Walker Percy The Loss Of The Creature Summary

Secondary Education and Its Ill-Preparation for College

High school is typically hailed as a bridge connecting the last four years of secondary schooling to post-secondary college education. The high school experience is believed to assuage students into their roles as independent individuals ready to take on college and future endeavors. As a former high school student, I profess that this idea of a bridge, is just an illusion; instead, high school creates a divide, generating dichotomy in regards to post-secondary tutelage. Moreover, secondary educational institutions claim that they provide students with the utilities, assets, and erudition necessary to succeed in college, but in actuality, the modern high school does not prepare students

for the next step in their educational pursuit. Problems such as high school grading methods, regurgitations of boring and inapplicable materials in a packaged manner, and the despotic manner in which a majority of classrooms operate, has led to a high school education that falls short of college preparation. Furthermore, understanding the issues within high schools will lead to solutions to the divide in high school to college education.
“Potential for discord arises because some members of the community hold the power to judge the performance of other members- by means of a practice called grading” (Afzaal). Capturing the issue of grading as a whole, Assistant Professor Ahmed Afzaal summates that grading can lead to division… more so in a high school environment, where grades can lead to damage that will affect the mentalities of students in college.
Grading is merely a tool comparable to a car’s speedometer. It measures the speed you travel, as grades are also a quantitative measure; however, the whole purpose of driving is to go to a specific destination, not to keep a desired speed. This logic should follow through with grading: achieving a specific grade should not be the primary goal or motivation, absorbing knowledge and actually learning is much more important. (Afzaal)
Throughout high school, students become obsessed with their grades, often checking them at least once a day. In my high school experience, various peers would have conversations consisting of grades, while others would furiously copy down online answer keys everyday in order to get 100% on their assignments. Obtaining high grades, the only goal demonstrated in their actions, should not overtake the importance of actually focusing on learning material. The unhealthy obsession that manifests to a pinnacle in high school, carries over to the college classroom.
The college classroom introduces a unique environment, where grades will not be overinflated such as they are in high school. Inflation of grades during high school creates an expectation that students should put in a certain level of effort, and always receive a similar grade that they deem acceptable. The unhealthy expectations and obsessions leads to a plethora of problems in college. When students enter college, classes will be harder and many students will receive their first Cs, Ds, and Fs. The lack of inflation will crush students and their false expectations, creating a feeling of failure and disappointment, especially if they put in a large amount of effort. Many students then feel the need to drop out of classes, or even the post secondary school, because they are not used to this experience which they perceive as failure.
Inflated grading in high school and the ideal generated that a large amount of effort equals an A, carries over to college, where students are not able to handle this new reality. The focus on grades as a primary goal built in high school handicaps students abilities to learn in college because they are not actually focused on their learning and education as a whole.
In addition, the position and placement of teachers in high schools as dictatorial figures cripples students’ ability to function critically in college. Paulo Freire, a former “professor of history and philosophy of education”, exploits the absolutist relationship between teachers and students, in his Pedagogy of the Oppressed:
“Narration (with the teacher as narrator) leads the students to memorize mechanically the narrated content. Worse yet, it turns them into “containers,” into “receptacles” to be “filled” by the teacher. The more completely she fills the receptacles, the better a teacher she is. The more meekly the receptacles permit themselves to be filled, the better students they are. Education thus becomes an act of depositing, in which the students are the depositories and the teacher is the depositor. Instead of communicating, the teacher issues communiques and makes deposits which the students patiently receive, memorize, and repeat. This is the “banking” concept of education, in which the scope of action allowed to the students extends only as far as receiving, filing, and storing the deposits.” (Freire 71-72)
In short, Freire illuminates the plight of the teacher-student relationship in high schools, as teachers constantly “deposit” their information into the students, and the students take in the information without further question. (Freire 72)
In my high school experience, many teachers followed this oppressive “banking method”, where teachers were the absolute authority and lectured as students just sat and listened submissively. This way of instruction, where students are merely objects, has failed to prepare me for college. For instance, when instructors ask for my involvement and thoughts in a discussion, this two-way conversation seems alien and at times nerve wracking… the idea of making my own opinion and giving it to an instructor is perplexing. In high schools, the teacher thinks, and the student just records mindlessly. A classroom should operate in a method that allows the students and instructors to work together, and share ideas and opinions. As a result, both parties will learn from each other, and the education will constantly be transforming and seem boundless.
In essence, the stifling ways that teachers instruct in high school takes away from their ability to think on their own, and their critical and analytical abilities which are necessary to function in college classrooms and the world after that, are almost nonexistent.
Additionally, secondary educational institutes fail to create a bridge to prepare their students for college due to the way material is presented and what the material is. Students are presented with a uniform curriculum, even though the students are all very different, and this curriculum fails to appeal to many of the students. Many students lose any deep connection to what they are learning, when the material given is boring and of no interest to them, and this causes a disconnect from understanding and the desire to learn. This follows through to college campuses, as students have trouble finding their motivation to learn and are not used to the choices of picking things that interest them. This leads to confusion in what students actually like and want to do with their education and life. The material itself is taught as if the world is predictable and non transformative, but this is quite the contrary to how college’s teach, and how the world operates.
Even when students are presented this information, it often comes in a “packaged form”.

In The Loss of the Creature, “prominent American writer” of the 20th century, Walker Percy, elaborates on how materials are presented. Percy proposes that these packaged experiences in school lead to a loss of the true essence. For instance, students enter a lab in which they are going to examine and dissect a dogfish. The dogfish is referred to as a “specimen of squalus acanthias” (Percy 59). Percy then declares, “The phrase specimen of expresses in the most succinct way imaginable the radical character of the loss of being which has occurred under his very nose. The dogfish itself is seen as a rather shabby expression of an ideal reality, the species Squalus acanthias. The result is the radical devaluation of the individual dogfish.” (Percy 59). Certainly, experiencing this lab in this kind of “packaged” environment fails to capture the true essence as the dogfish is diluted into a theoretical ideal; however, seeing a dogfish in the wild would have a much more original and memorable influence where it unpackaged and can be explored naturally. Students need to be able to think, and have a unique experience that enables them to learn; lacking this ability to learn will affect them negatively in their creative pursuits in

college.
Moreover, the packaging of the materials in high school classrooms as well as the lack of appealing material generates a broad disconnect from creativity and a desire to learn, which poses a problem for post secondary students as these qualities are a necessity.
Generally, high schools are seen as a solid stepping stone to a post secondary education; however, from my own experience and the work of philosophers and writers, this is not the case. Ultimately, false ideals and obsessions generated over high school grades, the presentation of packaged and detached information, and the stifling, oppressive way a high school classroom functions, has failed to prepare students for postsecondary education. Even more alarmingly, if high schools fail to prepare us for college, then they do not provide preparation for life in general.