02 Jan The Animal School

I love this story – It is so true of many Education systems worldwide and I think highlights the damage that it is doing to our young people. I don’t know who wrote it, but thank you for sharing both the humor and the serious points made whoever you were!

The Animal School

Once upon a time the animals decided that they must organize themselves to meet the problems of the new world. So they organised a school.

They adopted an activity-based curriculum consisting of the essentials in life, namely running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent at swimming, in fact, better that his instructor, but he was only average at flying and was very poor at running. Since he was slow in running he had to stay after school and also drop swimming in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average at swimming.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown bought on by the pressure of having to learn to fly.

The squirrel was excellent in climbing class. She tried to teach the others but over-exerted herself and ended up with a C in climbing and a D in running, failing flying and swimming altogether.

The eagle was a problem pupil and was severely disciplined. In the climbing class she beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using her own way of getting there. The teacher was annoyed that she failed to follow the climbing instructions and her wings were clipped as punishment. Now she couldn’t fly at all and was learning to run instead.

At the end of the year and abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well and could also run and fly a little, had the highest average and was hailed ‘top of the class’. He died soon after as a result of an unfortunate climbing accident.

The dogs stayed out of school and fought the authorities because they wouldn’t add digging and retrieving to the curriculum.

(Source unknown)