Problem : The "Well-Rounded"
Approach to Education
 

There is a story called The Animal School which illustrates what is wrong with the "well-rounded" approach to education. It was written in the 1940s by George Reavis, who was Assistant Superintendent of the Cincinnati Public Schools.

The story goes something like this :

Once upon a time, the animals decided to start a school.

They adopted an activity 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 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 in order to practice running. This was kept up until his webbed feet were badly worn and he was only average in swimming. But average was acceptable in school, so nobody 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 make-up work in swimming.

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