Kalim and Studying

Cater says that before Kalim became housewarden Scarabia was always “neck-and-neck” in the academic rankings with Octavinelle, but in Book 4 we learn that Scarabia collectively scored at the bottom of exams and placed last in a Spelldrive tournament (Kalim describes himself as “a pretty lousy housewarden” for his leadership resulting in such a change).

It was just after this that Jamil started brain-washing Kalim into more tyrannical behavior, so it is possible that the dorm’s overall poor performance was the final straw for Jamil.

We get many examples of Kalim struggling with his studies: Silver says that Kalim “often fails his lab exercises” and Kalim says that his experiments “generally don’t succeed” despite his love for alchemy and potionology.

He says that he is “bad at some subjects” but doesn’t hate any, that PE isn’t his worst subject, and in his profile “musicology” is listed as his best.

Kalim often references falling asleep when he starts thinking too hard, during tutoring sessions and during memorization, which might explain why he is impressed by the word “treasury.”

When Kalim mentions trying to improve his sensory abilities to pick up on curses more effectively Jamil says that he is “not exactly sensitive to start with” and mastering such a skill seems a bit out of Kalim’s reach, while in Phantom Bride he mentions being in the middle of studying with Azul and Riddle and they correct him with, “What you mean is, YOU were getting help from US, Kalim.”

Jamil often helps Kalim with his school assignments. When Kalim explodes the Scarabia Dorm kitchen during an alchemy experiment Jamil asks if he read the textbook and Kalim responds, “I wanted to make a wholly unique creation!” because diamonds “dug up the old-fashioned way” are “a far sight more impressive” than diamonds crafted through alchemy.

When held after class for breaking beakers in potionology (Kalim’s beaker-breaking is also referenced in Jade’s second birthday vignette), rather than study from a textbook for a remedial assignment he calls for Jamil to teach him, despite Silver’s protests. Kalim tries to emulate Crewel’s potion-making while Jamil explains, “he’s a PROFESSOR…not a boy in danger of losing his class credit.”

Kalim decides to help Silver with the assignment by making him a wake-up potion (saying that Jamil is always making them for him for housewarden meetings) and then asks if there isn’t a workaround for the task, while Jamil insists that potionology is not “the fast and loose science” that Kalim seems to think it is.

In Floyd’s dorm vignette it is revealed sometimes Jamil will sometimes do entire assignments for Kalim: Jamil explains to Floyd that he will have to skip basketball club practice because Kalim forgot to do his alchemy class homework.

Kalim says, “But you’re so good at alchemy, Jamil!”, but the assignment is for an essay analyzing a week’s worth of experimental data. Jamil explains, “I can do the workbook section for you, but you failed to do the experiment”, but he is determined to help because he cannot let Kalim get a failing grade.

The problem is solved when Floyd provides them with Riddle’s alchemy notebook for Jamil to use for Kalim’s assignment possibly explaining why Kalim performs so poorly in potionology classes. Kalim is quick to assure students such as Riddle, Leona and the prefect that they can depend on him.