Pony Express: Friendship is Cultural Exchange! Wednesday, period 1

[locointhecoco]

"So we've seen a nice sized town," Pinkie said without so much as a 'howdy' for prologue, clearly anxious to get the class through the portal and into the land of ponies once again. "And we've seen a big city. Today I'm going to take you to a teeny tiny frontier town, settled by my friend Applejack's very extended Apple family!" She led the way through the portal into a dusty street in a fairly stereotypically wild west sort of desert town, complete with tumbleweeds and boardwalks and flapping saloon doors.

So, just to be clear, week one had involved a quaint sort of English village sort of place, week two was a bustling modern city, and week three was the wild west. And no, this class didn't involve time travel.

Pinkie waved excitedly as a pony wearing a vest and a cowboy hat (because herding was, in fact, a legit pony career path!) came trotting up. "Hiya, Braeburn!" Pinkie greeted. Braeburn doffed his hat and bowed a little.

"Well howdy, Pinkie! Pinkie's class! Welcome to Appleloosa, one of Equestria's premiere apple-farmin' communities!"

"And home of the very first pony-buffalo peace treaty!" Pinkie enthused. "Helped along just a little by the musical stylings of yooooours truly."

"Er," said Braeburn. "Sure."

"You see," Pinkie continued. "When my friends and I first came out to visit the Appleloosans, bringing along a new tree for their orchard, we were actually attacked by the local buffalo tribe before we could get here! It turned out that the buffalo were upset at the Appleloosans for setting up their apple orchard right in the middle of traditional buffalo stampeding grounds."

That's right, kids. You were in for a doozy of a colonialist metaphor.

"Fortunately, with the help of all of us from Ponyville and some deeeelicious apple pie, we were able to convince the ponies and buffalo that they should share the land equally, by building a stampeding path through the orchard. So now the ponies and the buffalo are bestest friends!"

Braeburn looked faintly uncomfortable. "Uh," he said. "Yeah, that sure is how that happened." He doffed his hat again to wipe sweat from his brow. "Chief Thunderhooves and his tribe come through every now and then through the orchard, and we make sure to have plenty of pies for 'em when they do."

"And every year on the anniversary of the treaty ponies and buffalo get together for a celebratory feast!" Pinkie said. "And an even more celebratory pie fight!"

"Wha --" Braeburn started, but was interrupted by a pie to the face.

"Eee!"

Ethics, Wednesday

[saddeserthermit]

Today the desks were shoved against the walls (and two guesses about how that had happened and "actually pushing things with their hands" wasn't the answer), with a giant piece of masking tape down the center of the room.

"We're talking about privilege this morning," Anakin began.

"When speaking of ethics, it can be highly valuable to be aware of which platform you are speaking from," Obi-Wan continued. "There are issues we might not be able to speak of with full understanding, or issues we might understand better than those we are speaking of, based on how much privilege we had growing up. And these privileges may well be smaller, and yet more significant, than you think."

"In a school like this one, especially, what you might think of as universal experiences--space flight, for instance, or unlimited amounts of water--can be unfathomable fantasies to the student next to you," Anakin said. "We've tried to come up with examples to be as helpful as possible in this exercise, which is not intended to make any of you feel better or worse than the other beings in this class. It's intended to remind you to reflect on your own worldview and how that affects your reactions to things."

Like, say, if you grew up on a slave planet with a kill-button implanted in the back of your neck, you might be a little prickly and homicidal as an adult.

"So please step forward and stand on the indicated line, where we will also be joining you," Obi-Wan said, gesturing at the floor. "We will read a number of statements, and whether you should take a step forward or a step back if it is true."

Anakin stepped onto the line, jaw set. This wasn't exactly his favorite exercise.