The Elements of Friendship, Thursday, Period 3

[locointhecoco]

When the students arrived at the Danger Shop, today, they'd find themselves at a quaint little cider stand outside of an equally quaint little apple orchard. Above the stand was a sign with hearts and apples and horseshoes all over it, and all around the sign were empty barrels. Pinkie stood in front of the stand and looked up as the students approached, shaking her head sadly.

"Sorry, everypony. The Apple family is all out of cider for the day. It's always in high demand, because they make really really really really really amazingly good cider, in small batches so they can make sure everything's just right! But that also means that they run out, usually before everypony has managed to get some. Still, that's the way the cider barrel empties! But don't worry, because --"

Pinkie's cheerful reassurance was interrupted by ( the sound of chugging and clanking )

"Well, there you have it," she said, as the song finished. "You guys can either fork over some cash to Flim and Flam here for their machine's cider, or give me and the Apple family a hand in making some more cider of our own! What'll it be? Shiny new process where anything could go wrong, or the tried and true method of working really hard for a satisfying product? You guys decide!"

That's right, for today's class, Pinkie was attempting to teach about the pitfalls of industrialization of food preparation. With about the subtlety of a falling piano.

[ooc: OCD is up. Come and get it!]

Library, Thursday [03/01]

[selfhelphero]

After spending the week watching movies in most of his classes, Billy decided to look at what movies were available in the library, and discovered that someone had gone through and rearranged a lot of the DVDs into what categories they thought the movies belonged in, and not where they really went. He wished Space Battles was historical fiction too, but he felt it was his job to put everything back where it belonged nonetheless.

[OCD-free today, considering how long it took me to write this.]

Ethics [Thursday, March 1, 2012 1st period]

[sith_happened]

"Welcome back from your break," Anakin said, striding to the front of the class--where the students' desks had been pushed against the walls--to lean against the blackboard. "Today we move away from Kant and onto an American philosopher named John Rawls. He's a more modern philosopher, and the main tenet of Rawlsianism is that most reasonable principles of justice are those everyone would accept and agree to from a fair position. The question, naturally, then turns into 'what is a fair position' and his use of something called the 'veil of ignorance' that magically makes everyone unaware of their positions in society in order to determine if something is fair or not."

He pushed off of the wall and paced down the center of the room. "Rawls also argues that even meritocracy—a distributive system that rewards effort—doesn’t go far enough in leveling the playing field because those who are naturally gifted will always get ahead. Furthermore, says Rawls, the naturally gifted can’t claim much credit because their success often depends on factors as arbitrary as birth order or how you were raised as a child."

He waved his hand, indicating the students should form a line in the center of the classroom. "Today we'll conduct a little experiment in demonstrating privilege. Afterwards, I want you to discuss if such things matter in Fandom like they do back in your home universes, and if not, why not."

He reached for a piece of paper. "Let's begin."

Superheroing 101, Thursday, Period 4

[electrocynic]

This week, Electroclash met the class outside the Danger Shop. "Right," she said, glancing up from the magazine she was flipping through, once they'd all assembled. "Here's how we're gonna start the class today: you're gonna go in one by one and do a simulation rescue or fight. It's child's play, you can't fail, but it's important we do this." How she said any of that with a straight face, she'd never know. She pointed to a random student. "You first."

There were several moddable scenarios for th students to stumble into, ranging all the way from saving someone from a building on fire (that one included, for some reason, a man in a red and black costume standing outside the building yelling out "It wasn't my fault, honest!") to taking down a super villain in their gadget-filled lair. And, of course, Electroclash had lied about it being easy. All the sims seemed to be easy, at first. In fact, they were designed in a way that made the students start feeling confident about being successful. They were allowed to get within about a minute of actually saving the civilian or capturing the villain: victory was almost in their grasp!

... Until right at the last moment, Excelsor came swooping in and saving the day right from under the student's nose, probably insulting him or her for good measure befre making his exit with their civilian/villain/dignity.

So that might've explained Electroclash's slightly smug look of amusement once the sims were done and she led them all back into the Danger Shop, now just a regular classroom. "So, before the break," she said, leaning against the desk up front, "I told you we were gonna be moving into looking at superhero problems. Now you should know that one of the major problems for superheroes is other superheroes." Yup. "You may think you're special, but there are shitloads of other equally special people out there, and some of them are pricks who will let you do the work and then come in and snatch your glory. Like you've just seen."

And she was pretty proud of that simulation, actually. Looked it, too.

"So now, we're gonna talk about how to deal with that, the competition thing. The SPA says you should just accept it and be glad that the heroic act got done at all, but I think that's a load of old bollocks. What do you think?"

[OCD up!]

Leadership, Friday, 3rd Period

[emoclops.livejournal.com]

"Let me tell you about a guy named Logan," Scott said, standing next to a table in the middle of a fake park again. That's right, Danger Shop day. "No relation to Rebecca. But this Logan is a surly guy, constantly drinking, smells like a cigar bar around the clock, even when he hasn't smoked all day. Terrible manners, tries to pick up other people's fiancees, easily the most violent person I've ever met, absolutely no respect for authority whatsoever."

"If I'm being completely honest, whenever I'm with him, I want to punch him," Scott said. "But I don't do it. At least not yet."

"That's how you deal with interpersonal conflict in a nutshell. Because, let's be honest, any kind of team you're on, somebody's going to rub you the wrong way. And if you're leading a team, that person may very well be opposed to the very idea of working with you. But you have a job to do and, frankly, an example to set for the rest of your teammates."

"You can get through some of it with discussion and trying to come to terms with each other. Sometimes there's just no way you can possibly work with each other and can't stop fighting. Most of the time, you can find a middle ground," Scott said. "Like I said, I always want to punch Logan. But I have to grudgingly admit that he's one of the first people from my last school I'd call if I really needed help." After the rest of the faculty. Several of the students. The professor, obviously. Jean's corpse. Magneto (maybe).

"So, in a change of pace, not only am I going to let you pick your own partners, but I encourage you to pick somebody you don't really see eye to eye with. Take a few minutes, come to terms with each other, and then we're going to do a water balloon relay game. More on that in a couple minutes."

"First, find a partner. Preferably one you don't get along with!"

The 'don't punch them' warning was implied.