<p>Topic: The novelist John Hersey wrote, "Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education"</p>
<p>What are your thoughts on the idea that failure is necessary for education to take place? Compose an essay in which you express your views on this topic. Your essay may support, refute or qualify the views expressed in the excerpt. What you write, however, must be relevant to the topic under discussion. Additionally, you must support your viewpoint, indicating your reasoning and providing examples based on your studies and/or experiences.</p>
<p>Essay:</p>
<p>Yes, failure is necessary for education to take place. Evidence for this includes my experience in a competitive writing group, the US government and a psychology experiment.</p>
<p>When I was in seventh grade, I joined Power of the Pen, a competitive creative writing group for my school. Having been used to only showing my parents my work and receiving praise in return, it was a humbling experience or me. When I got my first story back, I was discouraged to see the criticism scrawled all over my paper in red pen. I felt mediocre, especially when I didn't win anything at the district or regional competition. However, I began to pay close attention to those comments in red. As I continued to practice, I learned to be deep rather than sappy. I learned that sometimes a humorous story stood out more than a depressing one. As seventh grade turned into eighth grade, my writing style improved greatly. I'm proud to say that I took home a fourth place trophy from districts, and a fifteenth place medal from regionals. I even got to go on to States. To conclude, it was the criticism from my failed stories which led me to learn to be a better writer.</p>
<p>Another example is the United States government. Once America gained independence from Britain, it developed the Articles of Confederation. One of the main reasons this government failed is because it denied the government power to tax the Stats. The government could only as the States for money. The failure of the government made the Framers learn that a stronger central government was needed. Thus, the Constitution was made; a document still in use after all of these years.</p>
<p>In my psychology class, we performed an experiment in which one of us was blindfolded. This person would complete a maze white the other person gave instructions. The difference in time it took for the blindfolded person to complete the maze in the first and last trial was great. This is because the blindfolded person remembered at what points they struggled in the maze and learned the basic motions.</p>