Child care and Education

Monsi do not feel a strong pull towards reproduction like other species might. Monsi used to form a mate pair and would work together to raise children. While safe and useful this method had limitations and led to a variety of different outcomes. Ultimately this practice went away. The modern way is for children to be born in a facility through donated specimens or mate pairs to transfer the child to the facility as soon as possible. This method has become so popular that it has become law, not to prohibit traditional burdens but to reward those who take advantage of it. It is the social norm now to not meet your children again until they are adults. The child care and education facilities are built in such a way that it is tedious to interact with them, this is meant to discourage corrupting young brains but most understand this is really to ensure the maintenance of their society. To the human reading this it may feel like the Monsi do not care for their children, for the majority this is true. Children are seen to slow down advancement and be a hinder to proper maintenance of society, so they are isolated and brought up with efficiency and careful guidance.

There are two important branches to this system; growth and care. The growth system is where embryos are turned into little Monsi. Babies will stay in these facilities until a Care facility is ready to accept them. It is rare that a baby stays in a Growth facility for longer than a year once born. The Growth facilities are one part incubation and one part nursery. Once a baby has outgrown the nursery, they have outgrown the Growth facility.

The Care facility is where a new Monsi will spend their entire life until they receive an advanced training placement later in life. Here full time staff see to the needs of each Monsi that lives here. A care facility contains a Class of Monsi, all brought in around the same time and will all move on at roughly the same time. The staff here work to ensure each Monsi lives to grow into their unique persons and help facilitate growth. In the Care facility Monsi will receive their basic education up to what Human Americans would consider a general studies college degree. In their free time Monsi are encouraged to try as many hobbies as they want, and in later years of development its made clear that what they enjoy doing here could be what they will do for their final work assignment.

Speaking of work assignment, Monsi are graded while in the Care facility. This grade is not known to the student and not meant to be a "pass or fail" but rather a way to figure out what they're best suited for. The two big scores are Aptitude and Attitude.

Aptitude is straight forward, what is the Monsi best at? It is the job of the staff to find skills for each Monsi that they are good enough at to be placed somewhere. Each skill gets its own Aptitude score and a general Aptitude score for overall IQ. What a Monsi likes doing and what they're best at may not overlap, it is the task of the Staff to help them so it does as final work placement weights Aptitude more than Desire, a lesser trait Monsi are scored on.

Attitude scores how well Monsi behave in accordance with current and expected social norms. Now is a good time to remind Humans that Monsi do not die naturally and therefore have much longer standing norms than Humans do. The boom bust cycles of fashion trends takes places over centuries , not decades, and a Monsi is expected to leave the Care facility around their 20th year. In large part the Attitude tests are meant to determine how well adjusted a Monsi may be, weeding out bad eggs. An example could be something like this:

Staff: "Have you ever thought about taking something from another classmate, staff, or person we visited?

Monsi: "Hmm? I'm not sure what you mean. Like take things they were using? No, why?"

We Humans know the Staff was asking if the Monsi had ever considered stealing, but since Monsi culture removed the concept of private property the Monsi was confused as to why they'd take something someone was using. To a Monsi, something is either in use and therefore shouldn't be used by you, or not in use and available for use elsewhere so long as someone wont need it soon and expecting it in that location. You and I can see the issues here, but if you brute force this mindset onto people, then indoctrinate the young, it may just stick. The Classes are quite secluded and go on trips outside the Care Facility infrequently to hold this indoctrination, but in the real world people just don't talk about property ownership. No one will stop you if you take a pen off their desk because they know they have no right to that pen, they may feel slighted because they will have to go find another or you may feel like you got away with something. These feelings fade with time and comfort ability with the concept. Back to the Monsi's response, any deviation from this is noted and they'll be counciled later. Not obviously, they never are, but through subconscious training. Specific things in their media algorithms, seeded conversations. Stuff like that.

Between these two major scores, and with their Desire list in mind, a Monsi is eventually placed for Advanced Training. In Advanced training they will leave the Care Facility and go to some sort of school where they will be placed with new Monsi from different Care facilities but now all going towards the same work task. Monsi who have high Attitude scores will be placed in more public facing or high trust positions while those with lower scores will be placed further away from the public eye and their industry will be regulated in such a way to prevent bad things from happening. It is rare that a Monsi will get what they want as their assignment. The assignment is ultimately picked by AI so what Monsi are told is that the AI knows you better than you do and thinks you'll like this better, or the more honest truth, society needs this more than that, but you'll get moved there if there is ever an opening. That's not a lie, Monsi can be moved later but priority goes to Monsi who have already well served in their current station and want to give something else a try.

Depending on the final Tasks a Monsi is slated to do they may go to Advanced School for only a year or maybe as many as 30 years, or secondary Advanced schools for industries that have a lot of sub-industries. For example a Monsi may start in Advanced IT school, then later be moved to Systems Engineering, then Programing, before finally going to school to learn how to build new computers from first principles.

I mentioned it briefly so let me elaborate. Each Care Facility has an AI that runs throughout the entire building. Each building in turn works with the City AI, so on and so forth until the entire society is connected via AI. Modern AI has a bad taste, but this AI is genuinely helpful and acts as a mentor or guide. It connects logistics of both people and things. Each Monsi's home or quarters in Care each have an AI terminal that can be interacted with via physical manipulation keyboard, mouse or speech, or cybernetic implant. This AI is how one interacts with the city. Want to change the look of your walls, ask the AI, it will order the parts and labor, work with your schedule and get it completed all with minimal or no input on your part. Want to travel to another planet? Ask your AI, it will look at your schedule and build out which public transports you'll need and when, when you leave you'll get real time updates on any changes. Does that spot on your arm look weird? The AI may already know its a cancer and have scheduled the surgery and didn't tell you as to not alarm you, or maybe it was wrong and takes a second look at your prompt then ensures you its a mole but schedules an appointment for an expert to look just in case. Are you a small child and want to learn how the Sun warms the planet? Ask the AI and get a mini-lecture on the Sun. The important part about this AI is twofold. First it's actually useful and tied into everything, with privacy as a default mind you, this is fantasy we can have our cake and eat it. Secondly its personality is the same, but adaptive, for everyone. You wouldn't talk to your homies the same way you'd talk to your mother, or your professor, or the janitor. The AI doesn't manifest the same way to everyone, while retaining its own uniqueness about it.