StarLight Glimmer's Equality And The American School System

[Denim&Venöm 20,471]

While watching the episode, I just realized that the motivations Starlight uses for equality that she continually repeats on the intercom, are to a degree the same things that schools in the U.S. strive for. Sure there's personally excelling in grades, but that is it. Schools want kids to be equal in all other respects. Be regimented by age. All be grouped in classrooms, rather than individualized education. All have a similar dress code, don't wear anything too flashy or personal. They're all assigned to be someplace specific at a specific time, no room to walk about freely. Getting rid of the differences between kids so that there is less conflict, harassment and bullying. Having little a say in what you want to learn. A focus more on broad systematic knowledge rather than developmenting skill and discovering personal talent. A high conformist environment.  And in the case of private schools and gender segregated schools, both of which have uniforms, the shows message of equality and sameness are more prevalent, as well as effective. 

 

Am I the only one seeing this? Are schools to a degree aiming for Starlight's message on equality & conformity? And doesn't this message contradict what the show is trying to teach children who maybe future, current or even past students?

 

 

[Aidan OGain 112]

Cool idea! I think certain aspects of the factory model for school is getting old. However, there are essential skills everyone needs. And yes, a degree of school culture needs to be about learning to respect differences, not remove them. Though, as Starlight Glimmer knows, getting people to have even more pronounced differences and still get along is harder than removing the differences.

[Overdrive 5,366]

While watching the episode, I just realized that the motivations Starlight uses for equality that she continually repeats on the intercom, are to a degree the same things that schools in the U.S. strive for. Sure there's personally excelling in grades, but that is it. Schools want kids to be equal in all other respects. Be regimented by age. All be grouped in classrooms, rather than individualized education. All have a similar dress code, don't wear anything too flashy or personal. They're all assigned to be someplace specific at a specific time, no room to walk about freely. Getting rid of the differences between kids so that there is less conflict, harassment and bullying. Having little a say in what you want to learn. A focus more on broad systematic knowledge rather than developmenting skill and discovering personal talent. A high conformist environment.  And in the case of private schools and gender segregated schools, both of which have uniforms, the shows message of equality and sameness are more prevalent, as well as effective. 

 

Am I the only one seeing this? Are schools to a degree aiming for Starlight's message on equality & conformity? And doesn't this message contradict what the show is trying to teach children who maybe future, current or even past students?

You're also discussing borderline Communism here. While there are valid points, at some point it will backfire.

[Zoraxe 546]

The United States a conformist society? To a degree yes, but most countries don't just have dress codes for students, they have uniforms. (some of the Japanese fans have posted that this latest episode was like a satire of Japan, with their love of uniforms, and group togetherness, and collectivist ideals). The US is the most individualistic society I can think of, in fact we seem to have a 'the individual is more important than the group' mindset at times.

Edited April 6, 2015 by Zoraxe

[Malinter 3,064]

Starlight Glimmer is a manipulator, she doesn't want equality at all. She wants friends but thinks friendship is a thing that you can literally keep on a shelf to use when you want.

 

Even Trixie had more sense to see what she was doing as wrong and she had had her mind warped by the alicorn amulet. Starlight is so self absorbed that she cannot. 

[Nature's Spell 526]

Starlight Glimmer is a manipulator, she doesn't want equality at all. She wants friends but thinks friendship is a thing that you can literally keep on a shelf to use when you want.

 

Even Trixie had more sense to see what she was doing as wrong and she had had her mind warped by the alicorn amulet. Starlight is so self absorbed that she cannot.

Exactly. She's dead wrong. She was the perfect example of do what I want, but not as I'm really doing. She was harvesting cutie marks and was nothing more than a con artist.

[Honsou 399]

I think the American drive for equality stems more from lessons learned such as the Civil war over states rights, and the women and African American movements of the 20th century. There will never be a such thing as true equality in the United States, not when we have people like the Kardassians who are famous for no reason, and Kanye who thinks he is god among us peons.

[Justin_Case001 4,934]

This is an interesting idea, but a bit of a stretch, imo.  American schools don't attempt to break you with propaganda, imprisoning you until you agree and the like.  It's not a cult.  I think that conformity in schools is just an unfortunate byproduct of overpopulation.  There's just too many kids to give them much freedom or individual attention and things like that.  But I don't think schools really discourage individuality once you're out of school.  You just kind of have to wait until school is over to really start your life.  I guess that's my take on it.  I mean, for instance, I confromed to a ridiculous degree to get through school in one piece, but now I dare to be different.  It's not like school broke me.

[Dawning Demon 952]

Starlight Glimmers brainwash thingy always reminds me of the announcements made in Bioshock.

