Starlight Glimmer's First Student: A "Human"?!

by Clockwork2003

Chapter 31: Icebreakers For Everycreature!

Bon Bon:

Well, today’s the day! Twilight and company finally pulled themselves together and officially opened the School of Friendship. I can see that the two princesses are quite relieved that their legal troubles are finally over, and are cheering for themselves. I am not the kind of mare to interfere with private celebrations, so I let those two enjoy themselves. In the meantime, I get up from my seat and trot around, trying to see what the situation is.

Most of the nonpony creatures and a few ponies are quite amicable today and are mostly in a cheerful demeanor. Some of them are already speaking with each other, however, there is a small amount of hesitation. I actually didn’t expect such camaraderie to develop so quickly! Perhaps I set my expectations too low? Nevertheless, my main concern, and the reason for my employment, is the human, neurodivergent students attending this school.

I look around the area, trying to find the human students that I have been acquainted with already. I see Anastasia, who now lives with me and Lyra. She’s talking to my marefriend about something, probably music if I were to guess? I also notice Shaun, who’s drawing something in his sketchbook. As for the other human students, I don’t really know them that well. Perhaps this is what the program is for?

Starlight Glimmer taps the microphone on the podium in front of her, alerting the student body that the Princess of Justice has something she’d like to say: “Alright! If you could all follow me through these doors, I have a fun activity for us to try today!” Starlight says, using her magic to open the large crystalline doors of her facility. Princess Twilight leads the way, with her fellow princess flanking her left. One by one, all of the students follow the ponies single file inside the schoolhouse, with each race tending to stick to their own.

We are all led inside to a large hall, that has many bridge tables set up, with chairs to go with them. Once everyone enters the hall, Twilight Sparkle smiles and directs her students to go into twelve groups of four, with one group of two, since fifty doesn’t divide into four. These tables look large but welcoming and homey at the same time. The hall itself resembles less of a school hallway and more of a hearth, or communal center.

It takes a few minutes for everyone to sit down at their tables since everycreature needs to coordinate themselves properly. Finally, after all of the students sit down, Starlight spawns a deck of cue cards with her magic and gives one cue card to each member of our staff. Lyra, Trixie, Maud Pie, Noah, Twilight, Mrs. Weiss, the Mane Six, and I all get one cue card. I take my specific card into my front hooves and look at it.

“Ask everycreature what their name is, and ask this Icebreaker prompt: ‘What is something that makes you smile?’ Go around the table and ask everycreature this question.”

I’d assume that the rest of the staff received cue cards with different prompts, right? Perhaps each cohort is to discuss their icebreaker in their own manner? It doesn’t really matter that much. What matters is that I perform my task as an educator and see this icebreaker game through to the end!

***

Princess Starlight Glimmer:

“Ask everycreature what their name is, and ask this Icebreaker prompt: ‘What makes you happy?”. This is the prompt that I saved for myself, and I am very happy that I picked this one. Knowing full well that there are a few humans at this table, it would be very interesting to see what other humans find interesting, and how these passions reflect on their personalities. I trot up to the table and smile. The two human children, one changeling, a she-dragon, and a griffon smile.

“Good morning, Princess Starlight!” The changeling drone says, trying to muster a genuine smile.

“Good morning. What’s your name?” I ask him. He looks somewhat nervous, but in a typical, foalish way, not in a guilty way.

“My name is Troublemaker. I know it sounds silly, but it’s the name my parents gave me. As for what makes me happy, I like shapeshifting into things that can help other changelings. For example, last week I turned myself into a ladder to help my friend whose wings were broken. He was able to reach his kitchen shelf!” Troublemaker says, chuckling. I look at the next creature, waiting for her to begin with her icebreaker. The orange she-dragon looks reserved and calm, befitting her draconic nature.

“Good morning, everycreature. My name is Smolder, and I am to be the next Dragon Lord if I can prove my worth. I am not entirely sure what makes me smile, but I do enjoy a good fight. Dragon culture is very proud of its warrior heritage, and we often fight to determine how strong we are! I’m somewhere in the middle tier if I’m being honest.” Smolder explains to us. I think this is a very interesting insight. I still have plenty to learn about dragon culture, and Smolder could end up teaching me a few things, as well!

Looking at the next student, the hegriffon tries to put on a brave face, but I can tell he’s terrified of being here. His green coat of fur is sweating profusely, and his wings are flapping in place, probably to control his anxiety.

“Hello, it’s okay to be stressed. Take your time. I’m patient.” I say, trying to calm him down. He smiles and takes a deep breath before beginning.

“H…hi…my…my name is Gerald. I’m a griffon. I don’t really know what…makes me happy. I…I was hoping making a friend could help me find something that I am good at?” That was quite endearing. It’s lovely to see creatures come out of their shell, and trust others to provide them with aid!

Next, I look at the human girl in front of me. I vaguely remember her from the various opening ceremonies for the School of Friendship, and if I recall correctly, she has ADHD. I didn’t catch her name, though…

“What’s your name, youngster?” I ask the human girl. She smiles and stands up from her chair.

“Oh, my name is Samantha! I do all sorts of things to stay happy, but the main thing I love to do is cycle!” The human girl says, confusing everycreature except for the other human.

“C..cycle? What’s that?” I ask her, wanting to know what this fascinating human activity entails. I spawn my spiral notebook and a pen, eager to write down everything Samantha has to tell me about this “cycling” activity. The other creatures around the table seem just as interested in this concept. Samantha sports a hearty grin, and then begins to explain what “cycling” is to us.

“Well, cycling involves the use of a vehicle called a bicycle. It has two wheels, and pedals. It’s a fast, evironmentally friendly way to travel, and it’s good exercise. I like it because it calms the jitters in my mind. All exercise does that, according to my mom, but cycling especially! I end up in a cold sweat!” Samantha explains to us. The students at the table are quite interested in this activity, rightfully so!

“That sounds fun!” Troublemaker says, being the most interested creature of the group in this novel form of exercise. “Do you know if we can try it?” He asks Samantha. The young human girl takes a minute to consider the changeling’s question, before frowning with genuine care.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Troublemaker, but you have four legs! Bikes are for creatures with two legs. I am sure that there might be some sort of modification to a bike to allow ponies and other creatures with four legs to use them. I am not smart enough to fix that, but Twilight Sparkle seems like the kind of mare who’d come up with something like this.” Samantha says, trying to console the changeling. The other creatures seem to understand, while being upset that they cannot ride a bike.

“Aw yeah, I am a biped. Bike riding for the win!” Smolder sneers, cheering for herself, not noticing that the other creatures were upset. She should know better, not enjoying the suffering of others! I give the she-dragon a look of annoyance, and she quickly reverts to a neutral emotional state.

“Sorry about that, Princess Starlight. This biking thing sounds cool. I think I’d enjoy it, but I should have been more considerate of other creatures who’d not be able to try it.” Smolder says, acting somewhat apologetic.

“It’s fine, Smolder.” Troublemaker says. Gerald nods, too. “Y…yeah. You weren’t trying to be rude, right?” The green griffon asks, making sure Smolder’s intentions weren’t malicious. I clear my throat, urging everycreature to get back to the subject at hoof. We still have one human left who didn’t share his icebreaker answer! I turn my kind gaze over to him, and I kindly encourage him to share.

“Hi, there! Don’t fret, we’re all friends, here! What’s your name?” I ask the human boy. I know the child can speak because I heard him speaking with Samantha before. He’s not nonverbal like Shaun, right? What’s up with that? Did I say something bad to him by mistake?

The young man sighs and finally decides to speak. He’s having trouble making eye contact with me, which I know from dating Noah is an autistic trait. He takes an additional minute to compose himself and makes a strong effort to look me in the eye.

“My name is Ethan. I am a human, like Samantha. The main thing that makes me happy is baking. I like being in control of things, and baking is an exact science. Also, sweet things are very tasty!” Ethan says, clearly excited speaking about his special interest. I don’t blame him. Special interests are fun, especially when they are of a more universal appeal.

I clap my hooves, clearly happy that everycreature at the table answered this icebreaker prompt. So far, my directive as an assistant headmare of the school is going swimmingly! I’ve gone through a simple exercise, and I was pleasantly surprised at how easily I was able to facilitate dialogue between new creatures! I just hope my rider is thinking the same thing today!

“Well, good job, everycreature! We went through an easy icebreaker assignment. I am going to trot around the room and see how the rest of the School of Friendship students are holding up with their icebreaker exercises. Can everycreature wait here for five minutes?” I ask them. The entire table unanimously nods in agreement, making my job a whole lot easier.

“Great. I’ll be back shortly. Try having simple conversations with each other, and see how your overall chemistry is. This is uncharted territory for all of us!” I say, quickly teleporting over to the next table of students. I hope their icebreaker prompts are just as interesting as mine! Twilight wrote them, not me!

Comments

[ShadwSonic]

11261209
Oh for the love of...
No, that's wrong!
1. People tend to forget that "the natives" were NOT peace-loving hippies at one with nature... they were a warlike people, and in many cases attacked US settlers first.
2. Oh sure, Europe had capitalism... but your implication that they didn't explode in wealth is incorrect. They used to say the sun never sets on the British Empire because they literally had enough global control for some part to always be in daylight. Heck, we were British colonies specifically because they sought to expand further!
What they did wrong was deny equal representation for each distinct area of their country, resulting in dissatisfaction followed by dissolution. They even tried fighting and killing us to get it back, but it didn't work due in part to overly structured thinking.
We did not make those mistakes.
What we DID do is allow unprecedented immigration (not open borders mind you!), and that brought peoples from many backgrounds to us. Different backgrounds mean different ways of looking at the world. That in turn means different ideas. And our Great American Melting Pot was mixing said ideas in ways no other country ever could. THAT, combined with the freedoms guaranteed by the Constitution, are what propelled us to the world's sole superpower, NOT genocide or lucky resource drops!
3. China's cultural revolution, on the other hand, was all about suppression of their peoples, not liberation:
They've tried (and sadly succeeded for the most part) in utterly erasing their prior culture, including their own written language.
They dared dictate that no couple could have more than a single child, and the fact that they got away with such insanity until they realized how moronic such a decision was speaks volumes about how little free-thinking was left even then.
They've leeched off of countries like ours by claiming to be a "developing country" LONG after they ceased to qualify.
They engage in rampant IP theft, intentionally violating copyright laws whenever they can, then using LITERAL SLAVE LABOR to do it cheaper but at much worse quality.
They claim "this land/ocean is mine" without that actually being the case, trying to get surrounding countries to just give it up.
For God's sake, they even isolated their people from the greater Internet to keep them ignorant of how the outside world really is!
And yet, despite all of these underhanded tricks? They are most definitely NOT beating out America! I remember when talk of that was going around several years ago, but they've been cratering ever since! Companies and private investors are pulling out left and right! Countries are outright banning some of their more notable businesses! Make no mistake, the dragon is starving itself to death.
The fact you uttered such a propaganda-esque stream of incorrect information makes me legitimately wonder if you're on their payroll to say such things (they do have a "50 Cent Army" for that specific purpose), but the lack of grammar or punctuation mistakes (except for a few more commas as a suggestion) seems more indicative of one who is simply gullible enough to buy those falsehoods.

[KingSombraTheTyrantRuler]

11262875
Yeah.

[Theresa]

11252701
The problem with that is she doesn't get that earth has only one sapient species. So she trying to be inclusive.

[Theresa]

11323983
Yes but she trying to talk to earth people. In equestria there many different people who fall in that category on earth there is only one.