"Learning starts with failure; the first failure is the beginning of education"
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 experience.
"Success in not final, failure is not fatal; it is the will to continue that counts". So is the famous saying of Sir Winston Churchill. This well-known quote indicates that in one's life, he/she will surely experience shortcomings but if they decide to use it as a form of encouragement, they will succeed. I agree completely with Novelist John Hersey's idea in discussion and the following are the reasons why:
When you fail, you know your weaknesses and how to overcome them. The knowledge gained from experience is far better than that gained from sources, hence the famous proverb, "experience is the best teacher". The best example is of Steve Jobs, who was a college dropout, a fired technical executive and an unsuccessful businessman. At the age of thirty, he was left devastated after being unceremoniously removed from the company he founded. Yet, he used that to drive him on in life. He says."I didn't see it then, but being fired from Apple was the best thing that ever happened to me". After much work, he was taken back into the company and he made some of the most iconic products like ipod, ipad, and the iphone. He later became one of the richest and most successful men in history.
And then there is the story of Michael Jordan, who is arguably the best basketball player in history. He was dropped out of his high school basketball team and went home and cried in the privacy of his bedroom. But he didn't let his early setback stop him from becoming the most iconic figure in basketball. He even states that the reason for his success is because he has failed so many times in his basketball career.
Finally there is the example of Oliver Stone. Three time Oscar-winning filmmaker Oliver Stone dropped out of Yale University to write his first novel, which was at first rejected by publishers. When it was finally published later on, it wasn't well received and had bad reviews. Stone then went to Vietnam to teach English and was also involved in the war that won him honors and inspired him for his later work and now we find him where he is.
These are but a few examples of people that have used failure to drive them on and have become successful in life. As Ralph Waldo Emerson puts,"Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail", Jobs, Jordan and Stone shook off the early disappointments and rose up to be significant entities in their respective fields.
Masroor, while you present some very iconic names as examples of people who were educated by failure, you neglected to present the most effective example of a person who has failed, learned from his mistakes, and then became a better person after the real life education he received, you. You have a host of life experiences in failure and learning to draw upon. No matter how simple the mistake you made, you learned a lesson from it. Your voice, your experience, will actually boost this essay to become even better than it is at the moment. Remember, the essay prompt also asks you to draw upon your personal experience for justification of your position on the discussion topic. By presenting your personal experience regarding the matter, the essay will become even stronger and more convincing.
Masroor, your essay contains detailed example, which is quite impressive. However, in my own point of view, i could only see those examples as a part of supporting illustrating reason of how "failure is not fatal", which looks kind of undone. I assume you have other points to make. In fact, i think those examples can't bring out your opinion but just restates "keep going and things will work out". You might want to dig deep to what you think about the examples besides the restatement, and maybe make a little cut of the example to make space for your own opinion. hope those will help!
