"School Daze" Afterthoughts: The Huge Potential in Twilight's Friendship School and the Student Six

Here are some afterthoughts on "School Daze", the Opener of Season 8. I'm publishing this after my general review of the episode, which I won't copy over here to not postpone this blog entry, but you can find it on Deviantart if you want to read it.

Some hours earlier, I answered on a rather critical comment that talked about the episode, which brought forth some interesting thoughts in myself, so I am sharing them here. The parts of the comment I answered on are marked in italic:

Bleurgh, sounded like a blatant cash-in on Equestra Girls to me, which  in itself was a desperate tie-in to all the cliched high school shows  that have been doing the rounds of late.

First, a tiny comment on this. The last thing I want is that EQG and the sour taste it leaves in your mouth is affecting the enjoyment of the show that stays true to the franchise, by causing unpleasant memories cause the show is doing a school-focused season.
School life can be very exciting and even very epic if the right things get portrayed the right way. Not everything has to be done the cliched, kitschy EQG way.

Twilight announces, completely out of the blue with no foreshadow whatsoever, that she's establishing a new school.

Is it? Personally, I'm not a friend of foreshadowing. I said already years ago that I will never do it in my fics. It ruins surprises and plot twists to hint at something before its time has come.
However, what I think you want to say here is: How much sense does this development of Twilight founding a friendship school make, in regards to former events?
During the journey with her friends to find allies for fighting the Storm King, Twilight had to see a city full of corruption where literally everyone was interested in either buying them or selling them. A very grimdark culture that is completely alien to the civilized life in Equestria, especially if we expand our thoughts on all the potential things they could have been forced to do if they actually would have gotten sold into slavery there.....

The next big impression Twilight got was a queen of a distant kingdom who outright refused to help another kingdom under attack, even though she had the means to help, and who was only interested in herself and her own people.

And, finally, the whole reason for that journey was a tyrannical warlord with a huge army who wanted to conquer the whole world. Which is a threat that, probably, even still looms in a certain way; Twilight's words about Tempest Shadow travelling the world to spread the word about the Storm King's defeat heavily implied that there are still many regions controlled by commanders of the Storm King who could try to become his successor and do the same thing all over again in the power vacuum his death has left.
As I said above, I can see why you feel a lot of apprehension over the idea of a school because of EQG and its taste, which makes it hard to open the mind up to the things seen in this two-parter.
But there are a lot of personal experiences that precede Twilight's decision to open a school to teach "communicating" and how to "respect differences".
I would not quite call these experiences "foreshadowing", but after what Twilight has seen recently, teaching values like this to members of other, more uncivilized kingdoms and nations that surround Equestria is a very logical conclusion and step for her to make.

Artificial crisis starts when the new  students try to bond, the bigoted  grown ups feud and school is shut down by Cranky Old Pony who doesn't  believe 'mixing' is healthy.

There's a little danger here with this that I'm repeating myself now, because this is something that reinforces what I said about Twilight's motivations for the school. One crisis happens and, even though it's a rather minor one, the nation's leaders and representatives already get into a huge dispute and threaten each other with war almost instantly.
Things like this go even further back in time, when we consider how there's still at least one dragon who would burn Equestria down if he should become dragon lord one day (Season 6) and how the yaks broke all diplomatic contact and sealed their borders shut in the first place (Season 5).
Which is something that holds the possibility that all of this, what we saw in the movie and what we see now, has been planned out years ago and intentionally built up to since at least Season 5.
To me, this doesn't sound like the steps of a toy creator who wants more cash. But I digress.....

Then we have Chancellor Neighsay who is an outright rascist and not hesitant with displaying this attitude to leaders of other nations, which already holds enough potential for a diplomatic crisis on its own. A threat from the inside of Equestria that makes clear why, despite that the goal is to ensure friendship with other nations, even ponies of Equestria attend the school.
It's making apparent how the school Twilight envisions is something that is probably much-needed in a heated environment like this where war can break out easily.

who have decided to run off together, away from those nasty prejudiced adults.

Lastly, this is where it shows that Twilight's plan can work. A group of six friends all from different nations and ethnicities come together as friends and even go so far to run away together and hide in a dangerous place, so they can stay friends against the odds of a rascist who is hating them and diplomatic issues between their nations' leaders.
It is not an outright confirmation that the school will have success with keeping Equestria safe in the long run, but it shows that Twilight's idea is one with potential.

This adds the final credibility to Twilight's endeavor of opening a school to teach friendship, both in-universe as well as in regards to plot development.

And, all of what I said here combined, this is where the potential lies. It's not a bad idea, especially considered that it's probably a long time coming already, and it does open up the show to many new things to explore.
I want to add a quote by myself here, from a review somewhere else:

This episode already gives me a huge "Harry Potter" vibe (especially the  song!) and the show once more enhances its potential with it, as the  life in Twilight's new school provides for tons of new opportunities,  ranging from the different lessons to all the crazy shenanigans the  students could get into after school.
Struggles with learning?  Schoolyard fights? Young students who are away from home for the first  time and suffer from homesickness? Maybe even a little romance between  certain students? Or a creepy episode when the students think a ghost  roams the schoolgrounds at night? Field trip episodes that eventually  lead to dangerous adventures?
There is a lot to explore here and,  personally, I hope to see all of this and more. Here's to a Season 8  full of school-focused episodes!

And that's scratching the surface of what can be explored through the show now with the friendship school..... Much more important, and even more exciting, is what I talked about above, the political and diplomatic importance of the school.
I can especially see this coming up in regards to character dynamic between the new ones.....

Gallus, Yona, Smolder, Ocellus and Silverstream, they are the first students from other nations who attend Twilight's school.
Other nations than Equestria are obviously hesitant to send their children to the school, hence why they are the only non-pony students who attend. This is putting them in a position of a lot of responsibility, as their personal success in the school will determine if the school's lessons can work for creatures who aren't ponies.
For future episodes, I can see this playing out in the way that all five of them will be put under constant pressure, as it is expected from them (especially by Twilight) that they are perfect students so that the school can prove its worth to the outside world with them as the figureheads of it.
Which will bring tons of different challenges for them, especially once they make mistakes that cause more diplomatic issues.
This might lead to situations where even Sandbar as the only pony in their group of friends, is struggling with something, when he tries to keep them together and from fighting and from giving a bad impression that way, because he is the mature one of them and sees this as his own responsibility because of that.

Again, I can see where your hesitation towards the basic idea comes from after seeing EQG and its school stuff.
But there are a ton of things set up and prepared here that will bring the show into a direction that is much more exciting and does much more than EQG ever could.

EQG is the dumb and cliched approach to school life. But My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic is going for the epic one here, this is something that is evident already.
Don't let EQG ruin something for you and give this awesome concept a chance. As someone who invests a lot more analytical thoughts into the show and Equestria than most do ever since I started watching it in 2012 (and rarely writes them down, but I'm going to change that this season), I promise it will be worth it.

For me, it was very inspirational to answer this comment. I am already doing a lot of thoughts on episodes of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic and when I answered this comment, I felt inspired to give them even more in-depth thoughts, which I will be sharing here, as well.
And what I said here, this goes for anyone who reads this, too. If you're sceptical about the plot development involving a school, because of the way DHX handled that in EQG, then don't let your outlook on the new season get turned into a pessimistic one by EQG.
Give it a chance and let DHX convince you by the awesome job they always do with My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic!