The Purpose of Education is to Fail by Katherine

The Purpose of Education is to Fail by Katherine - April 2015 Scholarship Essay

Failure.

We all dread failure. We have been raised to believe that failure, in and of itself, is something to avoid at all costs. The very connotation of the word reeks of negativity, hopelessness, loneliness, and finality.

But we are wrong. So wrong, in fact, that most of us spend at least 13 years, some 17, and still others spend many more years, practicing failure, believing that we are striving for excellence.

The word “education” is defined as “an enlightening experience”. When Henry Ford’s first two automobile companies failed due to glitches in his first designs, he learned what his vehicle was lacking and how to fix it. After being entirely written off in the car business, he created the Ford Motor Company, and we are all aware of his success. Yet his enlightening experience was his failure. Sir James Dyson, the man behind the best-selling vacuum in the United States, failed 5,126 times. But his 5,127th prototype worked. Why did his 5,127th prototype work? Because he had 5,126 enlightening experiences that led him to success.

Think back to your worst subject in school. Each time I received my graded AP Government tests, I counted my failures. If it was a 10 point quiz, I often failed three or four times. It was then that I was enlightened to the correct answers--which are now permanently ingrained in my brain. Think back even further. When I was being taught how to count, or how to write my name, or how to tell time, I failed. But because I failed, I received an enlightening experience. I received an education.

In school, we are set up for success through failure. We are taught the correct information and the correct way to solve a certain problem. Yet, we do not receive 100% on every assignment, because we do not follow the directions correctly each time. If our teachers only taught us what we already knew, they would be setting us up for success, because we would obviously receive 100% on the assignment. Then, after completing the class, we would inevitably fail, because we would know nothing more than we knew before. Instead, our teachers set us up for success through giving us new information and expecting us to fail. It is in our failures that they are able to correct us, giving us an enlightening experience.

In college, one studies and works towards completing a degree that aims to prepare the student as much as possible for their career. Think about nursing school, for example. A student in nursing school fails on a test because the test presents a situation the student has never faced. Because the student makes a mistake--aka, fails-- they he ie she learns the correct response, as opposed to failing in real life, on the job--endangering the life of an innocent patient.

Simply put, the purpose of an education is to fail. Fail in a safe environment. Fail over, and over, and over, and over again. Each failure is an enlightening experience. In each failure, you are receiving an education.