The Arcane Prophecy answers my disdain for public schooling
The Arcane Prophecy came with one major caveat despite its pro-market and anti-public schooling themes. Still, the message hits home.
For this book to work, my protagonist, Yote Diamondback, ironically had to attend a private school before venturing to Arcane, an umbrella academy with 32 schools in a fierce perpetual competition for students.
If the message was a crusade against public school, then why bother sending Yote to a private school? Easy. Her parents were more than just rich; they were among the elite class. That meant Yote and her sister, Jett, weren’t going to public school, even if Mom and Dad were public school advocates.
Still, it worked, because many of your mainstream private schools follow the traditional model as local public schools. Heck, if you take away school uniforms for the former, you can barely tell them apart. At least that’s the case in my neck of the woods.
How I fit my disdain for public schools in The Arcane Prophecy
Early in the book, Jett mocks public schools. And while I don’t disagree with her, the punchline is that Dad sounds like he’s a public school apologist, despite sending Yote and Jett to private schools and forgoing the public school.
Check out Jett’s reaction below
“Wow,” Jett whispered, the acceptance letter falling from her hand and onto the floor of their SUV.
Wow indeed, thought Yote. The first buildings looked like someone constructed them from marble, and the glimmer reflecting off their siding implied that this campus wouldn’t need any special street lighting. It was as if these structures cast mysterious auras that would illuminate the same metallic cement pathways snaking through the place.
“It’s what happens when you only attract the best and most successful people.” Dad slowed the SUV as he drove past students taking summer classes sitting and studying under lush oak trees, while others walked across the thick, emerald lawns in packs.
“If only those in public schools saw this.” Jett cast a mesmerized gaze at the tallest building in the center of campus. “I doubt they’d stay in school long.”
“Now, now, they’re well-funded these days. But I’ll concede that the buildings aren’t as pristine, nor are the schools. Well, I’ll also say that if you have Lamerth on your resume as opposed to Public School X, or whatever, universities like Oakleaf and Paramount are more likely to accept you.”
Jett scoffed. “Yeah, they’re funded oh so well. Is that why we see an aging building with an annex complex that looks like a barn when we drive past the one on our way to the farmer’s markets with Benedict?”
“Well, Jett.” Dad peered into the rearview and smiled. “Some of those schools do mighty well in getting kids employed, enrolled, and enlisted.” He pulled the SUV toward the student center and parallel parked into one of the tightest-knit spots Yote had seen.
That last part came from Yours Truly’s old high school
Every year, my parents still get one of those cheap paper calendars from my old high school. I’ll venture over there a few times a month, and every August, I know it’s hiding somewhere in either a junk drawer or buried under some bills on a countertop.
In both 2024 and 2025, the good old “employment, enlistment, enrollment” mission statement or whatever you want to call it is bold-faced, and front-and-center. To the untrained eye, and they expect eyes to be untrained, this might look like a positive statement, until you realize that the word ‘entrepreneurship’ is nowhere to be seen.
While there have been entrepreneurs who’ve come out of that old high school, myself included, most aren’t looking to run freedom-based businesses. Nah, almost every last one of them is by the textbook, and don’t zero in on creativity, or ways to break free from the State’s everlasting stranglehold over most frontiers.
Clearly, Yote and Jett’s dad, Zane Diamondback, is cool with that. Ironic, because not long after, he sends Yote to Arcane, where freedom-based entrepreneurship is the truth, way, and mission for all teachers to share with their incoming students.
Why send Yote to Arcane in the first place?
In the scene depicted above, Jett is heading to Lamerth, yet another private Elemental academy that’s believed to be the best for Elementals in the fictional nation of Etharia.
Yote’s heading to Arcane because Lamerth, which boasts a curriculum that’s not much different from traditional schooling, well, rejected her shortly after she applied while Jett got accepted.
So, Arcane was the perfect way for Yote to gain some seasoning, even if the place’s 32-school system and non-traditional approach to learning contradicted Zane Diamondback’s view of schooling. Hell, in the real world, it would contradict most parents’ views of schooling thanks to years of cognitive conditioning of what school is supposed to look like.
But this wouldn’t be a very good story if I shoved down your throat of why Arcane rocks while talking about how public schools and their traditional private school counterparts suck. No, something bigger is at play here, and it’s why Yote’s at Arcane. That’s the cryptic clue you’re getting.
And if you want to dig deeper, then why not read more from that sample I shared earlier? It comprises the first three chapters of The Arcane Prophecy, and you might just catch another hint.
