This story is going around the internet at the moment. I don’t know who wrote it so cannot supply a link. As home educators we can give our children a very specialised educated – suited to each individual child in our family.

ANIMAL SCHOOL

An old story tells of the creation of a school for animals. In this school,
everybody took the same four courses: flying, swimming, climbing & running.

Among the students were a duck, flying squirrel, fox & an elephant. These 4
were highly motivated & wanted to get good grades so all tried very hard.

The duck did fantastically well in swimming & flying but lagged behind his
classmates in climbing & running so focused special attention on those 2
subjects. However, his feet became so sore from trying to run & his wings
were so bedraggled from trying to climb that, by the end of the year, he not
only failed both those subjects, but made Cs in swimming & flying, which had
once been his 2 best subjects.

At the beginning of the school year , the squirrel was first in his class in
climbing & running & was second only to the duck at flying. But, as the
months wore on, he missed so much school from catching pneumonia in his
swimming class that he failed everything. To make matters even worse,
because the squirrel constantly squirmed & chattered in class & had
difficulty paying attention, he was diagnosed with a learning disorder. The
squirrel was eventually placed in remedial classes & had to be medicated in
order to continue with his school work.

The fox was a natural in his running class & scored well in climbing &
swimming but, becoming so frustrated at his inability to get good grades in
flying, he began assaulting his classmates. He even tried to eat the duck!
His behaviour was so disruptive he was expelled from school, fell in with a
rough crowd & wound up in a centre for animal delinquents.

The elephant, meanwhile, developed low self-esteem because he couldn’t do
well in any of the subjects. When he sank into clinical depression, his
therapist persuaded him to try a different school that focused on subjects
such as lifting & carrying. The elephant was disappointed because careers
in lifting & carrying were not as prestigious as careers in flying,
swimming, climbing & running. Even though he always felt inferior, he
managed to make a decent living & support his family.