One of the biggest riddles of the human being is the brain. How do our minds work, and what makes them work best? We are able to process and store large amounts of information, and then reason with it. Since the days of Ancient Greece the Western World has sought to institutionalize the learning process in order to make it more effective. However there are some that argue we may have gone too far, and that in doing so we have stripped away the true essence of learning.
             Author Walker Percy is one of those individuals. He theorizes that through the modern-day educational process, the student loses a great deal of learning through educational "packaging" such as teachers, textbooks and directions. To support his argument he compares two individuals, a Falkland Islander observing a dogfish that washes ashore and a biology student dissecting the same fish in a laboratory experiment.
             Percy argues that the islander better experiences the being that is the fish, whereas the biology student observes only a specimen of the fish, and the difference is that this specimen is part of the educational package. The term specimen makes the fish one of many, and no different from the tools, instructors, biological jargon and peers around him. Focused on absorbing terms and worrying about his grade on the next test, the student is completely submersed in the packaging around him. He loses the ability to process the creature itself and observe life naturally. In addition the packaging has stripped the student of the wonderful ability to be able to discover something for himself, education in its purest and best form.
             Although some of his arguments are valid, Percy's arguments would only work in an impossible utopian society. In our lives we take in massive amounts of information. More importantly we need to be able to use and communicate this information everyday. The packaging Percy so despises is absolutely necessary ...