share. The standards of "impact" and of "service to the art", are illuminating to explain, not just of the way the orders work, but of our Barony's values: this is what we choose to recognize, and why.

It may be useful to explain what an order meeting is and is like. I got such a discussion from Gwendolyn many years ago, and found it quite enlightening. I know a lot of youngsters get weird star-chamberish ideas about this closed system they are not privy to. There's no reason not to explicate how orders work and what happens at an order meeting, or even how candidates are discussed. Just the fact that discussions are generally positive is something not immediately obvious to non-members. Also, how slow the process can be, due to logistics.

[tpau]

this class in in a culture track, between sca 101 and Kali's history of the barony...

[jducoeur]

Ah -- I was actually looking for the Four Modes posting a while back, in the context of another conversation. Thanks for the pointer!

quite a number of people manage to make it to their 1-3th years without knowing their borough is in a barony which is in a kingdom.

Hmm. I'll chew on that one. I'm trying not to be too duplicative of new_man's SCA 101 class, and I think he'll be covering that sort of stuff, but it's a good point that people do get a long ways in without those particular clues.

History, authenticity: both very good ideas. (Especially the authenticity one -- I agree that this is a very useful stage in which to emphasize the appropriate attitude.)

Orders and order meetings: interesting, and worth chewing on. I wasn't planning on covering those, since the target audience is a smidgeon young for the topic, but you're right that demystifying the process would be socially useful. Probably worth discussing a bit in the same context as recommendation letters: peel back the cover of the black box a bit, and explain what's really going on. (Hopefully without making it look *too* much like the sausage factory...)

[siderea]

Hopefully without making it look *too* much like the sausage factory...

Heh. It is a sausage factory. Some honesty about that may be appropriate. At the 201 stage, I don't think they need to be protected from the truth: it's a messy process run by humans with all their human frailty, and sometimes people get hurt as a result. Some people find the whole thing so disagreeable that they think the system should be abolished, and other people think it's the soul of the Society, and there are folks all along the spectrum between those points. And they all have a point.

I would hope -- and, knowing you, expect ;) -- that in explicating these things, you would stress the role these "young" (in some cases just new) people have in this system. The fact they might not be about to be in a polling order today or tomorrow (though, on the other hand... 3 years? They might!) that doesn't mean now isn't a splendid time to start thinking about what that would mean. The basic idea that it is everyone's job to ask themselves, "Who should we -- Carolingia, the East -- honor for their contribution to our lives? Who are the pillars upon whom my good experience in the Society rests?"

That's a radical attitude. It's not a natural one for most people. Most people go through their lives taking the positive contributions of their fellow community members for granted. "Somebody else does it. Somebody else always sees to it." Pointing out, "Here, you are expected to go through your life with eyes open to what your fellow community members are doing for you. Here, you are expected to ask yourself how the people around you fit into the communal whole." is to raise their consciousness, in a quite radical way. It is to ask them to become aware of the dynamics of their group, of the group's health and functioning, in a way a passive absorber of a group's services never is.

[jducoeur]

Yep. I just have to be careful of how I present things here -- there's a delicate line between teaching people the messy realities underlying the system, and driving them to write it off entirely.

(That said, I do like the community-responsibility approach you imply here...)

[hfcougar.livejournal.com]

Borough, barony, kingdom... Just as a heads up, Liam is doing an "SCA Geography 101" class of some sort.

[jducoeur]

Okay, good -- another topic I can mostly gloss, then. Thanks...