The Animal School

Once upon a time, the animals decided they must do something heroic to meet the problems of a “New World”. So, they organised a school. They adopted an activity-based curriculum consisting of running, climbing, swimming and flying. To make it easier to administer the curriculum, all the animals took all the subjects.

The duck was excellent in swimming, in fact he was better than his instructor, but he made only passing grades in flying and was very poor in running. Since he was slow in running, he had to stay after school and, also drop swimming to practise running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn out and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody was worried about that, except the duck.

The rabbit started at the top of the class in running but had a nervous breakdown because of so much work in swimming. The squirrel was excellent in climbing until he developed frustration in the flying class. His teacher made him start from the ground up instead of from the treetop down. He also developed excessive stress and then obtained a ‘C’ in climbing and a ‘D’ in running. The eagle was a problematic child and was disciplined severely. In the climbing class, he beat all the others to the top of the tree but insisted on using his own way to get there.

At the end of the year, an abnormal eel that could swim exceedingly well, and also run, climb and fly a little, had the highest average and was declared the top student of the school.

The badgers stayed out of school because the curriculum did not include digging and burrowing. They later joined the gophers to start a successful private school.