<p>Prompt: Is failure necessary for education to take place?</p>
<p>Essay:</p>
<p>Failure is necessary for education to take place. Without making crucial mistakes, we can never learn to differentiate wrong from right. Only with failure can there be success.</p>
<p>An example of learning from failure can be taken from my personal experiences of being a piano player. I am currently a well accomplished concert pianist, but I wasn't always so talented. Just a couple of years ago I was struggling with the bare basics of the art just like all the other daring middle schoolers who were willing to commit their free time to learning to master the daunting instrument. One of my most annoying pet peeves was memorizing the pieces I played. I could perform them fine with sheet music, but as soon as the visual aid was taken away, it was as if I couldn't play the piano at all.</p>
<p>One day, my piano teacher decided to host a recital, in which all of his students, including me, were required to participate in. News spread fast about the first ever recital my teacher ever held, and a big turn out seem guaranteed. I was nervous, yet excited. However, I grew fearful once my teacher told me that all performers were required to memorize their music. I knew I was terrible at retaining the music, so I practiced everyday, repeating over and over again the piece I had to play until my fingers went numb.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, at the recital, I choked. I don't know what came over me; it could have been the nerves or my plain inexperience with performing,. I couldn't even remember the first page when I sat down to play. So I left the stage as quickly as I went on it.</p>
<p>After the recital, during my next lesson, my teacher talked to me about the recital and said that he knew what my problem was. When I tried to memorize a piece, I tried to memorize it using just muscle memory. What I should have done was use music theory in conjunction with muscle memory in order to provide a stable foundation for my memory.</p>
<p>At the next recital, I stole the spotlight form all the other performers. I did exactly what my teacher told me to do and I learned from my mistake. This personal account is what justifies why I approve of the notion that learning starts with failure.</p>