[Denim&Venöm 20,471]

The United States a conformist society? To a degree yes, but most countries don't just have dress codes for students, they have uniforms. (some of the Japanese fans have posted that this latest episode was like a satire of Japan, with their love of uniforms, and group togetherness, and collectivist ideals). The US is the most individualistic society I can think of, in fact we seem to have a 'the individual is more important than the group' mindset at times.

That I do agree, which is why I think the current school model seems so out of place and why kids these days resent being forced to go. You're told to be unique, to be a proud individual, yet schools do nothing to support this, even frown on it for the sake of order, and try to curb its growth. Encouragement and expression of self for children and adolescents seem to be supported by everyone but the academic institutions, where children & young adults spend the majority of their lives. 

[Suukorak 354]

I definitely see your point here. I don't think it's intentional either way (schools don't try to force conformity, and the show isn't talking about schools in particular), but I see where you're going. I've never personally had any problems with being forced to conform at school, but that's probably because my type of uniqueness is the "right" kind for school. Whatever their intentions, the messages carried by school and MLP do contradict each other, and for good reason: in short, the schools are wrong. Their practices are built on practical considerations and a bit of tradition. The ideal of individualism, which we still claim to value, quite clearly supports the episode's conclusions.

I don't want to dig deeply into the politics of schools (at least, not this moment), but I hope that people will take more notice of this and eventually change the schools to encourage individualism - that is, if we still really do believe in it.

[Zoraxe 546]

I really don't see how American schools discourage individuality, at least not compared to other countries schools. We can't get rid of class rooms. There isn't uniforms here, we can wear our interests on our sleeves. Seriously, there were some students from my school that wore Naruto headbands to school.

 

And then in the working world we have to conform to the expectations of our bosses (on work time).

[Winona the Dog 1,984]

American schools do not frown on individuality.

 

Dress code is a formality because kids are going into an professional place of learning.

 

Besides that there isn't anything that inhibits individuality

Edited April 6, 2015 by Nessie

[Wind Chaser 4,768]

Of the virtually unlimited number of regimes Starlight's can be compared to, school systems are one, and especially one to which I've given very much thought. I had a lot of trouble in school, and though the amount of individuality and free reign they may give you varies depending on the exact school you're talking about, they all generally follow the same destructive pattern: take the amazing, immense diversity of interests and potential future talents and skills, and homogenize them into only a narrowly-defined core with little choice or freedom and little say in how the system is run. This is a systematic deficiency from the top down which students and staff alike suffer under and could potentially spill over into the economy and the job market, with many graduating into a tough job market with few marketable skills. Having no social connections can make you even worse off, interestingly tying it into the show's themes of friendship making success possible.

 

I can imagine that the writing crew had this in mind, given that many of them are parents, thus having the experience of being on the front lines of this system, and it's been demonstrated before that "Testing Testing 123" had a moral directly addressing the issue of different people learning by different methods.

 

The society of Equestria presents an education reformist's wet dream: a world of boundless opportunity where school provides as much tutelage in a free realm of self-discovery as is necessary to provide for success in this world. For a long time, Equestria's respect for "special talents" had gone without a direct challenge. Thus, thanks to this episode and Starlight Glimmer being such a direct challenge to reinforce the concept, the show has really gained a lot of respect from me as it should from pretty much everyone who is passionate about this issue. It really gives me high hopes that they will take on modern societal issues like this in a cleverly allegorical manner garnering cross-generational appeal throughout Season 5 and beyond, as it should be the next logical step they take in making their morals more mature.

[Steve Piranha 29,496]

While watching the episode, I just realized that the motivations Starlight uses for equality that she continually repeats on the intercom, are to a degree the same things that schools in the U.S. strive for. Sure there's personally excelling in grades, but that is it. Schools want kids to be equal in all other respects. Be regimented by age. All be grouped in classrooms, rather than individualized education. All have a similar dress code, don't wear anything too flashy or personal. They're all assigned to be someplace specific at a specific time, no room to walk about freely. Getting rid of the differences between kids so that there is less conflict, harassment and bullying. Having little a say in what you want to learn. A focus more on broad systematic knowledge rather than developmenting skill and discovering personal talent. A high conformist environment.  And in the case of private schools and gender segregated schools, both of which have uniforms, the shows message of equality and sameness are more prevalent, as well as effective. 

 

Am I the only one seeing this? Are schools to a degree aiming for Starlight's message on equality & conformity? And doesn't this message contradict what the show is trying to teach children who maybe future, current or even past students?

Yes, I had an awful experience in those. In the few things I stood out, I was always reprimanded by my teachers, and bullyed by my classmates. Worst, I was an acceptable target for also being the fat boy   

 

It's funny how the fandom draws parallels with communism, but they forget those ideologies  are closer to home than they think