Announcement : Re-enactment of moratorium on new apprenticeships

The Degree Scheme
The Degree Scheme helps individuals develop their understanding of their Jedi path. There are three separate levels of Degree:
Associate Degree of Divinity (A.Div) - required for Knight rank
Bachelor Degree of Divinity (B.Div) - required for Senior Knight rank
Doctorate Degree of Divinity (D.Div) - honourary
The Degree is not accredited.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/faq#Degree

Getting the points for knighthood... A.Div
This is how it has always been.
And still is according to FAQ

Hello There

(....General Kenobi, sorry couldn't resist)

The FAQ will be updated once the new system is in place

Wescli, we haven’t had the chance to update the FAQyet. We will get one of the librarians to do so soon so that there will be less confusion….espically for new people comming in the door.

Wescli Wardest wrote:

The Degree Scheme
The Degree Scheme helps individuals develop their understanding of their Jedi path. There are three separate levels of Degree:
Associate Degree of Divinity (A.Div) - required for Knight rank
Bachelor Degree of Divinity (B.Div) - required for Senior Knight rank
Doctorate Degree of Divinity (D.Div) - honourary
The Degree is not accredited.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/faq#Degree

Getting the points for knighthood... A.Div
This is how it has always been.
And still is according to FAQ

Not always. In its early stages the dqs was only available to knights. Knights being able to a) teach, b) create lessons that count in the dqs on an individual basis and c) control how or how far the student has gone on the dqs, were temporary measures.

Wescli Wardest wrote:

The Degree Scheme
The Degree Scheme helps individuals develop their understanding of their Jedi path. There are three separate levels of Degree:
Associate Degree of Divinity (A.Div) - required for Knight rank
Bachelor Degree of Divinity (B.Div) - required for Senior Knight rank
Doctorate Degree of Divinity (D.Div) - honourary
The Degree is not accredited.

https://www.templeofthejediorder.org/faq#Degree

Getting the points for knighthood... A.Div
This is how it has always been.
And still is according to FAQ

Besides, the FAQ is just a group of answers to questions that may have been frequently asked at some juncture, but may no longer be. Or they may be. It may need an update, but even then it is merely a group of answers to some questions. It is not a governing document. Some of those answers may go from being mostly right to not very accurate. It is generally practice (what actually goes on in the TotJO), not legislation of any sort, that lets us realise that the FAQ needs an update.

And since it is not a governing document - that is, a FAQ doesn't have an organisational nor a judicial value - then we may not get around to changing not very accurate answers as often as we ought.

The only part of it that has anything to do with "rules" is the Temple Policies section, and we can change even those should we find good cause to do so. Furthermore, "how it has always been" is not a divine injunction for them to remain that way forever...

I personally have never used DQS points in a very serious way and yet my learners have done quite well. Most of them are no longer here and I cannot help thinking sometimes that had things changed from "how it has always been," they might have been with us longer. Who knows ... ?

OK well that sounds great in writing but what about for example my apprentice who has been under me for two or more years? Which by the way I petition to have him knighted because I feel he has met my prerequisites prior to this but I have been denied multiple times. Those involved need to PM me and explain this because I’ve been on a sabbatical for a while to retrain my own self as being a better master because I’ve been told I am not in that my teaching is unorthodox. Somebody needs to give me some answers please I’m not angry but I will be submissive whatever the decision is but we need to come up with some sort of deal for my apprentice I think he deserves to be knighted

I pmd you eleven.

Zero wrote: River hit the nail on the head. This has nothing to do with making people knights. This is about wrapping up where you are at on the degree scheme. And if you consider 8.5 months worth of focused training to be “rushed” then I’m not sure what to say. What I do know is that come December, anyone who is not ready to progress will be starting over with a specific set of lessons to earn which ever degree they are working on.

