A few days after the Scrabble game was added to the classroom and the first tournament was announced, Iris sat at the dining table with her family. Tonight's dinner was blackened fish with steamed peas and carrots. Everyone made small talk as they ate, mostly just enjoying each other's company. As usual, most of the conversation was directed towards Iris as she was the main thing tying their family together. However, occasionally, the others would ask about a project the other was working on or something related to city management.

However, towards the end of the dinner, Fern cleared his throat and announced

"The students in my class are making a lot more progress than before. Almost all of them have shown improvement, but I think one or two of them may still need to retake the class as they were just too far behind to catch up. Since there are only a few short weeks left until the rainy season, it is too little time."

Basil nodded before replying

"Well, three months is, honestly, not much time to start with. If it was possible, it would be nice if we could offer six-month-long classes to teach this sort of thing. Ember needed extra help, even into the cold season, when we learned. Even then, most of us still needed more time to practice using the knowledge we learned. It sounds like you're doing quite well with teaching the classes if things are going this well."

Iris smiled as she reassured

"I agree, you're doing a good job, Fern. In my old world, we, generally, had children start learning from a young age and then they would start small, building onto their knowledge as years passed. They also often had classes for half the daytime hours and then returned home with the intention for them to study with their parents' help or, later, by themselves. I don't know what it is like in the Golden Plains City when they teach people these things, but I doubt they are doing a crash course either.

I think it might be good for you to consider having two classes a day once the rainy season starts. Maybe have one at sunset, when most people get off work, as your primary class and then one at sunrise for those who may just need some more individual help and to finish learning what they started. You might want to also teach six days with two of those being test days. Most people won't have a ton of extra time after running their family's shops or working for us. While we plan to reduce the number of job positions again for the rainy season since people will need more free time and want to explore other options, it's still best to plan around what is realistic for them.

I think it might also be a good idea to start offering six-month-long classes starting next cold season, but have only one class at a time. Since Basil, previously, offered to help hold classes for three seasons, we should be able to complete the quest on time. However, we won't have to be in so much of a rush after that. The ten percent of the population who have been educated can either teach the others or they can be patient and wait until a position in a class becomes available."

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Ash decided to interject

"That doesn't sound like an entirely terrible plan. Those who I've met from the Golden Plains City tend to be pretty quiet about the details, but I know they also tend to have to plan to be gone for a few years at a time. It takes a while to travel there and then they have to be proficient enough to represent the city, so they are expected to train diligently, only taking time away from their studies to take care of their basic needs. They also aren't allowed to train anyone else on anything they've learned without getting written permission from their king."

Iris looked curiously at Ash and asked

"That makes it sound like that isn't how you learned. How come you know how to read then?"

Ash tilted his head to the side, furrowing his eyebrows in confusion before a look of understanding crossed his face. He then replied

"I sometimes forget that your city is different from mine and none of you learned the traditional way. As Red Wood City has been an established city for generations, we were, eventually, taken seriously by the royalty of Golden Plains City. As such, they tend to send someone out to teach those born into positions of royalty in our city. It's, apparently, been the same male for generations and they tend to come to our city for a few years to teach the youngest generation. Then they return home for a decade before coming back to the city to teach again. Since I'm nearly thirty years old, I've been eligible to learn for fifteen years and was, naturally, able to learn."

Iris frowned at that before saying

"I hope they don't just send someone over without asking. I don't particularly want to have to get into some sort of disagreement because we don't need their services. I don't exactly want them to be sticking their nose where it doesn't belong either."

Ash looked thoughtful before replying

"Well, it's been a few generations since we had to deal with it. However, if they don't send notice via the Golden Tradesmen first, I'm sure you can always politely decline in person. You would still have to be diplomatic about it, but there isn't really a reasonable excuse for them to force it on us."

That gave Iris a lot to think about, but, overall, she felt much better about everything. It was good that those making the classes were successfully learning the content. While she could, technically, make do without knowing how to read, write, and do math, she really preferred to retain her knowledge. She kind of doubted the system would let her just relearn the knowledge, it was more likely that it would be a rather permanent punishment that she'd never stop suffering from and she just didn't want that.