Walker PercyS
Walker Percy? S & # 8220 ; Loss Of The Creature & # 8221 ; Essay, Research Paper
The Independent Education
As a college pupil, I am thirsting for cognition that will broaden my skylines. Ironically, I am non able to slake my thirst entirely in the institute of higher acquisition that I attend. I believe society & # 8217 ; s mentality on instruction is wrong. Webster & # 8217 ; s Dictionary defines that to educate is & # 8220 ; to develop by formal direction and supervised practice. & # 8221 ; Consequently, society positions the procedure as pedagogues giving cognition to the pupils. Contrastingly, I believe instruction should be more of an independent procedure, assisted by pedagogues. Students should prosecute cognition, alternatively of having it.
In Walker Percy & # 8217 ; s The Loss of the Creature, the establishment of instruction is closely examined. Percy explains, & # 8221 ; A immature Falkland Islander walking along a beach and descrying a dead bowfin and traveling to work on it with his clasp knife has, in a manner entirely unprovided in modern educational theory, a great advantage over the Scarsdale high school student who finds the bowfin on his research lab desk. Similarly the citizen of Huxley & # 8217 ; s Brave New World who stumbles across a volume of Shakespeare in some vine-grown ruins and knee bends on a potsherd to read it is in a just manner of acquiring at a sonnet than the Harvard sophomore taking English Poetry II. ( Percy, 6 ) & # 8221 ; The indispensable point of his essay is that the value of an experience, such as acquisition, is reciprocally relative to both the strength of any prepossessions covering with it, and the figure of people at the same time taking portion in the experience.
To give an illustration, a immature pupil who stumbles across a transcript of Loss of the Animal by Percy in the library will hold a far more valuable experience than any one of 70 people in a first-year twelvemonth awards category.
Many factors contribute to the immature pupil & # 8217 ; s ability to see such a great brush while reading Loss of the Creature. One factor is the pure entropy and surprisingness of the state of affairs. Consequently, the pupil has no prepossessions about the essay. The awards category, on the other manus, is given thoughts by the professors who made the assignment and the upperclassmen who have antecedently read the essay. Finally, the individualality of the incident contributes to the immature pupil & # 8217 ; s experience. By sing the essay by himself, he is prevented from being influenced by the reactions of others. The factors that prevent the category of pupils from holding the same experience are defined by Percy as the & # 8220 ; educational package. & # 8221 ;
Theorists, scientists, and instructors define the educational bundle that consists of topics and theories. Percy provinces, & # 8220 ; The pedagogue whose concern is to learn pupils biological science or poesy is incognizant of the whole ensemble of dealingss which exist between the pupils and the dogfish and between the pupil and the Shakespeare sonnet. ( Percy, 6 ) & # 8221 ; The pedagogues believe in the predefined bundle, and the pupil who does non dispute the theories or topics, naively and complacently accepts them as truth.
Phosphorus
ercy besides explains that in order to truly learn something, one must salve the cognition from the educational bundle. He states that to get away from having the educational bundle, the pupil must first recognize that he is having the bundle. In other words, the pupil must endeavor to be a autonomous person, look past what is really being presented.
Searching for a autonomous experience is a hard procedure, and though it is possible, it is far easier to fall in line with the multitudes and take part in consumerism. The establishment of instruction makes it easy to go a really active consumer. A pupil & # 8217 ; s instruction is slightly spoon Federals to him a few hours a hebdomad in a talk hall. Does this method of larning non dull the appetency to larn? Receiving an instruction has become more of a demand of society, instead than a desire to edify oneself. The autonomous experience occurs when a pupil surveies because he is compelled to, non because he has to in order to carry through a category assignment.
Percy & # 8217 ; s positions on instruction decidedly use to modern times. Students attend school to acquire a grade. Sadly, the bulk survey merely plenty to go through the class. Ironically, fiscal prosperity in the hereafter is one of the major motivations in prosecuting an instruction, non the chase of cognition. As pupils, we should take Percy & # 8217 ; s advice and look beyond the bundle that is presented to us on a day-to-day footing. Of class, we can non drop out of school and simply educate ourselves. Consequently, we should do the excess attempt to really hold on the information we study. Besides, we should believe for ourselves and non accept the professors & # 8217 ; lectures as absolute truths. One can merely be a & # 8220 ; sovereign knower & # 8221 ; if one unwraps the & # 8220 ; educational bundle & # 8221 ; and explores the gifts inside. The single & # 8217 ; s supreme power comes from cognizing more than others because of the doggedness he has to interrupt through the bundles.
In The Loss of the Creature, Percy shows that people tend to accept things throughout their lives without oppugning anything. By leting people to acknowledge some of the packaging throughout society, Percy is seeking to forestall the universe from being wholly inactive. Percy encourages every homo to be imaginative and originative, non a consumer who misses out on the truly olympian facets of life. Similarly, Albert Schweitzer explains, & # 8220 ; As shortly as adult male does non take his being for granted, but beholds it as something unfathomably cryptic, thought begins. & # 8221 ; Percy and Schweitzer give a new but logical point of view of instruction. As Schweitzer expressed, our full being on the planet is astonishing. Therefore, we should non take anything for granted. We should utilize the senses and abilities we have to do the most of every facet of our lives, particularly our instruction. I can merely trust that Percy has inspired my fellow schoolmates every bit much as he has me. Now when I sit in category, I will seek to detect all of the olympian truths that I have neglected to notice before. Rending open the & # 8220 ; educational bundle & # 8221 ; is the first measure in prosecuting an independent but edifying chase of cognition.