This is not about rushing people through knighthood. This Has nothing to do with making apprentices knights. This has to do with apprentices getting their adiv. That they need to become a knight. The lessons from the TM will no longer count for points. Dqs points twards degrees will only come from lessons in the dqs list.

This kind of sums up my current position on all of this and why there needs to be more clarity than there currently is. I will use myself as an example because I think it pretty perfectly encapsulates the issues as they stand.

I was mid-IP when the new IP was rolled out. I was contacted one evening and essentially told that unless I finished the lesson I was on before noon the next day, I was going to have to completely re-start the IP and would essentially waste a ton of work that had already been put into my IP. So I crammed in the work and got the lesson done nowhere near the way I would have done it if I had been allowed to do it at the pace I wanted to do it and the way I approached the IP up until that point.

Turns out it was fairly unnecessary because after a lot of discussion and drama and apparently fighting, the goal line was moved and it ended up not mattering and I ended up rushing a significant amount of work for no reason, and would not have rushed it if there had been more clarity, discussion, and forethought put in prior to the “deadline” being announced.

So I find myself again in a similar place with my apprenticeship. There is a deadline to “get it done or completely start over.” I 100% can complete the lessons I’m doing and cram it all over that finish line with tons of time to spare… if I refuse to do them to my own personal standard and instead just scrape by with as minimal work as possible. If I do things my way, the way I think they should be done, and the way that is best for me - I can pretty much guarantee that I won’t finish by the deadline.

And right now there is essentially zero clarity as to what missing that deadline means. The most positive view is that there will be an unknown number of extra, arbitrary hoops that I will have to jump through on top of everything I do or will have done by that point. The most negative view is that everything I do between now and December will just be wasted effort as it won’t actually count toward anything and I should have invested my time, energy, and education elsewhere.

The truth is likely somewhere between those two. I basically refuse to compromise my own approach to what I am learning, as it (from what I have seen) is far more thorough (and personal to me) than seems to be typical. The problem then lies in the lack of clarity on what will happen in December. Which is further complicated by the experience of what happened with the IP transition - I don’t have faith that there will be clarity in what will happen in December before December, at the very earliest.

Transition and overhaul are difficult. There is a huge runway in front of the Temple right now and it seems like there’s a long time to make sure the proverbial plane lands. The problem at the moment is that you currently have dozens of planes circling and waiting for direction from air traffic control, but the direction is currently “don’t worry about it, we have plenty of time.”

I know it’s easy for someone like me to say, “hey there needs to be more clarity and understanding.” But that doesn’t make it any less necessary. It can only benefit everyone to be able to see the road ahead of them. Right now we can’t. There’s just a vague wall over there somewhere. It would be really nice to know if I’m going to slam into it in December or what circumnavigating it is going to look like.

I agree that it is disconcerting not being able to plan at all. Is it worth continuing to focus on my current phase in the degree scheme, or should I take that energy and spend it on my officer duties? Of course I'll continue doing both personal learning and fulfilling my responsibilities regardless, but having some guidance about how this will shake out would help me determine where and how I can most efficiently and effectively use my time and energy.

Hopefully this clears things up for you ……if on the deadline, you are still an apprentice who has not earned an Adiv. Then you will have a bank placed infront of you of approximately 40 essays to earn your adiv as apprenticeship lessons will no longer count twards your adiv. Beginning on the deadline, you need all of your apprenticeship lessons, plus all 40 adiv lessons to be knighted.

We stopped new apprenticeships when we did so that everyone had time to wrap there’s up all at once. We didn’t want to try to convert points or look at who did what from the old way vrs the new way like e did with the new ip. Doing it like this means there will be no “new way” and no “old way”…only “the way”.

The deadline applies to knights as well. Currently knights can choose their own lessons for bdiv. That is changing to a lesson bank as well. If you don’t have your bdiv by December, you will have to complete the new bdiv lesson bank. Points will not cross…..it’s either get it done before then or start over. Again we’ve given you 9 months from the date of this announcement to get it done.