13 Horrible Life Lessons My Little Pony Tries To Teach Our Kids

The Horrible Life Lesson: Rules are merely suggestions, and education shouldn't be governed or accredited.

The eighth season of My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic largely centers on Twilight Sparkle's new friendship school. It begins with School Daze, which pits Twilight against Chancellor Neighsay of the Equestria Education Association (EEA).

Despite her efforts to follow EEA guidelines, Twilight fails to receive accreditation. Furthermore, after an argument about Twilight's decision to allow non-pony creatures such as dragons and changelings to attend, Neighsay chains the doors and shuts the school down entirely. Starlight Glimmer convinces Twilight to go ahead and continue running the school anyway.

This decision would be justified if Neighsay's racism was the only problem, but it isn't. He also has a problem with using the Mane Six as the school's professors. Their inexperience leads to unorthodox teaching methods that, while fun, don't actually seem all that educational. This becomes a problem in later episodes such as Non-Compete Clause, when we see that teachers like Applejack and Rainbow Dash teach their students more about narcissism than about friendship.

The EEA's guidelines, just like educational guidelines in our world, exist for a reason. True, there can be cause for doubting their value, and accreditation doesn't always equate to quality. Some religious universities forgo accreditation by choice, whereas scam schools like the University of Phoenix have multiple accreditations to their name. This only means, however, that perhaps some guidelines could be changed to provide educational institutions with better oversight.

What happens when you have no oversight at all? In the season finale, a Tirek-worshipping filly becomes the school's new headmistress and nearly eradicates all magic from Equestria. Say what you want about the University of Phoenix, but they've never had that problem. Accreditation matters.