<p>Picture this:
A young, innocent toddler, who doesn’t know any better, walks into the kitchen, sees the hot stove counter-top, walks over, and then burns his hand. This is the first time this has ever happened to the said toddler.</p>
<p>My question:
Would this be considered a
failure … for burning his hand
OR
-accident … for the toddler not purposely intending to injure himself
OR BOTH?</p>
<p>I’m just wondering because I used this example as a support for the following prompt:
“What are your thoughts on the idea that failure is necessary for education to take place?”
But my dad, who proof-read my essay, thought my example of the toddler was incorrectly used under this prompt.
He stated that the toddler committed an accident, so therefore my example was incorrectly used.
I believe otherwise.</p>
<p>What are your thoughts?
(please support your answers, thanks in advance for everything)</p>
<p>Yes, that was an accident, imho. A failure would have some cognition of aiming for a goal. It would seem to me. But, I guess you could argue that a toddler had a goal of taking something from the stove…</p>
<p>I agree with your dad. This is an accident.
Usually, I would associate failure with when someone tries to do something but does not actually succeed. So for example, you might fail to land a spot on the school musical or you might fail to score a goal in a soccer game.</p>
<p>But an accident is an unintentional occurrence. In your example, it could be that the toddler did not know the stove was hot or it could even be simply a case of curiosity. So I do not think the toddler necessarily failed, more like he just injured himself.</p>