I’m pretty sure the yaks arrogance was never linked to racism and Yona herself was never portrayed as such so no real growth there.

Except the Mane 6 have done so on multiple occasions.

But nothing cultural was expanded upon through the students, with Spikes molt being the exception.

Besides Brain pony, Twilight took to her responsibilities as a teacher with no issues whatsoever.

Rainbow failed Scootaloo miserably by, intead of letting her branch out and achieve her own dreams and desires in a safer manner, perpetuating her idol worship and a false hope.

And if you’re talking about the episode where Rarity and Dash’s friendship “ended”, I can barely remember it.

Firstly, Rarity was the one who thought of the school. It was never something Twilight longed to do. Twilight was looking at the map and talking about all the new places and people now open to them and then Rarity immediatley is like “Make a school!”. It was a big jump in logic that really needed a few more connecting pieces.

Secondly, Twilight’s entire character arc started with her being told literally that Friendship wasn’t something that could be studied or taught but *something that had to be experienced first hand. Twilight’s character arc and the school setting conflict themetically. If you want a more accurately thematic setting than what Twilight should have done is create a Library of Friendship. She had the right idea when publishing the Friendship Journal. She would have all the information people would need, but it would be up to them to learn and utilize it on their own. Friendship was always, until now, something that could be guided but never directly taught. There is nothing wrong with Twilight having pupils, but a full on traditionally functioning school makes no logical sense given the lessons Twilight had to learn from the start. Also, thinking about it long term, the school feels more like a church teaching a religion rather than a school teaching a skill. All it would do is create a never ending increasing number of “Friendship teachers” that the world really only needs so many of.

Well no. Each of the other species is characterized in a certain way, and the personalities of The Student Six are determined by how they follow or don’t follow that characterization. A good example is Yona. Yaks are characterized as arrogant creatures who solve their problems by smashing. So Yona being able to look up to a non-yak represents major growth for her as a character.

Given that it’s a show about friendship, you don’t really want a single character holding up an entire episode in the first place.

What about “Surf and/or Turf”? We learn plenty about the other cultures through The Student Six.

We got to see how Rainbow and Twilight tackle positions with tangible responsibility. We got to see Rainbow and Rarity use some new skills.

Leadership and knowledge are important aspects of Twilight’s character, so it makes sense that she would open a school. Every episode ends with a lesson, so thematically, a school makes sense as a setting. While making the rest of The Mane Six teachers doesn’t make a lot of sense from a character perspective, it does make sense from the perspective of there being a Mane Six in the first place. The Mane Six have all achieved their goals, and should have realistically gone their separate ways by now. By making them teachers, it gives them a functional reason to stay together, it presents them with new challenges, and it symbolically cements their maturity, as they transition from being learners to being teachers.

What exactly is this core message that’s being spit on?

But that is not the students problem. Their problem is that each of their personalities are determined by what they mean for the group instead of being their own individual characters.

None of them are able to hold an entire episode on their own.

This one episode has the example on what this season should have been. Going to new locations and learning about different creatures and their cultures.

Maybe this exposure would allow for the Mane 6’s characters to expand and grow?

But nope. Gotta once again sweep the main characters under the rug in order to focus on another new set of barely developed characters that are placed in the most boring and cliche setting for a cartoon.

Let’s face it, the school was contrived af and pretty much spits in the face on one of the core messages of the show.